Astra - Monthly Update (June 2022) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons,

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far. :^)

Just here to share the June monthly update with you guys, so let's get started!!

WRITING

The writing team is in a much better spot now! It is no mystery that PixelFade has a distinct humor and branching choice stylization so to find someone who can match that has been a bit on an adventure. Ruel, who joined us last month, has really stepped up to the late and has been doing some great work so far! Additionally, Katie has also gotten back into the swing of things and we've made some strong progression.

As you can see, most of the work right now is for me to take a look at the content. I've been a bit busy with getting Astral Ascension 'wishlist ready' however I'll be diving into the scenes as my next priority. Based on the current projections, I am 99% positive we should have a read-only version if not the full episode 4 non-voiced by July's update.

On another note, I will be making a post explaining why the writing has stretched on so long and especially for episode 4 specifically. The way we are handing routes (romance, jealousy, platonic) is different than previous games so that update will look at how we handled that in previous games and why Astral Ascension has taken so much longer. There is also a silver lining in all this which I'll also share on that post so stay tuned. ;^)

CHARACTER ART

The Sunimu man wrapped up the Iris confession CG and it came out quite perfect (mainly because Iris is perfect #NoBias). He'll be continuing to work on the next batch of CGs going into July!

BACKGROUND ART

Our three BG artists have been firing on all cylinders! The upcoming Polaris Hospital BGs are well underway (I WONDER WHO THOSE ARE FOR), and we've started on Kai's home planet BGs which will have a very cyberpunk / gritty / underground feel to it.

ANIMATION

No update on animation, we tackled all the Live2D bugs that were reported and everything else seems to be great so far!

PROGRAMMING

Our scene designer has been hard at work with all the different bug reports (overlapping characters, persistent music, some slight lag).

The Unity developer on the other hand has been incorporating the extras menu for the game which will have gallery, music room and all that fun stuff.

I imagine near the mid-July point, once episode 4 is fully written, the scene designer will be hard at work on implementing that.

AUDIO

The Eric has composed a 'blossoming relationship' or 'starting feelings' sort of track which has been attached to this post! It has that hopeful spark of love which is definitely quite the relevant track for events going on in episode 4 and 5. ;^)

That's all the news for this month! As always, feel free to post your thoughts and feedback below. Thank you for your continued support! <3

Cheers,