Dev Update #44 (Patreon)

What a week! I survived an ice storm, and did not lose power. So that was a good start. It's still a bit cold here, but we did have some melting for a few days. Thank goodness for a chiropractic appointment midweek because shoveling has shown how out of shape I am.

The dog is still adjusting, and she now has the run of downstairs with the cats kept upstairs. That arrangement is going smoothly, though the cats are less than thrilled sometimes. Every so often I have a nose shoved under my arm with a demand for rubs.

Story tweaks are still happening somehow. But it is nice that I'm not having massive changes. Just tweaks as I go and some re-arranging of scenes. So far, I've resisted the temptation to nuke Caudium and end the game that way. Render progress is slower than I'd like, but lighting has at least been easier. For whatever reason, (schedule, day job, lingering burnout), I'm not able to just power through quickly. I've been doing extra breaks to ensure I don't make anything worse here.

The poll closes tonight to choose the final LI, but the winner is clearly decided there, short of massive voter fraud being discovered. I've received your notes of disappointment that more MILFs aren't in TBaK as love interests, and I hear you. The issue I've got is that a ton of love interests massively lengthens the story, even if I do it so that not every LI gets screen time per release. It appears that the younger ladies are the most popular (#ExceptVal). However, this doesn't mean there won't be some random sexual encounters that could happen with older women you've met and have yet to meet. Balancing the sexual encounters is definitely one of the bigger challenges now. Especially since there are a large portion of players who really just want their preferred lady.

The other fun challenge is that some character arcs are just much more interesting to me personally, and therefore easier to write and keep me motivated. I'm here to make the game I want, but I also do want to balance that with feedback and player preferences. With so many characters, I am going to need to start taking more of a TV show episode approach - some chapters will focus much more on some characters than others.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and enjoy the preview above! Poor Valentina always seems to have some challenge. Just wait until she meets some people close to the MC in this next chapter.