I've been thinking - update 1 (Patreon)

Updates  can be found at the bottom of this post

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I hope you've read the earlier art update which I posted last Friday or this one will make subzero sense. 

First and foremost, thanks. Giving us your blessings in the comments in the last art update helped a lot. I know it must've been a disappointment to hear we'd take a break at such a horribly timed moment, but when something is necessary it's necessary. 

I wasn't too worried about the reactions, but the coder was and hearing it's okay from you guys makes all the difference. So while he's hopefully doing fun and only fun stuff or simply resting, I was thinking and mulling things over during the weekend. 

As I said before, I considered doing a mini-game or some pics inspired by this month's theme, Halloween. But then I was looking at the date and thinking can't I do something more in the time we have? Something people can look forward to and perhaps help me to become better at gauging when it's time to slow down and make sure the coder doesn't get to a point where things overwhelm him..?

Yes, I think there is... but it's a bit ambitious. I'm perfectly fine energy-wise. It's the coder who always has to bare the responsibility of giving all of us a working and entertaining build. He's been doing that for a long time and I really don't know what it's like to have that kind of mental pressure. 

I've taken this weekend to think about the whole thing, do some preliminary work and I feel like I could do something better than just a mini-game or some Halloween inspired pics. As I said before I don't really want to keep working on scenes for future builds and get too far ahead of the coder, but if not that...then what?

And so, with that wordy introduction, I'm going to try my hand at  a standalone "lost chapter" for book 4. It'll involve characters from the past and present mixed up with a heavy helping of Halloween. Time-wise it'd be set somewhere during the slave route of book 4.

It's going to be highly experimental, but I'd like to create something and do a "normal" thing where I'd upload the result to the bughunters first and afterwards the early access folks etc. etc.

Without the coder's help, it's going to be short and possibly riddled with bugs. I know enough to help the coder and program some really simple stuff, but I lack the real hands on experience to create something bigger and this is going to give me a small taste of that. I'd like to move a mountain of work but it's more likely to be a molehill in the end. I might not have a whole lot of time or experience, to make this happen, but that's fine. In fact, I'm looking forward to the experience.

I'm planning to release whatever I'll end up with (broken or not)on the 27th to the bughunters. A couple of days later the early access crowd etc. etc.  So yeah, a slightly scary but also exciting miniproject which might open up a world of understanding on my part for what the coder has to go through and possible a short but hopefully fun extra for all the folks(you) who make this possible in the first place.

Now I might be able to drop some small updates on what will be going on, but I don't like to make a big deal out of it, so expect (if any) updates to be added to this post as additions.

 I'll change the title and add something like: update 1, update2 etc to indicate a change, but I won't bother everyone with entirely new posts or notifications  unless there's some really big news.

Expect a flaming pile of garbage, something nice or anything in between before the month is over! WOOHOOO We're going to do the thing Zhu li!!

Small warning: I might become rather unresponsive to pm's and the like during all of this madness since there's not a whole lot of time between now and the 27th. 

Wish me luck and sanity, because I'm clearly in need of both.

- end of original post -

- Update 1 - 

Dear diary... what in the seven layers of hell have I gotten myself into?!  

Just kidding! It's just the second day of me trying to do this thing and my motivation to make it happen is still as potent and raging as when I started.  It'd be quite horrendous if it wasn't!  However, something I didn't expect to happen this soon has already started happening.

Even during these mere couple of days where I started to do some broad strokes, groundwork and decide on what I can and want to do... I'm already starting to get a deeper appreciation for the coder's workload. It's not like I was oblivious to it. I always tried to be very aware of the differences in what both of our responsibilities entail, but the theory and practice of those two contain a world of difference. 

I'm already happy I decided to do this just for that broadening realization.  And I can also already feel the pull of wanting to put in new stuff we haven't before... what tricky temptress is making me want to add new systems and experiment in the short time I have?!?! Madness.

 I've come up with the general overarching theme/story for this standalone chapter and some new art. It'll be interesting to see if I'm going to be able and add everything I have planned.

ps.  I was lying in bed last night, ready to go to sleep,  when all of a sudden I realized a really silly mistake I made with Jinora.. I had drawn a tattoo on her head, but nowhere else... Such a small but annoying thing... I simply couldn't let it be and have fixed it now. As well as some mouth lineart.

That's all for this micro update!