Update 22 (Patreon)

tl;dr Progress on the alpha - writing, images, voice and programming.

Today's image:

Kimiko stripped off. What do you think, is she angry? Or does she secretly love it? This picture is from night service, you'll be seeing it again in the alpha if you've got access to that; I'm quite happy with the scene this comes from.

Progress to the next alpha:

So... while I wanted to get an alpha out this week it didn't happen. The reason is that whenever I worked on the game I found that interconnected features needed to be added to what I had built. As I improved the night service system, I found that I then had to improve the lust/showering system. And I wanted to finish up all the night service responses, so that the night service system is mostly complete by the next time people are able to play it. The alpha is still coming soon, however, and it will have more improvements than I had initially intended for this version.

Programming:

Naturally, with progress advancing on the alpha a lot of that comes down to programming work. I've had to reformat/code a lot of the writing in my Google drive files to make it look right in ADRIFT, as well as inserting html tags for images and sounds, and normalising the sound volume as best I can (so some voice actors aren't way quieter than others). Aside from that, and inserting some new stuff into the game, I've also had to be testing functions and doing bug-fixes on what I've just implemented.

Writing:

While the writing is mostly done there are definitely gaps. You would have seen (if you played alpha version 0.2.0) that I hadn't finished all the night service responses, and had placeholders in there instead. In some cases placeholders in the alpha actually don't mean that bit hasn't been written, it just means it's not yet coded in, but those bits were unwritten and so Another Wannabe and I have both been working to get those finished up this week. Really, all that's left to finish is Fumi's last masturbation response, although that doesn't mean there's images for everything yet.

Image work:

A lot of my work time this week was spent on images, because the creation of the alpha has helped me identify spots that really need some illustration. For PAL I want to give it the feel of a game that is always giving you some kind of relevant visual experience. That may not ultimately happen, but you'll be getting a lot of pictures to occupy the right side of the screen in the day-to-day activity gameplay.

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the clothes washing pictures to look decent. In particular I went through eight different versions of the Kimiko washing pic, because that's the job she's probably most likely to get most of the time, and I couldn't seem to come up with a version of it that looked good enough. I think version 8 is probably good enough - I still feel like it's a shade less than perfect, but for now I'm going to leave it and see if I feel the need to go back to it.

Another thing that took a fair bit of work was a Fumi animation. You'll be able to see this one in the alpha if you train Fumi up to be an expert in stripping. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I did some other images too, but you'll find them in later versions of the game.

Voice acting:

As you may remember the VA is mostly done, but Iku is still incomplete and I haven't received any Masami yet. I received some new Iku lines for the first phase of the sex scene from Sacci Salt this week; Sacci's been busy and had trouble getting time alone to record; this happens sometimes, but I'm pretty sure I'll be getting the rest of the lines in due course, so I'm not concerned about that. There's plenty of time for her to finish before it becomes a problem - that's part of the reason I started the voice casting so early in the process. A lesson I've picked up from the previous projects is that whenever I need to depend on anyone else for progress, I should start that process as early as possible. So long as I know Sacci's still looking for time to work on the lines then that's good enough for me.

For Masami's lines, the actress asked for a deadline extension a while back and I granted it (of course), but I haven't heard from her since. I'm hoping she won't completely disappear, thus necessitating a recast, because recasting takes time and effort, and besides anything else I did actually like her for the part. We'll see, I still hope to hear back from her some time soon.

When I'll get a new PC:

A small note - I know some people have been interested about the progress of my "new computer" goal. I've already mentioned that I've been saving up and haven't made precise plans to buy it yet, but I can clarify that I've now more or less set the money aside for it as savings. I'll keep using my current machine for a bit longer in order to keep my 3D library intact, because you can get some major disruptions in your 3D archives when you transition to a new machine. I found this out when I basically lost all my old developer work on the images for PAF (after finishing the game, thankfully). I don't want to disrupt the progress of PAL, so I plan to wait at least until that game is finished, and I think that way I'll get more bang for my buck anyway.

Next week:

Hopefully I'll be talking about a new alpha! And maybe I'll also talk about how I want to make the game more reactive than the past ones, drawing from lessons learned in the making of Let Me In. I'll also get to that discussion of the combat system eventually. :) Any thoughts, suggestions or requests? Let me know in the comments below.