Weekly preview - Reading time with Shizu and Mika (Patreon)

tl;dr - The Shizu ending is progressing, but not coming this month; I'm trying to avoid burn out with a more manageable schedule.

This week's images

The first of these is for a modest new scene I've been working on for the Shizu/Mika threesome path. It's one of the easier things to make progress on for me right now, and I have intended to make this threesome pairing, so it's good to get something done.

For the other pics, I've been trying out a new night life outfit for Shizu, to go with the other girls' more interesting night life dresses that I've shown before. This one's a little less revealing or flashy than the other ladies, but that's Shizu's style.

I also included a version of her without the dress, just because. ;)

Shizu ending update

Okay, on to the real progress updates. First, when it comes to the Shizu ending, I've mentioned before that I had to delay it because of a lack of certain voice lines, and also because I was struggling to finish it in time. I now have some of the lines I needed and I'm confident I will get the others sooner or later, so that's okay but I don't know if I'll get them in time for this month's release.

Managing schedules and stress, and avoiding burn out

I've been feeling quite stressed and under pressure about the upcoming releases for both PAT and Lord Goblin this month (and last month). That's for a variety of reasons - it's not that I can't get out releases for the games, but I think the releases I've been trying to get done are just too demanding right now and I need to adjust a little. This kind of situation can cause burn out and that's not good at all.

I actually tend to work best when I have the next release already covered and I'm free to get a bit more creative and develop free of strict deadlines and requirements. Technically these goals and deadlines that are looming over me are self-imposed, too, so I really need to revise what I'm doing.

That said, there are reasons I chose the goals I've been working on (for PAT it's the Shizu and Mika endings) - I know players want to see these things and they're important for allowing the game to progress and opening up avenues for progress elsewhere. For example, I can't introduce Rin until Mika's ending is done.

Therefore it's a balancing act. I'll be pushing forward with these endings for some release in the foreseeable future, but not on a hard schedule. I'm going to be trying to make progress toward just getting some breathing room on the release schedules again, and then we'll see where the endings fall in the line up after that.

The Shizu/Mika threesome scenes

I think I'll talk more about these next week if I feel by then that these will end up in the next release. Maybe! It's a relatively easy thing for me to work on and introduce as nothing really hinges on it and all the systems are already in place.

I don't know if all this talk about stress and burn out makes a lot of sense from your perspective, although I know patrons tend to be pretty tolerant in that regard. What do you think? Am I making the right decision by throwing out my existing plans? Let me know in the comments below!