22/07/18: Sorry for not keeping you guys up to date! (Patreon)

Man, days just fly by at the moment! Between the heat and the house work, and of course the work on the game, I've really neglected to keep everyone up to date!

So, updates: the dog animtion is about 3-4 frames' work left before completion, then with a little editing it'll be ready to implement! The move set for the new lizard chef enemy is going well, as you can see here:

The last of those is what I'm working on currently; it'll be a projectile attack, and continuing the tradition of enemies pulling stuff out of nowhere it'll have several different iterations and items to lob Amber's way, with considerably more force and intent than the dog!

However Amber will be able to knock them out of the sky with some well placed attacks or block them with her new block ability! Well, I say new xD

Speaking of mechanics, I've been getting my coding head back in shape as well in this time and am fixing little bugs to build myself up for implementing the dog's adult animation; it's nice, you know when you're building up anxiety for something you think you've lost the knack for because you left it for a bit? I'm dispelling that very quickly as I immerse myself back in and am feeling confidence for my abilities again!

Aside from that I've also been spending some time working on people's sketch commissions for the rewards; much as I know progress on the game is of paramount concern I really want to factor that into my schedule more, so I can start to show my thanks and not just string people along with this stuff; much like the coding though the fear I had that I'd lost my way with art stuff has dispelled also, and I've been having a lot of fun getting back into my old love. 

I suppose I should add in a bit about how things have been going in my life, seeing as the main blockage for progress is as a result of IRL stuff and all; if you don't want to have a read though skip to the next bit where I'll talk about something cheerier! I'll keep it short anyway; Things have been... odd, since dad died. Not in a way that I think is an abberation of how people would usually feel in this situation, but all the same it has  really had a big impact on both me and mum. I don't think I ever really detailed it on here but we live out in the countryside, pretty much in the middle of nowhere; it takes about 20 minutes by car to get to the nearest supermarket, but that's just the way it is out here. So me, my mum and my dad, we were quite an isolated unit in a lot of ways. I had friends and social stuff around school and all that, don't get me wrong, but back here was my haven from the whole world really; nestled in green nowhere, as one of my favourites would say. 

So when dad got ill I was fortunate enough to be able to say to mum and dad, why don't I stay at home and take care of him; I wanted to help him get better, you know? He was so unlucky with health troubles; here was a guy that when I was a kid, be built an entire conservatory on the back of our semi detatched house because he thought it'd be good for the summer; he bought a 1972 MG because he used to tear around them as a young man, serviced it back to full working order himself; jump cut to 4 years later and his back is in constant agony, his disintegrating spine trapped a nerve in his hip so his leg was also in pain, he got diagnosed with prostate cancer and heart disease in the same year, so many different medications, and to top that all off he suffered from depression too; like a chemical disposition, much the same as me, but his circumstances and constant pain and sickness really helped that out, as you can imagine. 

So we get the news that hey, we can put him on the list for a triple bypass with the best hospital in the country for it coz of the severity, and they said afterward all the exhaustion and fits of this weird chest clamping thing he'd get would disappear almost immediately, he'd be a new man; he was 66, he could get back to doing some work around the house and teaching me to do all the construction work he'd learned over the years, then go and retire with mum and live out the plans they'd made for that time in their lives. 

I suppose you know the rest of the story, in late May he was watching telly with mum, having a great time watching the F1 where the guy he was cheering for won, said he felt a bit ill and... that was it, on the floor, mum calling me in and getting the people on the phone, them telling us to keep doing CPR on him until the ambulance arrived, which ended up being about half an hour coz as I mentioned, we live in the middle of nowhere. So half hour of constant CPR between us later and they turn up, and 45 minutes after that they called it. 

 Sorry, if all that is too much information, I think I had to type it out somewhere and I hope it gives some context to the situation as it stands a couple of months down the line; mum is... It's hit her harder than me certainly, I can't imagine the difference between losing a father and losing a husband of 30 years; so now I'm taking care of her, keeping her company, making her cups of tea, helping her with the gardening etc. And when we're working or chatting it almost seems fine, again.

Anyway, I digress, enough about my personal crap; I typically assume people wouldn't want to be bothered with hearing what I have to say coz, well,who am I really but a little developer going through something the majority of people will probably experience at some point eh? But if you'll forgive me the indulgence I really just wanted to have that out somewhere, to...I don't know, maybe get it off my chest a bit? 

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Back to the game; I'm gearing up to make a 1.6 release in which the dog's adult animation will be there, the lizard girl will be there minus adult animations (but still a fully functioning enemy) and I will try and work out as many bugs and tune up as many things as I can without dragging the release date out too far. I'm also going to try for a CG for the dog's game over as well, so look forward to all that ^^

And thank you once again for your patience guys, I can't believe the per month amount has actually increased in this time, it's truly one of the bigger things keeping me going right now, focusing on getting back on track with work and keeping myself distracted by animating my ass off and coding like an early 90s slayer fan!

I love you all, and this community and this support and everything utterly means the world to me; it meant the world to dad too, he told me as much, so thank you for that too :)

-S