Development Log: September 1st (Patreon)

Build: PreAlpha Stage 2

Happy September everyone!

It’s almost fall and it’s getting closer to my favorite holiday and closer to this game’s demo being released!

We’ve been making good progress in the past couple weeks of August and we’d like to share that with all of you guys! So far, I have done a majority of the programming for the base game features, the Dialog System is almost fully complete, and will likely continue to be updated as time goes on. I’ve gotten the choice functions for dialog to work properly and it works great so far! I’ve also gone and started working on the Main Menu Screen for the pause menu, and all of the sub menus have been added. Some of them will not be functional on the launch of the demo, since they will likely not be applicable since we’re still concepting the Minigame system that we were planning on adding to the game. So the Inventory submenu will likely be disabled until that system is made, later on after the demo launch.

Also Q has been doing a wonderful job at designing new assets and all of the amazing textures they have been designing. They will be in the screenshot below! Progress for that is going as intended and we should have plenty of assets made where we can just work on creating content for the game. Once the majority of assets are created, the game will be trying to push out big content updates so that you guys have plenty of things to do in between updates. Creating quality assets will definitely take the longest time, but we want to push a high quality product first and then push as much content afterwards, this is after all, a big project.

Currently, we have a bit more to go before the first demo release, which I will get a Trello board to show the road map for the progress and future content, and so that you guys can follow along easier with the development, rather than me listing it out each update. I can’t give an exact date, but we’re trying to get the first part out within a few months. I did mention it being closer than expected, but we made some internal decisions and we want to continue with it being more of a vertical slice, rather than pushing it out immediately. We just would like to have many of the systems done such as animated live 2d models, the CGs, the 3D maps, 3D sprites and animated CGs to be in the first part of the demo.

The plan is to push a large content patch as “episodes” which will be major content updates which I plan on making them pretty sizable, almost like how Nekopara does its games in small iterations. Except these updates will be a part of the same game, and will likely be quite long and full of content. During each major patch, we’ll be continuing the smaller updates so that there's still some content as development continues, so don’t worry that there'll be no content between major patches, we will still be adding things throughout each patch and making hotfixes and adjustments to the game.

Currently we’re working on the Prologue, part 1, which will be the development of the 1st demo, which we will be advertising once we have something tangible, functional, and hopefully polished enough to get additional feedback. Once the demo is out, we will be working on additional content and features, getting feedback from people and working towards finishing the Prologue completely. Which then, will be the demo we would like to fully release on other platforms, and then continue working on Episode 1, 2, 3, etc.

Hopefully that made some sense to you guys, and we look forward to seeing your thoughts on the project so stay tuned and have a wonderful week!

- Miz

Trello Link here! This will also be on the front page on Patreon and Discord!

https://trello.com/b/Ue0rG76T/mischief-manor-roadmap 

Changelog and Updates:

Engine Memory Leak Issue Resolved

- Dialog System Completion (90%)

• Cut In Variations, Small, Wide, CG and Animated CGs implemented 
• Choice Functionality

Introduction CGs

• Sistine Intro CG Sketch
• Luna Intro CG Sketch
• Pandora Intro CG Sketch

Main Menu

• Main Menu UI Design (80%)
• Saving and Loading Data (50% complete)
  • Encrypting Binary Data
  • Basic Save and Load Functionality
  • Menu Functionality
  • Extra and Credits for Supporters and Information Completed
  • File System for Saving, Screenshots and Settings on User
  • Settings Menu Functional
    • Text Speed, Autoplay Speed, Volume Control
    • Saving to File System
• BGM and Audio Bus Set up

3D Assets

• 15+ Textures Created
• 20+ 3D Models Created
• Concept Art Generated

Screenshots: