Progress Report + Poll Results (Patreon)

*Edit* made some changes to the total numbers. Forgot I'd modified a few things to bring the total target H-scene count for the game to around 100 scenes (most of them animated). Doesn't really affect this month's issue.

Ugh. I swear this month might be cursed or something. I lost almost another two days at the end of last week do to illness...brought on by getting my covid vaccine booster >_<. I spent 2 days with a 102(F) fever and body aches all over. I managed to start a few renders running during those days, but that was about all, I slept through those days pretty solidly. Which sucks, since I'm now even more behind than I was for most of the rewards. But, I'll go over those individually. There's also the Short Story Poll Results to cover, so...let's get right into it.

Short Story Poll

Wow, so removing a few of the less popular stories really did show a fairly significant shifting of how things went. Oh, and by the by, I didn't influence the winner at all this time, since I didn't vote for either of the stories that took top results. Here are those results!

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Winner: Mass Effect: Final Error - 55 Votes

2nd Place: Andrea of the Silver Key - 45 Votes

3rd Place: Galactic Nomad - 35 Votes

4th Place: The Starship Promise - 20 Votes

5th Place: The Long Haul - 15 Votes

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Well, there you have it. I'm a touch surprised that ME:FE won for a second month in a row...but that's really rather fine since I actually had plans for a bit more of it than made it in to last month's. It should be a relatively easy one to write, which is all to the good given how this month has gone so far T-T.

------------Progress Reports!------------

Left Hand Magic: 

Starting with the most important...I'm deeply unhappy with the amount I've gotten done on Left Hand Magic so far. Which isn't to say I've gotten nowhere. The Prologue content should be done by the end of the night, including the one animation that it contains (most of the Prologue is still renders, though there are a decent number of them). The problem is that I intended to be this far along...about 5 days ago. One delay after another has gut-punched my efforts so far. As is, I've had to revise my expectations for how much content I'll be able to release this month. And that requires me to explain a bit. Left Hand Magic is structured like this. 

Intro | Prologue | Route Choice Content | Story Event 1 | Route Choice Content | Story Event 2 | Route Choice Content | Story Event 3

And so on. Just for your enlightenment, there are currently planned to be Six total Story Events, though that number may change. That's simply what my original mapping of the entire game produced as a number. That number isn't really important at the moment, though. What's currently important is actually the Route Choice Content. What is that? Well...between each Story Event, there will be a certain number of days where you can choose what to do. Essentially, with a few exceptions, they will consist of 'Go see X Person,' where X Person is any of the girls.  You will, in fact, be able to go see the same girl up to three times between each event. For reference, there are intended to be five days (though that needs balance testing) between each event. 

Those visits are where Routes develop. You obviously can't visit every girl every time on a single playthrough. The game is planned to work in such a way that you won't be able to do more than two routes at once, max. In the case of two specific combinations, this will result in a Threesome Route. Other combinations would simply end in needing to choose between whichever two girls you strung along, as they don't get along enough for a threesome ending. The Harem ending, of course, is planned as a New Game+ option for after you've finished the game with all the other routes.

Now, the reason I'm explaining all of this is because the goal for this month was to finish both the Prologue AND the first set of Route Choice Content. That would have been a very decent chunk of content. 6 Routes x 3 Events each + 4 Prologue Events. Now, that's not all sex scene events. This is a visual novel and we're in the early game. But H-content of some greater or lesser extent was planned to be included in 1 event for each route. So, 6 H-scenes, plus the H-content in the Prologue. There's a little H-content in each of the prologue areas (You visit each girl in turn during the prologue), and one full H-scene. So, in total, there should have been 7 Full H-scenes, and by 'full' I mean they have an animation like the masturbation animation included in the intro demo. That's not a huge amount compared to, say, a Haven's Port release....but it's a fairly significant amount for the early game of a Visual Novel. The farther you progress in the novel, the more H-content there will be during the 'route choice' sections. Meaning that later releases will likely have a larger number of H-scenes per release.

Sadly, all of that WAS the plan. Right now, I've had to recalculate. Between all the various delays (such as being sick from the covid shot) and the expected time during the Holidays that I won't be able to do much, something like a third of the month is just...gone. Which means I can't realistically get as much done. Right now, after taking a good hard look at my remaining time, I'm expecting to get the following done:

Prologue Content (done already) + 4 non-sex route events + 4 H-scene events. 

That will leave us with a still somewhat decent release. Five scenes with animations, plus some non-animated H-content in the prologue. But I'm very unhappy with it for two major reasons:

1) The H-scenes events are supposed to be the LAST ones possible for each girl in the route choice section. This is a Visual Novel, which actual plot and character development, and the three other events are all supposed to be building up your relationship with each girl before they are ready to do H-stuff with you at all. I'm extremely annoyed to be releasing things 'out of order' as it were. But I don't know how all of you would feel about there being even less H-content in the release. I could just focus on two girls and get all of their content done, but it would mean less total H-scenes. I might run a poll about this...

2) No matter what, it will leave at least two routes untouched. Specifically, the two threesome route options >_<.

And....there you have it...super long-winded....sorry...

Short Stories

Poll only recently ended for the main short of the month, so I don't have anything done on it yet. However, I've got a short Holidays Special almost done. 

Comic

This is the one bright spot at the moment, as I'm already almost 50% done with the redners. They've slowed down a bit though. Still, it's at least on time and possibly actually ahead of schedule.

Wallpapers

Done save for post-processing and text. Just need to find an hour of free time at some point to do those bits and package them. Will try to do son in the next couple of days.