Progress Report (Patreon)

First! It's the last day for the Focus Poll. If you haven't voted yet, please consider doing so! The result of the poll will have a major effect on development of Left Hand Magic going forward. 

With that final reminder out of the way (seriously, please vote if you haven't, I opened it up to All Patrons to get as much feedback as possible for good reason), it's past time for a Progress Report. In point of fact, I'd actually intended to due this yesterday but got sidetracked by various issues.

Left Hand Magic

Things have been going a bit more slowly than I'd have liked, but progress has been steady, at least. As you can see see from the attached images, I've been working on Trix's Week 4 content. I have 2/4 of her days done, and should be able to finish up the the 3rd later tonight. With the scene from Arianna's route I did, that only gives me 4 scenes so far, which is why I said it's been going more slowly than I'd have liked. Even so, all but one of those scenes is animated, with 5 total animations so far.  So it's also a bit more content than the number suggests. Regardless, I'm expecting to be able to fully finish Trix's Week 4 content by roughly the 18th or 19th. After that, what I work on will depend on the results of the Focus Poll. 

Currently, it looks like the more complicated approach is being favored...which will unfortunately mean that ONLY Trix's route will get Week 4 content this build. I did, very very explicitly warn in the focus poll that if the more complex option wins, it's going to slow down development of the story for at least a couple of builds. If the reality of that isn't palatable...then go vote ;-). 

If the 'Fix the Early Game Content' option win the Focus Poll, than I'll likely be inserting 3-4 additional scenes earlier on the in the game. I've figured out at least two of them (one for Arianna and one for Talia) and more or less where to place them. I still need to brainstorm additional possibilities for Trix and Revina. The scenes are planned to be the shorter, single-animation type, with the goal being to get as many of them as I have time for into this build. The next build would feature a second set of them. Hopefully, adding those scenes, with possibility a couple of extra choices here and there, will be enough to rebalance the Dom/Sub system a bit. 

Of course, if the other option wins (the voting isn't THAT far apart, so it's a possible outcome), I'll just be removing that system instead. In which case I would switch to focusing on the next girl in line's week 4 content. Since I'm currently going off their previous popularity poll, that would be Talia. I'd likely get 3/4 of her Week 4 scenes in, in that case. Possibly all four, but I can't state that for sure. 

Short Story

I've got a little under 2,000 words of the Alyia's Magic Shop entry written. I'm going to put in a tiny bit more time on it before crashing (I'm taking a break to write up this progress report). So, hopefully, it will be about 50% done by the time I crash. I doubt it will take more than another 2-4 days, depending on how much time I can manage to put into it, before I can upload it.

Mixed Media Short

I've got 6 of 16 planned renders done. A tiny bit behind where I usually am this time of the month, but only by maybe a day. Since it's not planned to have a particularly large number of renders (that may change, I'm only working from a general outline, and often decide to add one or two more as I go), it shouldn't be a problem. Even if I add a couple of additional renders, that should be the case. The slow down was caused by the initial two renders of the set taking essentially a full day each.

Wallpapers

I haven't had time to fiddle with the new post-processing method I wanted to try. Which, at this point, means I'll likely to just post-process them using my normal method today or tomorrow and post them. I can always try in another month when things are a bit less busy. I lost a good chunk of last weekend to doing my taxes, for example >_<. Which, let me tell you, is an aggregating and expensive exercise as someone who runs a small business. Small businesses of any and every kind basically get royally screwed at every level of the tax process, even having to pay extra for the tax software. Ugh. Random mini-rant about the screwed up way US taxes work aside, Wallpapers should be up in a day or two. Don't expect anything super new or amazing from them, as I didn't get the chance to experiment the way I wanted to -_-. Not that they are bad, by any means. I'd just hoped to give them a cool upgrade and it didn't happen this time.