dev diary: treat 8, part 1 (Patreon)

i was saying i'd take it easy this month, but whenever i take too much time off i just end up feeling sad or lost instead... so i've been working on treat since i was feeling really motivated to make some chapter 8 progress!!!

my current plan is to try and finish the first chunk of the game by 5/23 (trick’s birthday!) and then share the WIP build with patrons. it'd be like 1/3 of the story, assuming i can finish everything i have planned, which is admittedly a lot...

shortlist of things i want to include for this build:

• greimori (finished, preview shared last week)
• flashback to after the ending of chapter 4 (tiles/layout finished, currently scripting events)
• krem (tiles/layout mostly finished, events not started)
• major setpiece area (not started at all, keeping it vague for now!)
• bonus places to visit from the insterail in krem (beach gif above is part of that!)
• the first bad ending (halfway scripted)

once i finish the scripting for krem, i'll do the setpiece area, but it's gonna be a lot of work so i might cut off the build at the end of krem instead... WE'LL SEE!!

spoilers ahead (?)

when i pick what to share, i usually try to show stuff from early in the story, or things that don't need very much context to understand what's going on. but i wanted to talk a little more indepth and share some new character sprites, so if you'd rather go into the test build blind, close the tab now!

...

OK! so, the more indepth progress report:

i was so excited to finish the first section and get to share it as a vid last week ;_; it made it really feel like the game is real instead of being completely stalled like it was before...

now that i'm back in the swing of things, drawing the tiles doesn't wear me out as much as it did when i first started working on this chapter! and the rest of it is pretty easy once tiles are out of the way--writing events and npc dialogue is fun, drawing the faces always goes really quickly, and there won't be a ton of story illustrations this chapter (none planned so far!) so i won't get as tired as i was at the end of chapter 7 lol... it's really just the tiles that were kicking my ass until now.

the current burst of progress started by just testing through the whole game again, since i needed to check that the new skip feature didn't break anything--good news! it didn't! i actually found some unrelated bugs though--the sidequests in chapter 2 and 4 used the same flag, so if you summoned kamilla you couldn't refill mango's lantern. oops! and i noticed moxie didn't keep the anywhere pass if you gave it back to her in chapter 4 (not that she can use it...) so i fixed that as well.

i posted about this on cohost, but while i was working on sprites i noticed mochi's walk forward animation was drawn wrong... her arms and legs swung on the same sides instead of opposite...... ever since dreaming treat................... well, it's fixed now so she'll walk right in the next update!!!

here are some of the new sprites i finished recently:

i shared the concept art of the girl on the left before, but she has a name now! it's basmati. her lackeys are sesame and saffron! i haven't started writing their scenes yet, but they're important while you're in krem :)

next is timber and his pack of wolves! i don't know how much i should say about the bad end stuff, but i'm really excited about it... another wolf pack, wow....! i added the insterail in krem so that you can go back to the netherworld right away and get the bad end instructions lilium promised. i wasn't sure where to put the train, so i'm glad i fit it here--i purposely made the bad end requirements really obscure/specific so that no one could stumble into them. so i'm really excited that i could put the first one in AND you can get the instructions for it to actually go and see it. (i still have to finish making it though...)

last is some cameos! lime from syrup 2 (since he lives in krem i had to put him in!!) and WITCH MAIA!!!! i quietly put her into a cg in starry flowers before (the one with himbo witch) but now you can find her at the beach in chapter 8, talking about how she used to dream about visiting happy little underwater kingdoms... i'm treating it like a kind of sad AU, similar to thyme and spice's presence in this game (and syrup 2). i'm very particular about which games are literally canon to the treat/syrup universe, so i'm really glad i found a way to do a drowning, drowning callback without mixing fish people lore lol. maybe i'm overthinking it. but i love witch maia... please be nice to her, she has depression.

that's all i'll say about chapter 8 so far... i've been writing all the silly side content (again, the beach gif above was something i added just earlier today haha), so i'm excited to buckle down and script more of the main plot next :)

finishing such a big game is scary

i wanted to add this at the end here since these are feelings i already processed and am pretty much on the other side of, though the concept is still looming, and will continue to loom until i finish the game...

but i had been feeling quite a bit of pressure to finish treat, specifically the (self imposed) pressure to release it on steam, which i started to feel really terrified of. because if it makes a big splash (like BAD END THEATER did) certain people might show up to crash the party, or maybe try to deliberately misinterpret the story in order to hurt me. my stories being misinterpreted is a recurring fear of mine that i've dealt with for many years, but treat especially has all kinds of topics in it that makes it feel particularly risky.

i was scared enough that i started thinking about only selling it on itch.io, where fans could get it without me having to worry about a massive general audience like on steam. but itch.io is harder to buy things through for people outside the US, so i started thinking "what if i just release it for free!!!! what if i never make a commercial version and just finish the game and move on!!!!!!!!!!"

but like... chapter 8 isn't done yet. the next update will be free either way. so really all my worrying was just making it so i was too anxious to work on the game, because i was too concerned over something i had no control over (audience reaction) even though i know a lot of people will just be happy and enjoy the finished game when it's out.

lately i've just said "fuck it, i'm having fun making this for myself" and stopped thinking about how anyone else will feel about it. knowing that i don't HAVE to release it on steam if i truly do not want to is enough to quiet my brain for now. and... steam is so much more accessible to buy games on for people outside the US, i'm sure i'll end up putting it on steam to serve those fans either way.

ANYWAY... if treat comes out and nothing bad happens, i think that would be ideal. i hope i'm just being needlessly paranoid haha. it took me a while to realize this was what was getting in the way of actually finishing the game, so i'm glad i've been able to stop worrying about it and make progress again.

I'M SO EXCITED TO SHARE THE BUILD!!! i'll keep working hard next month to get it out in time for trick's birthday :)

thanks for reading ;o;