Game Update #48 (Patreon)

Happy Friday, everyone! It's mid-month status update time.

First, today's cover image is one of my fav CGs from the upcoming dev build, and it only exists because of the newly added Evan morning path that I hadn't originally planned. Which itself only exists because of how many of you expressed how much you love Evan. So thank you for the inspiration 😉

Let's look at where I am as of today.

Writing

This new scenes meant additional writing, which in turn extended the timeframe for development—but it was well worth it. The sequence is cute and sweet while also being totally hot. I'm excited for you all to see it.

All that remains now is what I talked about in my super lengthy Behind the Scenes post earlier this month—layering on the alternate dialogue/monologue that occurs based on all the choices you previously made.

It's a little bit of an involved process that often requires me to replay sections of the game over and over to make sure I didn't forget anything. For this particular Evan scene, for instance, I made sure to address anything that could happen at the party prior that Connor would logically think about. You can, say, spend the night flirting with Marco but then abandon him to go with Evan. The same is true of Dominic and Riley, plus alternates for if you propositioned them... or any of the other guys in the earlier in the day. That'll be on your mind!

A lot of writing work to be sure, but I knew what I signed up for. There was a recent comment on Itch.io that talked about how much they liked the reactivity even for small choices, and that's a big part of what I want to do with the game. Each additional scene extends this reactivity, and as a result development time is increased, but I hope you guys find it worth it.

Coding

Something else I've been doing is organizing the choice flags within the code to make planning each of these alternate scenes easier. I talked about how I'm doing this in prior Game Update posts, but basically I  have an interlude between what you already played and the new stuff where the game adds, adjusts, or removes a bunch of variables to set up the rest of the story.

This happens pretty much instantly, so you won't notice it while playing. But it does mean I have to evaluate every choice you've made and assign a variable, including adding variables that should have been there to begin with but were missed.

One reason for doing this is an effort to keep your saves from breaking by minimizing changes in code to what was already played. I'm still going to recommend starting over and fast-forwarding to where you left off, but if you just want to load a save, hopefully you'll be able to continue without getting an error screen.

We'll see if it works. But for me, consolidating all the choices and relationship points into a few specific flags is a big help and quickens the process of both coding and writing. You essentially get assigned a friendship status, romance status, and lust status, then the dialogue can be catered to that without having to reference a dozen separate flags each time.

I'll note that just because you, say, decide to be platonic with someone early on, it doesn't mean you'll be locked into that for the rest of the game. This is purely for reactivity, at least at this point of the story. You get the opportunity in this update to define your feelings towards a character that overwrites whatever was assigned, and that'll continue on as you play.

Fixing all my amateur coding mistakes now that I'm slightly less of an amateur also extends development time, but as has become a recurring theme for this post, I think it's worth it!

Art

Lastly, I've completed basically all of the art for the update, from backgrounds to sprites to CGs. I have a few minor characters whose sprites are kind of in a placeholder state, but the main boys all have their full range of emotions.

My original plan for the CG count in this upcoming dev build was 18 but that has increased to 22. I try to make the in-game CGs as polished as I can, so a lot of time is invested in each one. But—you guessed it—it's worth it when it inspires CGs like the cover image for this post 🤤

The total CG count for the full Morning After Update is currently planned to be 90 images, but I'm considering re-adding an additional 15 - 20 that I originally cut. I'll probably decide I want more as I write, too. It's a long wait between each update, so I want to really deliver on the hot scenes for when you finally get to play.

Here's one of the new sprites where Uriel the possible vampire continues to be wildly extra. This is what he sleeps in, which can't be comfortable at all, but it made me laugh, so it's what he'll have to suffer with in the name of his art!

Looking Ahead

We've established that the extra work I gave myself extended development time a little bit, so there will only be one dev build this month. (For the unaware, a "dev build" is an early, in-progress build for Seniors & Graduates to play that includes a finished or mostly finished chunk of game.)

As noted in prior game status updates, this dev build will follow up on the endings where you stay at Matt's apartment or the frat party, and it also adds an alternate way to reach both those locations. I'm not entirely sure when the build will be totally ready to share, but within the next week or so seems likely.

One last thing—here's an adjusted section of code that might be of interest to a few of you...

That's what I've got today! Next status update will be at the start of February when I'll talk about the next stretch of development—but before then, you can look forward to the monthly Patreon galleries 🙂