13/10/2024 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Time for this week's update.

Summary

• Finished Sprite Staging

  • Including adding Raif and Yren's eye colours

• Started on CGs

  • Finished one of Kav's CGs

  • Started on one of Daaz's CGs

• Started on sprite expressions

  • Coded Wil's expressions for the Ch 3 common route

Art 

This week in art, I started working on the CGs for the next update. Specifically I worked on a Kav CG and a Daaz CG.

Kav actually has some extra CGs in this episode. Everyone else has 2 CGs by the start of chapter 3 and Kav has none. This means that in Episode 2 (Chapter 3 and 4) I will be giving him two extra CGs so that he can 'catch up' to everyone else in terms of CG amount.

Kav, of course, is 'unique' in the sense that the player doesn't meet him properly until quite a bit after everyone else so there are things about his story path and route that are consistently different from the others.

This isn't because Kav is special or anything. It's just that I didn't fully conceptualise him until later on and it was easier to add him in Chapter 3 than to try to cram him into earlier chapters (including things like the meeting scene) where he undoubtedly wouldn't have had as much screen time.

Anyway. I already had Kav's intro CG done and managed to complete one more of his CGs this week. So now he has 2/4 CGs done. 

I also started working on a Daaz CG for Chapter 3. It's probably about ¾ of the way do. Daaz is mostly complete - I just have to finish up his eyes. The background needs to be rendered though. A lot of times I use game BGs and have them blurred behind the characters but it kind of depends on the CG and whether or not this works. And in this Daaz CG it does not. The BG has to be fully painted in so it's just going to take another few hours of work

Coding and Other Stuff

Finished the sprite staging for Chapters 3 and 4. There were some intense group scenes in these chapters - particularly Chapter 3 where "DRAMATIC THINGS" occur.

Those are always a little more time consuming since you have a lot of characters popping in and out and have to keep track of who is on screen and where they are so no one is jumping around oddly.

Kav also has started appearing in the story so I finally get to code him.

By chapter 4, everyone else is potentially getting a little closer with Wil and at least establishing a good rapport/friendship but Kav is still wary of them. So finding ways to show that distance that's still there between them is interesting.

Meanwhile, I also coded in Raif and Yren's eye colours - which seems minor but still requires that I always keep track of what their mood would be and which one might be on screen. Ha ha

And finally, I have started coding in Wil's sprite expressions. As I've mentioned, I usually try to get Wil out of the way first since the MC always has the most expressions (usually, about 50% of all expression calls are for Wil.)

Upcoming Week

In the upcoming week, I will continue to work on sprite expressions. I've set up a strategy for myself that helps me work on the expressions in short chunks that are more amenable than trying to wade through it all at once. And I've been breaking up working on expressions by doing CG art and other things in between those chunks as well.

(This also helps keep me from drawing for too long of periods at a time, which is bad for my hand.)

Normally I try to focus on one thing at a time but if I stay really purposeful about how I switch back and forth I can manage multiple things at once.

Episode 2 (Ch3, Ch4) is technically the shortest Episode for the game. But since Episode 1 also technically had only about 50k of new content, Episode 3 is still bigger in terms of new content.

Even so, it's still technically the shortest episode.

Later episodes will cross the 100k threshold. 

I was looking at my calendar and realising that I have between 10 - 13 weeks before I want to be releasing the Episode 2 beta. Which seems like such a small amount of time .

I am going to be working my butt off to ensure I can release it as quickly as possible though.

So that is my plan for the next couple of months. "Work butt off."

I will see you all next week. Maybe with some CG sneak peeks at some point too!