20/10/2024 (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Time for this week's update.

Summary

• Worked on Sprite Expressions

  • Got Wil's expressions done for Ch3 - the LI scenarios.

• Started on Wil's expressions for Ch4

• Finished up the Daaz CG 

• Started on a Raif CG

• Got a new set of BGs

Writing

Worked on fleshing out and fully outlining the side story for this episode. I want to get it really clearly planned out so I can write it all in one sitting if I can.

I haven't really been writing these per se (they've been set up for a while) but I do have some more lore posts that will be going out. They've been sitting around for a while.

(and if anyone has any other lore info, character charts, or memes or whatever you want me to make, let me know. That stuff is always fun to work on).

Art 

My art this week was focused on fishing up the Daaz CG. Due to his pose, I had to paint the BG from scratch (where possible I use the official BG art as a backdrop for the CGs and only paint in whatever elements I need. But for this CG I really had to draw it all.)

It's also a nearly full-body pose so it took a while to create.

That one is finished and now I'm working on a Raif CG.

I was really torn on what exact moment to illustrate for Raif. To be honest, in early moments, it can be tricky because often the characters aren't really doing that much. They're eating, they're walking, they're talking.

Those can be interesting illustrations but often...aren't.

However, I realised at some point that I'd selected two fairly similar moments for Raif in the same location. So I decided to have a second look at his scenes to pick something else.

I have a slightly different moment for him and I'm liking how the CG is turning out so far. Raif is fully rendered, but there are a couple of BG elements I'll need to paint. 

But it's done except those two elements. Finishing that one will put the CGs at a little more than ¼ of the way done. 

Side note, but I'm also working on some new character art to post here. >=3

I have the Ari one I need to do but I also found an old sketch of Daaz I never finished so I've been working on that one. I think you'll all like it. (～￣▽￣)～

Coding and Other Stuff

Wil's expressions are now fully coded for Chapter 3. As I've mentioned before, the MC accounts for about 50% of the total sprite expressions. That's why I often focus on them first. It means getting a huge chunk of the expression coding out of the way.

I've started on Wil's expressions for chapter four as well. 

I'm trying to pace myself this time around and avoid some of the annoying headaches I usually give myself while doing expressions LoL.

I finally got to have Wil appear in one of their other outfits. And I'm still battling with myself over not giving them a million outfits over the course of the game. Ha ha.

And I get to have some of the others show up in their alt outfits as well. (Some of them show up in these in the Ch1 bonus stories but now they use them in the main game too. I also think I need to do one more alt outfit for Yren....=w= LoL

But later.

Upcoming Week

In the upcoming week I'll be doing a few things.

• Continuing with expressions

• Continuing with CGs
  

I want to finish up Raif's CG and move on to one of the others. I may do one of the CGs with Wil in it now. Maybe Asher's. I'm looking forward to drawing that one.

I think I've mentioned it before but going forward, expressions, CGs and flowcharts will make up the bulk of what I work on between episodes since the writing and editing is complete already.

I will also be releasing Episode 1 to the public this week. Going forward, Early access will last a full month but for Episode 1, I got my dates mixed up and announced I'd be releasing it early because I was basing it on the beta release time and not the early access time. (Oops)

Additionally, my schedule is going to be really crowded for the next few days so I think I may release it it a touch early since I won't have time do it on the day I was initially going to.

I think it works out anyway. Episode 1 is, at once, a long episode and a short one. It's technically long but only Chapter 2 is made up of new content. So in that sense, it's also a bit short.

Even if it technically has about 5 hours of total content, only about 3 hours of that is for new content. So I'm not sure a full month of early access is needed at this point.

Next time is a different story.

The big thing about this episode is that the game looks and feels different with a ton of new features. So I think it's fine to have a slightly shorter early access phase this time around.

Starting next episode, everything is new.

Right now I'm in a state of working out just how long it's going to take me to set the content up between episodes. I am assuming 3 or 4 months but I'm not sure which.

If it's 3 months, then the beta episode 2 should go out in December. The main thing is that these are really big episodes.

Episode 2 (the one I'm currently working on) is the smallest in terms of overall content at about 70,000 words - not including any bonus scene content). They go up significantly from here with several future episodes being over 100,000 words.