07/03 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Hi Everyone!

Sorry for the slightly late update here. 

With our Kickstarter ending yesterday, it ended up being quite a busy day for me.

I hope you're all well! 

Anyway, let's jump into this week's update! There's a lot to talk about!

Writing:

I finished up with Chapter Ten and have moved on to Chapter Eleven.

I finished the potato draft of Eleven, and started working on the edit. This is a really heavily character driven chapter. It does set up some plot things that will come back in subsequent chapters, and has a major event at the end, which will kick off the route climax.

It's a fun chapter to write because it involves a lot of talk about how to improve the infrastructure in Delphine, and I get to throw a lot of fun science-y things out there! 

I think it's nice to show that Morgan, in spite of having to move on from her original life plans, is finding her footing and something else she is passionate about.

And, of course, there's a sweet romance moment between her and Caissa. There are only three chapters remaining, and with Chapter Fourteen as the wrap up/ending chapter, that means I'm really close to having Caissa's route complete. 

I really wanted to have it done by the end of February but with the Kickstarter happening, I just wasn't able to focus enough to get it done.

I'm hoping the next chapters go quickly and I can get Cai's route wrapped up in the next couple of weeks. 

After this, I'm going to go back and make some changes to the Common route. This is mostly to facilitate the inclusion of the three additional routes that were added during the Kickstarter. But I'm going to talk about that in detail below.

Art:

This week in art, I started working on the sprite for Kauri Leere, one of the KS love interests. Even though the KS wasn't over yet, I was fairly confident his backer wasn't going to revoke her pledge, so I decided it wouldn't hurt to start getting his design under way.

I also expect Kauri to show up during Yuu's route. And I was also fairly certain we weren't going to lose access to Yuu's stretch goal.

Anyway, here are some sneak peeks of Kauri's WIPs (he's obviously unfinished. )

Again, I will talk more about who he is below.

I really hadn't given much thought to New Terra or the fashion there but I'm really looking forward to explaining it. I did want them to feel a little more "FUTURE-Y" than everyone else. And I really like this black/grey/charcoal/cyan combo he has. I think it's a colour combination I'll be coming back to for other characters.

I'm also looking forward to doing a sprite for Roan - another citizen of New Terra. He was actually one of the LI options our backer had the option to choose, but she went for Kauri instead.

I have a feeling Roan is going to be popular though. Mwa ha ha. 

Designing him will be fun.

Upcoming Weeks:

So there is going to be a lot of stuff going on in up coming weeks. A lot of it will be related to KS rewards (sending out wallpapers and the like).

But on the development front, there's always a flurry of activity right after the funds come through because this means we can start commissioning people. Fortunately I've already been working with some of our artists and getting things together for them. So we can just order the backgrounds and run with it - they already have their descriptions and such. We're just waiting for payments to process.

That will save us a lot of effort now, since it's already done.

But there are a lot of other things I'm going to have to organise, which is why I want to try to finish up with the bulk of Caissa's route as soon as possible. That way I can focus on other things when the KS payment hits.

-I have a general idea of what Reuben, Kauri, and Yuu's routes will entail. But I really need to write slightly more detailed summaries of them. This will really help me identify any backgrounds that I'm going to need for their routes.

Obviously, I want to re-use as many BGs as I can. But with the logistics of how this world works, that isn't always possible.

Kauri is the son of the president of New Terra. His route will take place entirely on the station, which means new BGs for that location. I expect Yuu's route to at least partially take place on the station. The routes have only semi-connected storylines, but I'm really hoping I can stick to the same locations and not have to get a ton of new BGS - maybe just 3-4. 

I hope! 

- I need to work on an update to the demo. With Reuben now having a route of his own, I want to make some edits to his meeting with Morgan that opens up that possibility a little more. I also want to create an introductory CG for him like the others have.

His edits will include the introduction of a new backer character named Wynter, who is Reuben's flirty, smooth-talking partner. His back story is going to tie into some other routes (but not Reuben's route, oddly enough.)

I'm looking forward to inserting him and getting a better feel for his character.

The rest of the backer characters won't show up until the routes themselves. I already know a bit about some of them but others are still a mystery!

Anyway, as far as additional demo/common route changes, Morgan's CG still needs to be corrected as well.

And I also need to have a look at Chapter Four and decide how I want to integrate the opening into Reuben's route. 

Yuu and Kauri's openings will probably come in at the Endgame interlude, when the other Endgame related routes happen. As of right now, the player has to join Endgame in order to meet Kauri.

I think it makes the most sense as a way for Morgan to get up to the station - which rarely lets outsiders in.

But since there's a route up there now, I want to establish New Terra a little better in the lore, which probably means having a couple of mentions of it earlier on so I can lay the groundwork for what's to come.

Anyway, basically, there's a lot of stuff to do. And once I get done with Caissa's route, I want to go back and start getting some of this stuff set up. That way I can confidently continue working on the routes.

The next one is going to be Caleb.

And now that I know that these three additional routes will be involved, it means I can insert world building related to them in all the other routes as well! 

I feel like, looking at this post, I seriously need a to-do list. LoL

That way I can keep all this straight. The next couple of months will be intense and then it will probably slow way down again. But that's how the process goes! 

I'm really looking forward to being able to give you guys sneak peeks to all the things! 

Next week I'm going to be doing a post that involves talking about the plots of the three additional routes, as well as the current ones! So look forward to that.

In the mean time....bathroom! These two images, to be honest, will probably function as every bathroom that is seen in the game, no matter where it is. LoL.

Not that Morgan spends a ton of time in the bathroom, but there are a few shower sequences since does do a lot of training. And gets all sweaty!

That's all for this week! We will see you next time!