14/08/2021 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Time for this week's updates! =D

This Week's Summary:

• Finished sprites in Caleb's route....FINALLY OMG.
• Finished the mock-up of Caleb's flowchart
• Started coding sprites in Magnus' route - coded sprites through chapter three and into chapter four
• Imported four new sprites to the game.
• Made some corrections/Fixes to Ari's route.

The Ramble:

Finally. FINALLY done with sprites in Caleb's route. Omg. His route had so many complicated group scenes and weird moments that were tricky to choreograph with sprites. But I'm FINALLY done.

Good grief. He is SUCH a problem child.

I had to stop a couple of times to make a few new outfits for people along the way. I knew I was missing a few and just kind of did them as I got to those parts. There were also some additional sprites that needed to be imported - Bob_4, Bob_5, and a character named Donovan. You never learn Donovan's name in Caleb's route. He makes a brief cameo. But he'll be a slightly more important character in Caissa's route.

I also imported Brenin's sprite since he appears in Caleb's final chapters. Though, again, he has a smaller role in this route than he does in, say, Jack's route.

With Caleb's sprites done, I just need to set up his flowcharts and his route will be ready for beta testing.

I started coding in sprites for Magnus' route. I think this route will be a bit easier than Caleb's. Smaller scenes for the most part, not quite as much action and odd sprite choreography. But there are a few additional sprites the route needs. I imported one of those characters today - Lethe. Like a lot of sprites I made months ago (or even last year), I ended up making some adjustments to her design before importing her expressions. But she's in the game now as well.

Lethe's an interesting character because her original role in the story was actually the role Van has (somewhat) and Van had a much smaller role. But Lethe has shifted into a more mysterious and slightly antagonistic character, while Van has taken on the mentor sort of role Lethe had.

Magnus' route is also the only one outside his own where Lance appears. I'll need to import his sprite later on too (he doesn't appear until it's toward the end so I'll import him then). There are a few "Bobs" that are needed but I haven't decided if it's just two of them or three of them. So I'll wait until we get to those places and see how few I can get away with putting in.

Magnus' route has been fun to code so far rather than tedious like Caleb's. Magnus is very expressive as a character but the types of expressions I use change a lot based on who he's interacting with. He has a huge range of smiling expressions because he smiles a lot but with varying amounts of sincerity. And it's been fun to play around with all his smirks and smiles to try to subtly show those shifts in how he's interacting with people.

Yuu also has a bigger role in Magnus' route. Not a massive role, but we do see him more.

Unlike the other routes where Morgan gets out of the infirmary and begins to recover quickly, she has a more protracted recovery from her initial psi fatigue in Magnus' route. Because her recovery takes longer Yuu is a little more involved in early chapters. This longer recovery also sets her at odds with the Endgame council in ways that the other routes don't deal with, which in turn sets up the major conflict in Magnus' route.

So yeah. Working on sprites still LoL

I've made some corrections and fixes to Ari's route based on beta testing feedback - just small grammatical errors and bad edits for the most part. But there have been a few sprite errors and flowchart errors too. We'll keep fixing those! OwO

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

Caleb can be cute once you get to the soft nougat-y centre.

And then from Maggie's early chapters - the context here is that Morgan has to temporarily send messages to her family through Magnus. Which means he may become aware of the contents. And he's jokingly warning her that it means when she tells her mother how handsome he is, he'll see it. 

Magnus makes a habit of trying to provoke and annoy everyone around him but the moments when he's teasing people in a more honest fashion (as in - he's hoping for banter, not just to piss someone off) are really cute. In my opinion. As the one who wrote those scenes. LoL

Upcoming Week:

Flowcharts (Caleb's now) and Magnus' sprite expressions.

I think I may end up doing Lance's route after Magnus if only because Lance's route is about 80% just Lance and Morgan. So I assume that means it will go a bit faster. And it would be nice to just tick it off the list and only have two left.

I have to code his sprite in for Magnus' route anyway. So might as well. I don't think any other characters show up in his route until chapter 7 or something. So...I should be able to get through that pretty fast...

I'll probably try to get Caleb's flowcharts set up too so that I can push his route for testing.  I'll keep you updated on that one! 

And that's all for now. See you next time!