22/02/2024

Hellooo everyone! Time for this week's update...Sorry I forgot last week. Spouse was getting back from Japan with a cold last weekend so I was completely distracted.

Summary

• Finished sprite expressions (FINALLY)

• Received new BGs

• Acquired, edited, and coded SFX

• Made some edits to various parts of the writing

• Started the flowchart

  • About half done with it

• Started CGs

  • Just sketching for now

Writing

So one of the things that makes expressions take a while is that you have to go through the writing line by line to read the writing and that means you inevitably see issues that you want to fix.

So there's nearly always some minor editing while coding sprite expressions.

I feel like I did more editing than usual this time but Chapter 5 is very complex so it's not really shocking.

I'm always doing editing during expressions but I feel like I did a notable amount of edits this week.

So that is technically writing. LoL

Art 

I have done some drawing this week. Huzzah!

Namely I started sketching CGs! It's really the main thing left in terms of amount of work so I got started on them last night.

This is another set of CGs that will show the MC so they'll take a little longer than usual. But hopefully not too long.

I've also been working on getting a trailer done for this game (technically I was trying to get two trailers but one of the people ghosted me). I received that one today but there's a little fix that has to get completed but it's more or less done so I'm excited to post that.

Coding and Other Stuff

FINALLY finished up the sprite expressions. There ended up being over 4000 different sprite expression changes across the entire route.

I have also been working on some QoL updates for various features in the game. These changes are based on watching someone outside my Discord server do a stream of the game. Watching them interact with various parts of the interface was very informative regarding how people are potentially engaging with various screen functions.

I don't know if the new stuff will all go live at all, much less for the new episode but I'm at least working on getting it done.

Finally I worked on the flowchart. I have the entire flowchart itself set up and now I just have to go in and add the unlock statements so it unlocks as you play.

Upcoming Week

For the next week I will be mostly finishing up the flowchart and CGs. And maybe a little on some of the QoL fixes.

There's not much else to say about that. I am rounding the final bend before prepping for the beta release.

Another thing that has to happen before that is me updating the guide. Unfortunately that's going to be a little time consuming because I'm going to have to explain how to dodge character routes. You can see how complicated the flowchart is. A lot of those branches are not directly resulting from a choice - they are branches due to score and other things.

So that will be another thing I need to do for testing purposes but for now I'll be focusing on the actual game features.

For now I'm expecting the beta to go out maybe...mid-March. A few weeks. I don't have to have all the CGs done by then but I think it's useful to have at least some of them set up so. Yeah. We're nearly to that point.

That is all for this week and I will see you next time.