Dev Diary #1 - "The First Course" Arc - 0.7.0

Hey everyone,

First dev diary. Good to be back on the typical rhythm.

What I'm up to:

Took some time to decompress a bit and start planning. Not diving into production just yet.

With Act 1 completed there's a few things I need to go over so this week has me going through feedback, thinking about Act 2's structure, getting organised for 0.7.0.

Working on a small patch for the "Can't Wait" tier with minor fixes and improvements based on your feedback. Appreciate it all!

Development process:

One process change I am exploring is shifting to scene-by-scene completion instead of doing all CGs first, then all scripts, then assembling at the end.

Both approaches have trade-offs. I'm not the biggest fan of context switching but in situations where scope changes - I can hopefully release what's done instead of being in a situation where I have a bunch of half-finished scenes.

It still requires a solid outline and strong structure regardless as the initial phase.

What's coming:

Without spoiling specifics... Act 1 has done its job. I'm quite excited about the next update. It's about time to open that sauce bottle, just keep in mind it's still a slow-burn at heart.

I'm also building out an affection system that tracks relationship dynamics across the group. Some earlier choices will be retrofitted to feed into this but Act 2 introduces more choices around character relationships. Some choices I will keep with reasonable defaults.

On Terrace, Ari, Viv, Kai, Enzo, and a few faces you haven't met yet... there's a lot of interesting directions these characters can go and Act 2 opens that up a lot.

Remember the core theme of the game is exploration.

On rewards:

Polls is something I'm exploring for this act. This would be for things like outfits and other minor choices.

More details on this when it's further along.

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As a reminder, there's already some Act 2 material done from earlier development. Still figuring out how it fits into the update structure so no specifics yet.

But if you haven't checked previous dev diaries, some include early Act 2 CG previews worth a look!

Cheers,

Tori