Weekly report Number 4.

I got a little ahead of myself in this report because I have excellent news...

Everything is almost ready. All renderings have been finished. All sounds have been selected and incorporated into the game. All game code has been finished. All tests have been successfully completed... The only thing I'm missing is to give credit where credit is due (within the game) for the sound effects and music files. That will be finished first thing tomorrow morning and after that the game will be "packaged" for distribution... and we are 100% ready to begin the adventure.

I think it's only fair to talk about a few things at this important time...

Some subscription levels have access to poll voting. But be careful, I want to make it clear that the polls will not be carried out yet. Remember that this game is just starting and the polls are mainly to decide the future of some things within the game. The first polls of this type will not begin until the game is advanced until at least the third day. At this exact moment the game is a little more than halfway through day one. So keep that in mind. I don't want you to feel cheated if you subscribe to one of the levels solely for the polls and these are not done yet. I'm completely honest and I repeat: Pools regarding in-game decisions will not be carried out for the moment until we advance a little further into the game's story.

The truth is I didn't have much faith in easily finding the music to put on the Main Menu. The thing is, my choice was difficult and I knew it was. I needed something with a somewhat epic feel, but at the same time nothing overly pompous. And it also had to have a melancholic touch. And if that were not enough, it had to have a professional touch and be free (I don't have money)... An impossible thing.

An impossible that in an immense stroke of luck I easily found. The first thing that caught my attention was the name of the piece of music. It's called "End of our Existence" and it's completely Instrumental. The name caught my attention immediately because I couldn't think of anything more appropriate in relation to what the story of the game is (and will be). So I listened to the melody and after 30 seconds I knew that this was everything I was looking for. And the more time and music progressed, I fell in love. I incorporated it immediately into the game and to my even greater surprise, it almost fit perfectly within 2 turns of the menu image carousel. A few small adjustments to the image transition times and it fit perfectly, without much effort.

So if you have the time, open the game and do nothing. Just let the images and music flow until the end of the second round. If you take any action, it's possible that the images will reset and the end of the second round will no longer fit perfectly with the end of the song... You will not regret it. It's just over 8 minutes but that music on the menu is worth the time for me. I hope that more than one of you has "musical sensitivity" like me.

I have detected that some images from the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game need to be redone. Blame it on my inexperience. They were my first renders and some needed more time, more "image sweeps". For some time now I have started using glasses to see some things up close. But I don't use them all the time. For example, right now writing this I am not using them... The problem is that apparently I should have used them when rendering those images. Without the glasses they look perfect, but a couple of days ago I checked everything again with the glasses on and detected some flaws. Some images are more grainy than I would like. So that's pending work that needs to be done. Same with improving the main menu... The menu needs to be improved because it's almost as it comes by default, but for the moment I have to focus on the story.

Well, to finish I must add that the total number of images in this version 0.1a is 579. And the lines of code referring specifically to the game are 2319. The total game time is approximately an hour and a half divided into 2 paths. The normal route takes about an hour and 10 minutes to complete and the detour takes about 20 extra minutes.

The game is full of ambient sounds. Not so about music, and this is completely intentional... In this version, the entire game takes place outdoors, in natural environments. It has always seemed counterproductive to me to incorporate music where there shouldn't be any. None of the characters even carry a cell phone, so how the hell can there be music in the background? Later, music will be incorporated into the game, but that will only happen when the characters are inside "The Fortress" and perhaps also when the characters are in a competition.

As I already mentioned, there are ambient sounds in each and every scene. Additionally I have created an extra sound channel to be used by "Mother" and the Guards. Mother is an AI within the game with the mission of keeping participants informed. So being an AI, it seemed appropriate to bring her "to life" with a real AI voice... And the same for the Guards, who are Androids. They also have a real voice. And in relation to that, well NO. I'm not going to put more voices in the game because all the other characters are "human" and the lack of naturalness in the language would be very noticeable... The creation of the extra sound channel is for technical reasons. This way "Mother" or some Guard can speak without interrupting the ambient sounds, and it also serves to incorporate some sound effects without interruptions.

This is the last time I will be giving this weekly report to everyone. From the day of the next game launch, reports and almost everything else will only be available to subscribers.

Thank you so much for everything.