DevLog – 37

Ahoy Buccaneers!

Today I want to talk about several things happening behind the scenes that often go more unnoticed.

But first, for those who didn’t read the v0.45 Changelog, I want to mention that I’m still updating older events and adding new ones, mainly focused on the captain’s cabin. From your comments, I know many of you want the story to keep moving forward and for a new arc to begin, but for now there’s still a lot of current content to expand and some older events to improve. Luckily there’s less and less left to update, and almost everything is already up to date.

If everything goes according to plan, v0.46 for Patreons and v0.45 for the public will be released at the end of the month, or by May 1st at the latest.

That covers the main news about the upcoming release. If you came for dates and updates, now you’re informed. And for those who want to keep reading, from here I’d like to share a bit more about what’s been happening behind the scenes.

First, I want you to keep in mind that all of this happens in parallel while I develop each version. I try to maintain a balance between continuing to release updates roughly every 15 days and, at the same time, improving my workflow. That means learning new ways of doing things. For example, for v0.46 I started using a new tool to animate events that is showing very promising results, although it’s still too early to tell how much it will improve the game.

A lot of times I invest quite a bit of time into installations, setup, and learning, and those improvements may not always be obvious right away. But other times the change is huge, like when I upgraded my computer and that allowed me to animate events at a much higher quality.

And speaking of my computer, that’s another topic very present lately. Technology moves fast and my PC is starting to fall behind, so I also have to research which components can give me the best performance to keep working. On top of that, I constantly make backups of the entire game to avoid any loss. All of this takes time, because I can’t risk important development files. Any change has to be made very carefully, because one mistake could affect thousands of players.

To give you an idea, I usually dedicate one week with more focus on experimenting, testing tools, and looking for improvements, while the other is fully dedicated to content development and applying what I’ve learned. To keep up that pace, I often continue developing or studying on weekends as well to meet release dates.

I know this kind of work can feel less visible than a new event or a new story arc, but many of the improvements that eventually show up in the game are born precisely in those moments of exploration. That’s why I’m convinced that continuing to improve my skills while the game improves too is the right path.

Sometimes spending time on new tools or learning something can seem like a pause, but in reality it’s what later allows me to move forward better and faster. And that is exactly the idea behind this approach.

I could keep telling you about other things I’m planning, but I’ve already written quite a lot and I need to get back to development, because as I said, there are only a few days left before release.

With all that said, I want you to know how happy and grateful I am for all your support. I hope I can keep bringing you the best content possible, and you can be sure I always do everything within my reach to make that happen.

Thank you very much as always for your support! 🏴☠️

Kampai!