Development Update #21 - Chapter 3

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New Sunday, new devlog... and hmmm, somehow I never know how to start these 😂

Well... last devlog I said I was going to code like a psychopath this week... which is exactly what I've been doing. I've been coding like crazy 🫩

Coding Chapter 3 has been more difficult than Chapter 2, mainly because it's a much longer chapter. It's also a very important chapter for the story because, like I've mentioned before, Season 1 is basically a setup season. It's where you get to know the characters, slowly grow attached to them, start understanding the world, etc.

Chapter 3 is also an introductory chapter where you get to meet some very important characters, but it's also the chapter that really opens the door to the rest of the story and to a lot of cool things I've got planned for future chapters. I want to make sure I do this chapter justice.

Right now I'd say the coding is around 40% complete. I'll be coding today as well.

My goal is to be here next Sunday telling you that coding is finished... but I don't know 🤥 I don't really see that happening. 😅 I think I'll be very close but probably not quite there yet. We'll see. Either way, it'll be another week of coding like a psychopath.

Oh! I also forgot to mention something in the last devlog.

As you know, every render in Chapter 3 was made in 4K. Of course, that increases the game's size a lot. I also know that many people play AVNs on laptops, phones, or smaller monitors, where 4K doesn't really provide much of a noticeable benefit... if any at all.

Because of that, once I'm done with the coding phase, I'm going to downscale all the renders from 4K to 1080p and release two separate versions of the game: a 4K version and a 1080p version, so everyone can choose whichever fits them best.

The difference in file size is huge. A 4K render that's already optimized as lossless WebP is usually around 6 MB, while the same render downscaled to 1080p is only about 1 MB. The best part is that they still look great. You're not gonna notice a difference unless you're playing on a larger monitor.

For reference, I developed Chapter 3 on a 27-inch monitor, and that's really the only reason I could consistently notice the difference between the native 4K renders and the downscaled 1080p ones.

(I won't have to code everything again. It'll simply be a copy of the project with the 1080p images replacing the 4K ones, so maintaining both versions won't really add any extra work)

Hope you all have a great week.

—pixelend 🧟