Public Development Update + Teasers

Hey everyone! Wanted to drop a quick dev update to catch you all up on where things are at, without spoiling any of the story.

Like I mentioned in BTS #4, I ran into some real-life stuff recently that slowed things down. Luckily, I got most of that cleared out of the way, so we are back on track and making steady progress again.

Chapter 2 Status

Work on Chapter 2 has been moving along continuously, and the biggest news is that the script is officially 100% written and just needs to be polished! Now it is just a matter of grinding out the rest of the renders and animations.

I can't give an exact render count or release percentage just yet because as we put scenes together, we keep finding spots where adding an extra render or two makes a huge difference in how the scene flows. I'd rather take the time to throw those extra shots in than leave scenes feeling empty.

Chapter 1 Revisions

We know Chapter 1 had its fair share of problems, and we're fixing them for the next update. This is our first visual novel, so we're definitely learning as we go, and all the feedback you guys gave us has been super helpful. You can look forward to no more flashbang white screens, recurring errors, and cleaner dialogue.

We're also re-doing a few of the older still renders from Chapter 1. Looking back at them, we just felt those scenes deserved a lot more. If you saw the revised Pamela render we posted for the itch bundle, that gives you a good idea of what we're going for. Here’s the comparison between the old and new one:

Also, remember those side characters we introduced back in Chapter 1? I'm pretty sure most of you barely noticed them or forgot they existed, and that's totally fine. We're in the middle of updating some of their models, especially the ones who will be sticking around as recurring characters. Here’s a preview of one of the character redesigns:

User Interface Redesign

The old UI felt pretty generic, so we decided to completely redesign it to match the actual theme of the game. I don't want to show too much yet because I want it to be a nice surprise when you launch the update, but it looks way better.

New Workflow Stuff

On the tech side, I've been switching my setup over from Daz 4.24 to Daz 6. The render speeds are surprisingly way faster, which is awesome, but the viewport lighting is definitely annoying to work around right now. I'm getting used to it, just hoping a few of my favorite DS4 plugins get updated for DS6 soon.

Anyway, I'm gonna get right back to work on these scenes. Thanks as always to everyone sticking around and supporting the project, it really means a lot!

0xGhost