Development Update 69

69... nice...

It's a good number to end on, don't you think? I might have pulled some strings to get us there. By which I mean I refused to write a dev update for a month, so this one could be the last.

For those who can read between the lines it won't come as a surprise. For everyone else, this means that A Foreign World is finished and almost ready to be released.

Release date: 17th of July 2026

Episode 11 is a little bigger than the previous updates. Not gigantic, but a little bigger. 412 renders, 44 animations, lots of words. It's the first time in I break with the "one update = one day" rule. I guess it's about time...

Recently I read a webnovel where at the end of a chapter, the author explained something meta about the story. It wasn't intended to, but for me it felt like spoilers. I hated it. So now more than ever, no spoilers in this post. The update will speak for itself.

Earlier today I added a French translation to the game. It's made by AI. A bit of an experiment. I'm curious what kind of feedback I get for it. Because, and this might surprise you, I don't speak French.

I was thinking about leaving the UI in English, but then again, no risk no fun.

Next up I'll try to create a Russian translation, again using AI. You'd think that would be easy, but this sort of thing still takes a few days even though it's a lot faster than translating by hand.

If you have any wishes, feel free to suggest a language that I should incorporate. I'll probably add 2-3 more.

Also, I decided to add another feature. This past year I've been creating Speical Renders for my Patreons. It would be a waste not to show them to the player. So that's what I did. When the story of A Foreign World is over, you can look at all the renders I created. They are not canon, but they are still fun and interesting.

For that I had to set up a proper interface. That kind of task is laughably easy for a programmer, and it's fucking hard for those who even though they've been working with renpy for years haven't bothered to learn anything past the basics... I let an AI do the work.

Don't look at me like that. I'm not going to learn python right at the end of creating this game. If at all, I should have done it in the beginning. But honestly, it would have been a waste.

No, I'm thankful that there is a framework like renpy that allowes people to create visual novels without much issue.

Actually I thought I was done and I was about to end this post, but there is one more thing. Speaking of renpy, I heard there is an issue with the side images that display who is speaking. I added them for those who want them. But some people told me that there is an issue where Esther's image keeps popping up even though she is not speaking. I never managed to replicate this issue, but I did try fixing it in this update. Maybe I got lucky and the issue is resolved. I guess I'll hear about it eventually if the issue is still in the game.

Anyway, there isn't much more to say. A Foreign World will be released next month on the 17th of July. I'll try to make some noise myself, but it would be awesome if you could help get the word out.

You'll hear from me eventually. So as always... Keep your eyes open :D