Law School Episode 3 - Progress update #22

Hello everyone,

This is a pretty big update, so buckle up!

Last week, as I mentioned in my previous post, I was focused on inserting all the images into the script files. I’ve successfully completed that task, along with finishing the remaining renders for DAY 9. As of now, all the images and available animations have been added to the game’s script — a major milestone!

Next up was the phone interface and Facegram. I previously said I was adding new apps to the phone, and I’m happy to say I’ve added five new apps:

• Character App – Gives you information about the characters you've met, including their name, age, height, weight, and a short description.

• Diary App – Tracks major events and the choices you’ve made throughout the story.

• Personality App – Lets you monitor your personality path, your score, and which love interests are on that path (plus your relationship score with them).

• Fun Facts – A collection of Olive’s fun facts. Try to unlock them all!

• Glossary – As I said before, the phone is a tool. This glossary will help during exams and other moments where knowing a few definitions in advance can give you an edge. :)

I'm also in the middle of coding the music overlay, which will allow you to see the currently playing song, pause it, or skip to the next track.

Overall, I’m really happy with how the phone looks now. Since I made it accessible at any time, I had to change the way Facegram is coded so that it doesn’t break the game when accessed from anywhere. Took a few hours, but I made it work!

Surprisingly, I managed to complete all those apps and bring them up to date with Episode 3 In less than a week. Turns out I’m a little better at coding than I thought — everything came together just the way I envisioned.

So not only have the renders been added to the game, but the phone apps are fully functional too. I’m way ahead of schedule.

What’s next?

First, I’ll tackle Facegram for Episode 3 — new profiles, new posts, new comments, and message events. I estimate I’ll need to create between 40 to 60 images for this part.

That should keep me busy for the rest of the week. While the image creation might only take a day, integrating them, coding the Facegram entries, editing in Photoshop, etc., will take a bit longer. I might be able to finish before the end of the week, but realistically, probably not.

Regardless, the first round of testing will begin on Monday the 26th. Or at least, the first version will be uploaded then. The sooner testing starts, the better. I want to give Wibble the time they need without rushing. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on the remaining Facegram content (if it’s not finished by then), update the scene gallery and custom gallery, and take care of various polish tasks.

Last week, I mentioned I had around 30 animations to render. I’m also still waiting on about 12 animations from the animator. If I don’t receive those before the other 30 are fully rendered, no worries — we’ll keep moving forward.

As a reminder, a few weeks/months ago I mentioned I completely reworked Episode 1. It’s now rendered up to DAY 5 out of 8. That means I still have about 600 renders and 15–20 animations left to do. That should keep me busy for another 2 to 3 weeks, give or take.

If all goes according to plan, in about a 3 to 4 weeks TOPS, all Season 1 content will be fully rendered.

Because I’ll be busy preparing for Steam Next Fest, which starts in 3 weeks, I’ve decided not to release Episode 3 until the Episode 1 re-renders are done. Most likely, next week or the one after I'll be working on the updated demo for the Steam fest, the new look of the Steam page, and a bunch of other stuff. It's going to keep me busy. If I'm lucky, I might be able to get that done after all the active work for episode 3 is done and I'll just have to wait for images to render out.

So realistically, the new episode should be released in 4–5 weeks, depending on how fast I navigate through those last tasks and how quickly everything renders.

I know it sounds like I’m choosing to delay it, but it’s really out of my hands — I’m still waiting on that final lewd scene from the animator. And since I’ve reworked parts of Episode 1, it just makes sense to release everything at once. Nothing I’ve changed is save-breaking, so your saves will still work just fine.

I seriously can’t wait to get this episode out and to return to 3D work. Coding has been slowly killing me.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I used to post two one-offs a week. I’ll get back to that as soon as I can create more renders for them.

So yeah — a whole bunch of good news! We’re about three weeks ahead of schedule for Episode 3, I'm thinking it will go live end of June, when I originally planned for late July, which is honestly surprising even to me. I’ve been working super efficiently lately — let’s hope it stays that way.

Back to work I go, but in the meantime, I wish you all a fantastic week.

– MisterMaya