Law School Episode 4 - Progress update #18

I wish I could be Connor right now.

Anyway, last week was pretty damn good. I wrapped up the stills as planned, even after sneaking in an extra three animations somewhere along the way. I was going to start on the transition animations next, but I realized they are not sparking much interest for me at the moment, so I decided to move ahead to post work instead.

The Facegram posts and transition animations would probably take around four to five days of work, and since my render rigs are already full for a few weeks, there is not much point in working on them right now.

So yesterday I dove into coding. I wanted to rebuild the episode from scratch, and that is exactly what I did. The main menu is already looking great, with more additions planned as I continue. Its animation is currently rendering, and I am really happy with how it looks so far. It should be finished sometime tomorrow, so I will have to wait until then to see it in motion.

This week will mostly be focused on coding the game and starting post work on the images. Today’s first task is coding the path selection option. If you played Season 1, your saves will carry over, and the import feature is already implemented. If you have not played it, you will be able to pick a path and start with a default save by answering a few questions. This is necessary for Steam, so I figured I might as well implement it now. Season 1 is already a big game, and this will help some of you avoid the frustration of losing your saves like I did a few months ago.

Here are the numbers so far:

Static renders: 3,064
Animations: 70
Story content: 44 scenes written (37,206 words)

These numbers will change slightly because some renders will not make the final cut, and because I haven't coded the messages system as well. It's a new feature, but if before you had the Facegram events, now you will have random times where you have a conversation with someone. Those are part of the story as well, they just translate to better realisam since the characters have phones and they communicate with them.

Still, this gives you a good idea of the scope for the fourth episode. It is bigger than I expected when I started development four months ago, but it is what it is.

No time to rest now. We are in the final stretch. I already went to bed extremely late last night working on the game, and I know the next two to three weeks will be more of the same. That's how it is with post work. But I am loving it, and I cannot wait to deliver this episode.

I am heading back to work now, and in the meantime, I wish you all a great week.

MisterPostWork