Law School Episode 5 - DevLog #17

Hello everyone,

Last week was good. Nothing too crazy, but I did manage to turn that LEWD scene into one of the craziest/weirdest ones I’ve made so far, which was really fun, especially since it wasn’t even supposed to happen in the first place.

That said, it also came at a cost. Between that LEWD scene, the previous one, and the cutscene, I feel like I’ve been animating a lot lately. Maybe a little too much in such a short amount of time, and it kind of drained me.

I finished that LEWD scene sometime around Thursday, and after a pretty horrific Friday, I realized my brain needed a bit of rest. I haven’t really worked this whole weekend. I did write a lot, but writing feels peaceful and calm compared to 3D work, so it was a nice change of pace. I think it helped me deal with an issue this Halloween event brought up.

I’ve been doing this for five years now, and every single dev cycle, without fail, there comes a point where I start feeling like a fraud working on his worst episode yet. Episode 5 is no different. These last few weeks, that feeling had been growing in me, and I knew I had to do something about it.

I’ve been working on this event for a month and a half now, and it shows. Even though the characters move from one place to another, it’s still the same people, the same general setting, the same outfits, and it started to feel a little redundant. To me at least. This event is already around a thousand renders big, has two LEWD scenes already, and I’m getting a little burnt out on it.

The worst part was the pacing of the story. The first day of Episode 5 moves pretty well in my opinion. The pacing is good, and the story and character development are solid by my standards. But this event started feeling more like a side episode than anything else, and I realized I needed to do something about it.

So I spent the weekend resting, but also writing a lot and planning this second freeroam much better. I want to use it to really focus on character development. It started feeling like Law School again, and now I’m much more eager to get back to it. Some characters have grown on me through this second freeroam, simply because their personalities got carved a little deeper into stone.

After this second and final freeroam, I’ll be back to regular VN mode for a little bit and then we'll reach the conclusion of the event. It’s a big one, since there are a lot of possibilities to account for, but after that, my life should get a little easier. And I honestly can’t wait to get started on the next day because of the content waiting there. It’s a solid mix of story progression and character development.

Anyway, lots of blabla, but I wanted to update you guys on the ins and outs of development.

So now, let’s talk numbers:

Static renders: 2,657
Animations: 114
Story content: 43 scenes written, 43,241 words

That’s an extra 102 renders and 14 animations. It’s pretty good for an animating week, especially since it was all done between Monday and Thursday. The real progress, though, is the writing. As it stands now, there are more words in this episode than in Episode 4, so yeah, it’s getting big.

I have a decent idea of how many renders are still needed for this event, and then we’ll be moving on to DAY 3, which is set to be smaller than DAY 1 and DAY 2, thankfully.

Despite all my grumbling, I do think this event is shaping up to be what a party between young students should feel like. Fun, alcohol, games, dancing, stupid decisions, all that good stuff. I think I’m nailing the fun spirit the students should have, while still keeping it grounded enough to feel realistic.

I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it’ll be an interesting change of pace between two heavier days in terms of story and character progression.

I'll be pushing out renders for the next ten days I think, trying to push past 3000 renders, and then I will get started on the third LEWD scene of this event which is probably going to be a good one.

So yeah, there you have it for this devlog.

I’m going to get back to work, and in the meantime, I wish you all a great week.

MisterBurntOut