August Dev Log

0.9 Development Update

0.9 is coming along nicely. At this point, everything is finished except the renders themselves.

As a rough estimate, this update will be about twice the size of 0.8, both in dialogue and total rendered content. I didn't deliberately aim for a certain size. That's simply where the story naturally landed before the final stretch of Volume One.

There are roughly 12 scenes, depending on how you count them. Savannah, Clarissa, and Lorie each appear in five, including a group scene, 2 optional scenes, and 2 sequences switch depending on your choices. Astrid has two scenes, Felicity has one plus some additional content, and Chrissy, Billy Jean, Ms. Smith, and Jodie each make an appearance in a scene.

The heart of 0.9 is choosing who you want to grow closer to and taking the next step in that relationship. There is some mutually exclusive content, so this is an update where replaying different paths will reveal more to the story. You may also want to keep a save for the ending you feel most connected to.

Most importantly, 0.9 sets the stakes for the finale of Volume One, which will arrive next with 1.0.

So, what's taking so long?

Right now, the bottleneck is rendering. Some images take around 15 minutes, more complicated scenes can take an hour, and the heaviest renders can take 3+ hours each. I'm pushing my 3080ti to the limit and while I run automated render queues overnight and whenever I'm away from the computer, there is only so much raw rendering time available in a day.

It's also difficult to give an exact render count because many finished images are composites assembled from several renders in Photoshop, and playtesting often reveals places where additional shots are needed. My current estimate is that 0.9 will contain more than 1,000 finished rendered images.

Because of that, I can't give an accurate release date yet. What I can say is that 0.9 is my primary focus. After taking a short summer break, I've cleared my schedule as much as possible and am working on the update whenever I'm not handling other responsibilities, with the render queue running essentially around the clock.

Also, I recently completed the redesign of the website IWasATeenageVampire.com which will serve as a hub for the download and files in the future.

I'm very much looking forward to getting 0.9 into your hands. Thank you, as always, for your support and for making it possible for me to keep building this game. Here are some more previews of 0.9:

PS. Lorie said she didn't want to be part of any nerdy previews.