Progress Report 23-45

I'm going to cover a lot here, but I will start by summarizing the major details, and if you're interesting you can continue reading below where I expand on each topic.

• TaH Episode 3 full release - targeting early February

• Adding content that was missing from the first half of the episode release

• New features - custom save names and hopefully image gallery

Ep3 Release Schedule:

Episode 3 has taken a longer development cycle than I like. I really wanted it out before the end of the year but there's still a lot to complete. Ep1 was released on Feb 2nd of this year, and I'd love to get this next one out before that anniversary.

This one will certainly be larger than Ep2, as I've stated before, and will most likely exceed 50,000 words of dialogue. For anyone unfamiliar, word count is common in publication to tell the length of a piece of writing, but some of you likely aren't familiar visualizing what it means.

For paperback novels, a general rule is that 300 words are printed on one page. So 100 pages equals 30,000 words. 200 pages = 60,000 words, and so on.

When Ep3 is finished the TaH story up to this point will likely be around 130,000 words, or close to a 450-page book. From what I'm usually see, these are large chapter sizes among AVNs.

My average reading pace for books is 1 page/min, which would make this about 8.5 hours of reading material. And I typically go through AVNs slower to enjoy the pictures, especially if the artist works on the finer details.

Following the Ep3 release, the original plan was continuing a full season of 10 episodes. While this number isn't changing, I believe I'll be breaking it up into two seasons: Ep1-5 Graduation and Ep6-10 Summer Break.

There's a lot of little reasons why this felt like the right move (the size is one, and I'll touch on another reason at the end of this post). While this isn't finalized yet, it's more than likely what I'll decide to do. The important thing is that this really doesn't change anything; development continues on as usual. It's more of a marketing decision than anything.

Ep3 Revised Content:

When Part 1 of Ep3 was released there were some issues I didn't have time to address. Animations were one of them. I had some rendered out but realized too late something wasn't right. I omitted them and had to improvise alternatives in a couple scenes near the end. But I'm redoing the animations and those scenes will be revamped so it matches how I intended them to be.

Also, another short flashback scene will be available when the MC is sharing his past with Emily while walking her home. So to enjoy these additions you'll want to back up, or replay Ep3 from the beginning again.

Custom Save Names:

There are many features I've wanted to implement for a long time, and last update handled several of them. This time I'm finally adding the ability to name your save files.

I'm likely to mess around with how things look visually, but at least the coding works. Every save name will include (Ep#:S#) to represent which episode and scene you're currently in, followed by anything you enter into the box on the upper right of the screen.

Image Gallery:

This is a major improvement I've been wanting to do. I don't have much to show right now, but it is something I'm actively working on. I'm still playing with a lot of ideas of how I want it to look and how it'll function. Most likely I'll be able to provide more information about it next month ahead of the full release.

But here is an image I'm currently using as the background for Kayla's bio/gallery.

The gallery will be a mix of images that can be unlocked through gameplay, and others that are part of Bonus Content. I've wanted to include some promotional renders of the girls within the game, and this is one way it'll happen.

I don't know exactly how all of the functionality will work yet as far as unlocking images, but more info will be given later when I'm ready to debut the finished gallery.

Other Thoughts:

I've been asked often if I plan to release TaH anywhere other than Patreon (ie. Steam). The short answer is: I want to. But it's not as easy as just uploading it to their server.

There isn't anything in TaH that should prevent a Steam release according to their published rules, but even so the game would need to be reviewed and accepted which is always scary involving adult content. There's work on my end that would need to be done to make sure I'm giving a polished product and good user experience. And not to mention, it costs money to submit the game for review.

Is this something I'm looking into for the future? Yes. Will it be with the Ep3 release? No.

If the game's popularity and support continues to grow enough in the meantime then I will start pushing harder for it.

-ckr