Hello everyone, and welcome to the final progress report before Episode 2 begins!

All the art and animations for the episode are done. We'll start compiling everything this week. I need to do one last draft of the script, and then it should be good to go. I am also going to start writing up the walkthroughs, as I want them to be up to date with the builds going forward.

We hope to have ample time to do testing before this build goes live.

As for music, we have 2 new tracks in the next build, but they aren't the finished versions! But we have permission to use them for now. So expect the two new songs to get an update some time down the line.

We also will not have animated special moments. I am on the hunt for a new Spine2D animator while I wait to hear back from our backup animator, who is still moving. We have a shortlist compiled and want to reach out as soon as we have the funds.

Gallery?

The big feature we wanted in v0.15.5 was the gallery, and clearly that didn't happen. We definitely tried to get it working in time, but with our dialogue tool freaking out the day before the build was due to launch, there just wasn't time to fix it. Since then, Lotus has been hard at work getting it working.

Now, we are planning to ship the gallery with v0.16.0. This will give us time to finish it and then time to playtest it properly. This is a huge feature, so we want to get it right and not throw it out there half-assed.

When we release v0.16.0, we will also release v0.15.5.2 to $3 members so they can have the gallery.

Also! The big code change needed for the gallery to work was never actually implemented properly. So when the gallery drops, you will need to replay the game to get the unlocks. We don't love this happening as often as it has, but we hope that as we get deeper into production and implement more features, this won't happen as frequently. We also want to find time to make skipping/re-reading better for players. But it is all about finding time to get it done since we are moving so fast.

There are so many features we want to add which you would think wouldn't take that long, but they do. So keep letting us know what you want to see! The more people ask for something, the more important it is, and the higher it will be on our priority list.

Alright, let's look at overall assets!

There was an old sprite that was already animated, so that is an easy win! Koth is still working on the new character sprite, but it should be done this week, and then he can move to the big lewd animation in v0.16.1.

Speaking of which, the big lewd scene in v0.16.1 is drawn! It took some refinement as we tried to find the right "Camera Angle" to portray the scene so the animation can be as easy as possible. Now that that is done, Kokman has moved on to sprite work for 3 characters that appear in v0.16.2. All 3 characters have drawn sprites from the Ren'Py era, but we want to give them all a refresh, especially one character in particular.

As you may have noticed, there is a bar for voice acting! We have two roles open for Episode 2. One of them is a pretty big role, and I have reached out to a VA I've had on standby for a while. The other role is very small, so I am going to decide whether to hire someone new or find someone who's done voice work for me and wants to do a slightly different voice for a scene.

I'd also love to find time to go back over all the voices we have and maybe find more stuff for the VAs to do without doing full-on line readings. But, again, it's hard to pause and do these little projects while we are moving so fast.

Wrap Up

It is build week! So we are going to be locked in on getting v0.16.0 ready for everyone to play! Now that we have a gallery and walkthrough, there is a bit more to do before each build goes live, so I expect to be locked in this week.

I've been a bit burnt out recently, but hopefully I can get back on the horse ASAP!

Thank you all so much for your amazing support, and stay Rad!