Dev Update - 2026/06/17

Hey everyone,

I hope you're all melting doing well. We have some "nice" 30+ °C over here, which pairs very well with the heat coming from the GPU rendering.

Besides trying to survive living on the surface of the sun (insert image of Ceo in an overly dramatic pose here), I finished the first chapter ending and started working on the second.
The second ending is a bit shorter, but also requires the scene to be set up with various characters and several dozen instances of some of them.
The ending will have 2 variations depending on your choices before, so it will still keep me busy for the next week and probably the week after.

The numbers for this week:
66 new static renders for a total of 2049
0 new animations, total still 53
249 new lines in the script files for a total of 5752

That brings me to the second topic for today's Dev Update - how I will handle the chapter 8 releases.
Most of you will remember me asking for your opinion about splitting the chapter, or not.
Getting closer to finishing the first part and the 6-month mark, it is time to make a decision.
I know that I can't please everybody and that, no matter what I decide, some people will not like it.
And just because I'm not following your opinion or suggestion, it doesn't mean it hasn't been heard or not given any thought.
In fact, all the feedback made me think even more about it because there were a lot of very good points and solid opinions for both options.

I also know this won't be too surprising because it is the decision I was already leaning towards when asking for your opinion, but again, that doesn't mean it was already set in stone back then (if it was, I wouldn't have asked).
And, as I said before, I still hate both options.

Once I'm done with the 2nd chapter ending, I will move that part into Beta and release it shortly after.
I already talked about the reasons before, but the main reason is that it will give me a bit more peace of mind while working on the Álfheimr part.
Also, it kinda feels unfair to those who are not interested in the Álfheimr part to hold back "their" content for several more months while it's literally finished.

I will hold back a (very short) after-credits scene because it will be the same for both parts.

And as already mentioned before, I'll release it straight to the 5$ tier this time.
I'm aware that a lot of you said "go with your usual schedule," but I stand by my word.
Steam will follow as soon as the translations are done, but expect that to take a little longer.

I guess that's it for today.
Wish you guys a nice weekend,
Ceo