Captain's Log #16 - February2024

Greetings Seekers! What a month! 🙈🙈🙈

January was just a week ago and next week is already March? What? Truth be told, you might have noticed that we've been a little quiet recently - and that's because we have been very, VERY busy implementing stuff, but now we are here to tell you all about it! 

Note: The post is packed with GIFs, in case you see blank spaces - give it a moment to load!

Shall we? 👀

Last month we asked you if you want to explore the game in smaller or bigger pieces and it was a tight fight but the democracy answered: smaller bits it is 🚄

We then proceeded to make story cuts with surgical precision and we are focusing now on polishing the first delivery for you - it does take time but first impressions matter! 

🔧 Technical Update

- We implemented debug mode that makes life easier to us developers, and you will see it here and there on the screenshots but worry not, it won't be in the final game!

- Saving system is now ready for all these scum-savers who, like us, just need to try all the routes!

- New Interface has been in progress for quite time already and though it is still in development, most of things already land nicely in place! 

Don't ask why the mouse cursor recorded with offset, because I have no idea -Polly 💭

- All the UI elements have sound effects so there are these sweet clicking sounds as you go through! 

- We are still processing feedback from the Captain's Treat playtest - we've got A LOT of feedback, really, TONS of comments - and we are so grateful!! You did an amazing job 🔥There are some things that appear repeatedly but we want to give good justice to what you actually need and come up with a plan how to implement stuff. In the meantime we added the most frequently asked - minigame custom controls - you will be able to bind your own keys or, use mouse movement! 

📝 Writing

While the main story for the demo writing is closed, the creative department doesn't slow down. You've seen all these inventory slots, right? 👀 Our writer is a busy bee writing a backstory and description for each of them, adding lore here and there, and keeping an eye on all other side content.

🎵 Music

THINGS ARE MOVING PRETTY FAST IN THE SOUND SECTION 🚀

And I'm not even kidding. We are producing sounds for all ingame elements, interface, music for dialogue and minigames, but the most importantly, the game intro cinematic.

We are very happy to announce that amazing FrozenHotSauce 🎤 joined the team as the Narrator  voice! And that we are now polishing the final video 👀👀👀 Aaaand that it will drop on Patreon next week!

But because the cinematic itself has some playable elements in between that are being polished as we speak, for now we will share the full video (over 4 minutes of action!) as soon as it's ready next week to the Spoiler Tier (Spoiler Hot Coffee Jug with extra Syrup!) 

Keep your eyes peeled 🔥🔥🔥

🎨Art

While all the visual novel slides have ingame sketched placeholders, the Cap'n is again on fire and jumped back to polish all the missing bits, interface elements, and minigame assets 🔥 It's super nice to see how the things come together :3 

I bet you are wondering how our favourite ladies are doing? Moruga's dialogue rig is ready and implemented in the game already - well that escalated quickly 👀

In the meantime Eris is getting the special animation treatment - while she might not be ready on time for first batch delivery, she is definitely on our priority list, so you can immerse better in her eee... dialogues! 🍈🍈

🧠 Final Thoughts

What we are doing now is last writing corrections, lots of adjusting and compositing, more implementation than coding. We still have some feedback to process, but we don't let it slow us down, with all hands on deck we are doing our best to wrap up the first delivery! 

Thank you for bearing with us as we progress, we hope you are enjoying this creative journey with us!

Sending lots of love 💌
--Polly

🔎TL;DR

• 👀 The crowd has spoken, we are slicing the demo story in pieces to deliver faster! 🚀

• 🔧UI design and implementation ongoing,

• 🔧Processing feedback from Captain's Treat minigame in progress,

• 🎵Music and SFX production on fire,

• 🎵FrozenHotSauce 🎤 joined the team as the Narrator voice,

• 📝Demo testing, proofreading and final touches in progress,

• 🎨Game Intro Video first look dropping next week on Patreon 🎬,

• 🎨Moruga dialogue rig implemented 💃

• 🎨Eris dialogue rig in progress 🍈🍈