Brick by Brick - October 14, 2024

“Rome wasn't built in a day”     ~Li Proverbe au Vilain, 1190

So, it’s been a pretty busy month so far, and I wanted to let you know that we have been hip-deep in game development issues (when Real World events weren’t intruding).

We’re pretty far along the development process, but real life schedules are slowing us down a bit. That said, the completion of the coding has increased to 80%, with most of the work concentrated on tightening up the game mechanics and going over the code to check for faulty bits that might cause the game to crash unexpectedly - an improvement over the previous version. Next is the implementation of the scripts and artwork into the code and, of course, further stress-testing.

Currently, we are approaching 500 renders, which puts us in a pretty good place, as the total number of images and animations includes both the re-rendering of the old scenes and the implementation of the new ones, which will include brand-new, never seen before animations.

We’re putting the music together so that the original music compositions - which include separate themes for a number of characters from the village - all fit with one another as a whole. We’re terribly proud of having original music, and I am pretty sure you all are going to be blown away by it when you hear it.

As for the writing, all told, we are currently approaching 150,000 words for the entirety of the forthcoming update (honestly, I think it will be closer to 300k by the time we’re done with the Willowdale two-part update). This includes a major overhaul of the previous scripted dialogue as well as several additional, world-expanding scenes.

The way I look at it, the coding is the structure of the high-rise building, and the artwork is all the furniture and people in the building. The writing is all about what those people do in that building, and the music is the electricity that keeps the lights on, and sets the tone for the story; it’s the electricity, so to speak.

That building, unfortunately, isn’t ready for visitors just yet.

I had hoped for an end of October update release, but we are realizing that, as we get closer to the update end point, we are finding parts here and there that need fixing. It is an ironclad intention of mine to keep the players from having to restart the game because their previous save was rendered moot by a mistake here or there.

We are honored by your continued financial support, which is why we are determined to give you a solidly-built, well-crafted game, and that is exactly what we are going to give you.

I will update you on Saturday, October 19th as to our progress.