Chasing Sunsets Chapter 7 Dev Update #3

With the holidays behind us, Kent and I are leaning into the meat of this chapter.   For Kent, it's a lot of artwork, and for me it's something a lot less exciting but long overdue.

For starters, Discord Integration has been removed after the poll to do so was so decisive.   Secondly, I've migrated the existing content to Ren'Py 8.0.3.   This required fairly significant regression testing as a number of features and code elements were broken by decremented modules being sunsetted.

Further, I've scrubbed all game files to remove any leftover or unused stuff that may have gotten swept up with the compile.

I will post updated links soon to v07b that introduces the framework changes to Chapter 6 that Chapter 7 and beyond will be built upon.   This won't add new content, and many of the changes will be transparent to the player.   

*NOTE*  It will not be necessary to upgrade to this incremented version before downloading Chapter 7 when it is ready, so don't worry if you want to spare your bandwidth!

I've also begun adding some dynamic panning and zoom to content already available.   The idea here was to make the game feel more immersive with some simulated parallax.   It's not something we want to overuse, but in places where the emphasis makes sense, or where it adds to a scene, it should add to the overall production value.

I have also updated the original interface fonts with open-source replacements that are much better tailored toward localization and multilingual display.   These do not look jarringly different from what was in place before, but it's a big milestone on the road toward being able to use generic TL files for alternate languages.

All that boring housekeeping aside, there have been no surprises so far that look likely to impose delay.

As previously stated, what would have been Chapter 7 will now be split into Chapters 7 and Chapter 8, increasing the total number of instalments from 10 to 11 to complete the story.  At the end of the day, it felt like taking twice as long to deliver a super-sized chapter or cutting corners on the story were the greater evils than a little scope creep.

So, what do you have to look forward to in Chapter 7?   Without spoiling anything, I can say this:

• Mallory and Amanda probably have a theory to share with the greater team.
• MC and Jaye had a good (maybe amazing!) day off, and will have to regroup on what that means.
• Vince is probably none too happy about how Chapter 6 ended.
• Depending on MC behavior, it's becoming unlikely certain cats can remain in bags much longer.
• Sophie may have found the key to Pandora's Box.  Will it get opened?
• Side girls of the world unite!  

I can't say much more without spoiling story beats, but with the pressure off to make so much happen in a single chapter, I feel a lot better about what Chapter 7 and 8 combined will offer.  

As always, Kent and I are grateful for your trust and patronage, and we are looking forward to watching our story arrive at its destination over the next few chapters!