September Update

Gina, stop praying. I highly doubt God will answer you and finish this update for us…
Yes, I know you have an angel right by your side, but that doesn’t me—
No, a fortune cookie doesn’t count as divine proof! Especially not when you ate an entire box of them. By sheer probability, one had to contain a positive message!

Ugh... Fine, be like that. I’ll do the grovelling and apologizing on my own…

Well, greetings everyone. It’s that time of the month again. Let the grovelling and apologizing begin.

First off: while we are making progress, it’s not quite as fast as I had hoped, so there are still a few things left on our plates. The culprit is mostly complexity, though, which means there’s a silver lining. Let me give you an example of what I mean:

• Philipp’s first date: 2 special CGs + 3 new expressions for his sprite set.

• Philipp’s second date: 3 special CGs + 2 backgrounds + 1 modified sprite set + ~10 inpaints for sprites and CGs.

• Philipp’s third date: 7 special CGs + 3 backgrounds + 2 modified sprite sets + ~20 inpaints + some extras.

So the workload for that single scene alone was already immense—it easily took me 20+ hours to complete. Multiply that by all the scenes we’re working on, and you can see why the process takes time.
The good news is that the scenes are now far more lively and detailed, showing the action directly instead of just having two static characters on-screen while the text carries the weight.

Now, here’s a quick overview of what happened this past month:

• One of the main focuses was advancing the dates. We’ve planned 6 in total: 4 are fully completed, 1 is missing some images, and 1 is about halfway written. You can now track your progress and launch the dates from a new info screen, instead of just a boring text menu.

• To keep things fun in between, there are now repeating events for when no fully written date is available. During these leisure times, you can still build affection (beyond the usual dialogue choices) while working toward the next fully fleshed-out date.

Let's look at some dates I've been currently working on:

• Stella finally figured out how to plan a date that isn’t just about dragging her partner into bed. You’ll get to see a whole new side of our brash, teasing darling when she's pushed out of her comfort zone!

  

• Jade joins the illustrious group of possible dating options after working through her guilt and leaving her teenage crush behind… (or conquering him—we also wrote a scene for that path!)

  

• Akari gives Gina another chance to follow through on a long-promised scene. Things may get a little steamy there…

  

  
  So, what’s the overall progress?

  We’re sitting at around 20,000 lines in the main story file now, plus a few thousand more in the combat files. For comparison: Update 6 was only about half that size, and smaller updates like Xici’s Lab or The Trial had around 3,000 lines each.

  On the image side, including reworks, we’re currently at roughly 900 images. So there’s plenty to look at— and not just because all the girls keep getting bigger.

  As far as code is concerned, we finished the skip function (if saves break again, which they shouldn't... but yeah...) and bug fixed the combat part after the combat playtest.

  When's the next release then?

  As for release timing… well, I’ve been wrong enough times that I’m almost scared to say it. I think the end of September should at least see a test version, but then again, I thought August would be safe too… and we all know how that turned out. 😅

  That said, I want to thank you once again for your patience and incredible support. It’s been half a year since the last update, and I’m genuinely humbled by the trust you’ve shown me and my team. A good part of the Patreon funds have gone into commissioning extra writing and upgrading my GPU—so yes, I can generate muscle girls faster now! Hopefully that helps speed things up.

  And hey, if by chance anyone out there would like to join the team, please feel free to reach out. I can always use a pair of extra hands. 😁
  
  
  That's all for now. I'll make my next post end of the month, either with more lame excuses or at least with the announcement of a test version.
  Have a lovely week and I'll stay in touch.