December Recap & January Plans

As a reminder, the Dec 23rd release was the entire offical release for January! It was released early for the Christmas content. :)

December Recap:

• Early release that finished Quinn's route with 6 new endings, 2 new CGs, and 2 new holiday side stories. It was a big update!
• 2 new CGs were completed at the end of December for Julian's What If route. These will be out in the next update.
• Did a lot of prep-work for Julian's modification and sprite expressions
• Planned and assigned backgrounds to artist. All now have the linework complete, color is happening now.

Due to holiday delays, these are still pending, hopefully done in January:

• Isabella's sprite
• Casper's sprite
• Luciana's sprite

January Plans

January will be Julian modification month, and since the release was early, it's already underway! (I also hope to write the final particles chapter this month if possible.)

I wanted a bit of a visual to help make estimates, so I did a quick spreadsheet. This counts each of the choice branches as an 'item', and I've assigned statues to each item.

"Edit Rewrites" are sections where I've done so many major changes that I should consider it new content and return to edit it as per my normal writing process. There are currenty 2 of these.

Progress as of Dec 29th:

As per this graph, I've (rounded for ease) done about 25% in a week, so this will likely take the entire month of January.

However, the catch is this graph is ONLY the writing process. I still have to do the programming. So depending on the scale of the rewrites for the remaining content, it's possible it may bleed over into February a little. I'll try to avoid that if I can.

What's already done? (Spoilers!)

The "Wait!" ending (which was a dead-end that used to be a couple of paragraphs where Julian executes Monika) has been scrapped entirely and there is a new ending that is ~ 4000 words. This explores a lot of Ash's character.

The branch Follow > Love > Silent > Escape > Call Brandon ending has also had a major rewrite with ~ 3000 new words. Julian no longer burns to death in a fire in this ending.

The "Call the Police" ending and the "Call Out to Brandon for Help" endings are unchanged story-content wise.

That's all I've gone through so far. I do expect more major rewrites for endings will happen, but I won't know the scale until I dig into it and come up with ideas for alternatives. 

I am already much happier with Julian's route where I've made changes. His character now makes a lot more sense, flows more naturally, and Ash's character is a lot of fun to write. I think Julian's ethical struggle and hyprocacy is a lot more understandable, especially once you read the new "Call Brandon" ending to understand Ash's influence.

(And this whole experience has taught me a valuable lesson that if I'm struggling progressing the story during writing, I should stop and reevaluate, maybe even postpone and return to it at a later date. Pushing myself through it was a terrible move.)

I've also found so many typos and grammar issues during this that I am absolutely mortified. I'm scared to review Sebastian's route now! Haha.

When's the first beta?

I'm thinking there will be only 1 beta this month, and it will come when I'm finished with the entire "Follow Julian" path (basically cutting the route in half).

Again, estimates are hard without knowing how much rewriting I will choose to do.

I will pencil in the weekend of the 14th as a tenative goal for a beta.

Wrapping Up the Art

Due to me exceeding my budget for literally everything, I must wrap up on art now. I'd love to do so much more, but I've literally spent more than 3x my initial plans.

There are currently no more CGs in the works. (The What If arts for Julian are complete and will be in the next update.) If I decide there are more I need, it will only be a couple.

The three remaining sprites are the last ones*. Other minor characters will not have sprites.

* I do have plans with the LIs' sprite artist to make improvements to the current sprites when Isabella & Casper are complete, such as giving Quinn & Alexander & Sebastian shirtless sprites. We also have plans to make some modifications to the sprites in prep for Rememberance with things like new clothes.

I am hoping to implement at least the shirtless sprites before release.

Unfortionately that means there won't be much else to show besides the remaining sprites and new backgrounds during the next few months, but that's to be expected as we near release.

Release Plans!

As I've mentioned before, I've dividied the work up by type for easier planning, but in reality it won't work this way. 

Polish & new side content will be happening simultaniously.

A "Q2" release gives me the window beteween April - June. Given the remaining work, I think this is a very comfortable buffer I should have no issues meeting.

I am planning each character will have 5 side stories and 2 what if stories.

This totals to 11 new side stories and 5 new What If scenarios that need to be written. 

I'm still open to suggestions for 'What If' questions or scenes you would like to see as side content. I have a running list of possibilities. Quinn is the one lacking the most for ideas right now.

While these are my goals for side content, I don't promise these exact numbers. I may decide to do a 3rd What If in lieu of a side story, for example. Just depends on what ideas I pursue.

Once release is out, as promised, I'll do the "Great Alexander Route Poll (TM)".

And that's all I got!

Hope everyone had a fun holiday!