Heart of the Woods Progress Update: September 2018

Hey there,

It’s been another busy month for those of us working on Heart of the Woods, in a really good way. Unfortunately we’re not going to be able to have the game out this year like we’d hoped, but we’re aiming for early next year now. Mostly, we need to be sure we have ample time for coding and testing. Still, we’re on track to meet our internal deadline for completion of all the other assets.

Right now, there are two main focuses that Rachel and I have when it comes to writing: completing drafts of new scenes and finalizing drafts of old ones. It can be a delicate balance of which to prioritize. On the one hand, we need to be getting new drafts done so that Ally can start editing them. But, we also need to be implementing those edits and finalizing scenes so that Minute can start scripting them into the game. Either way, there’s nothing more satisfying than being able to post another new scene for the rest of the team to start reading through.

The art is coming along smoothly as well. There are only a handful of backgrounds left to be drawn, and most of them are for places that only appear once or twice in the story, like Morgan’s shop. We’ve gotten 5 or 6 new CGs finished by Rosuuri in the past couple weeks, with sketches of a new one arriving just yesterday. She also finished the design for one of the last remaining side characters: Morgan’s mom, the mayor. With her design and sprites completed, there are only one and a half characters left to go.

Musically, we just started on something very exciting: the credits song/ED for the game. We’re working with a musical artist that a few of us are big fans of, so this is a really cool opportunity. More details to come on that one later. There are only one or two songs that remain to be completed for the rest of the soundtrack.

That’s all for this month. Until next time!

Josh