08/02/2024 Patreon Devlog

Hellooo everyone! Time for this week's updates! 

Summary

• Added some of the new necessary BGs to the game

• Added some of the new outfits into the game and did a lot of bug fixing with them

• Created some new outfits for some of the LIs

  • Raif

  • Daaz

  • Noel

• Worked on sprite expressions for Wil through chapter 5

• Added some minor BG animations

• Added some new unlockables to the music room

Art 

This week in art, I've mostly been working on sprite variations and additions - new outfits, new hairstyles, some fixes to old art.

A lot of these weren't planned but came about as a spontaneous development. Since the route lock in happens during the field assignment the crew goes on, the final scene of the route is the first scene where you are 100% for sure on some's route (or officially not romancing anyone).

I ended up deciding to put Asher in an outfit that exists but hasn't been scene before.

However Asher ended up with one outfit more than everyone else because I'd created a top for him for a specific scene later on, then decided to make a different one for that scene instead.

So...

Then I felt bad that Asher shows up in a cool new outfit but the others would be shown in outfits the player has seen before (mostly). And therefore I decided that I should just draw new outfits for characters who have already shown off most of their alternate clothes by now.

This isn't really too big a time sink as new outfits for sprites don't actually take that long to design or draw and it's a fun late night thing to work on.

So far I've done new outfits for Daaz, Raif, and Noel. Noel even got new hair.

I've been really wanting to do a hairstyle for him where his hair isn't brushed back like it is on his default sprite. And after several attempts, I finally settled on something I like.

Yren has an alt outfit I can use for this scene already. It's one I drew for...that same scene I drew Asher's outfit for. But I'd already decided I wanted to re-do Yren's outfit for that scene. So I think I'm going to use the existing outfit for the chapter 5 scene and design a new one later on.

Kav has a couple of alt outfits and I'll probably use one of those. But I think I may do an alternate hairstyle or something for him. Or just spruce up the outfit to make it look a little more special like some of the others.

Well see. He's the resident trash panda so he can't look too pretty just yet, but still...

I've also been prepping the new BGs and setting those up in-game but more on that below.

Coding and Other Stuff

Usually after an episode release, I wait a little before I start putting new assets into the game. This is in case someone finds a huge bug that requires an update. Not adding new visual assets prevents me from having to remove them in case a big patch is required.

But enough time has passed I feel comfortable putting the new stuff in the source game folder now.

There are multiple new BGs appearing in this chapter along with some additional variations.

I wanted to try to add in some subtle animations. I don't do these often because honestly I just don't find animating fun to set up or code.

But they do look cool. So I'm trying LoL.

I also have been coding in the BG changes (since I had them marked but not properly set up because the artwork wasn't in the game yet.

Of course I also coded in and tested all the new outfits the characters wear.

And finally, of course, I've been coding in Wil's expressions bit by bit. Expressions are so tedious I've been breaking it down into a slightly weirder arrangement than usual for me. Typically I just go character by character, scene by scene.

But because of how this game is set up, I fear that would make me lose my mind a bit. So I've just come up with a new strategy to break the work down a bit differently. I'm making progress but, of course, expressions are just tedious and take a while because I change them frequently and have a lot of content to code them for.

Upcoming Week

For the next week I will be continuing to work on sprite expressions bit by bit. As well as any other assets that need to be added. I still have to draw one new sprite and do a bit of additional drawing for variations of outfits and things.

It'll be a while yet before I move on to other things like the CGs or flowcharts.

But the episode is sloooowly shaping up with a lot of new things, new visuals, and of course the beginnings of the plot starting to rear its head in a more overt way beyond vague foreshadowing and hints.