06/02 Patreon Devlog

Hi everyone! Just popping in with this week's Patreon devlog!

This Week's Summary:

• Finished Magnus' route!
• Started working on Lance's reworked synopsis.
• Small changes to a few other sprites
  • Caissa (added some details)
  • Jack (added some details, adjusted colours)
  • Reuben (adjusted some colours)
  • Caleb (worked on a 'messy' hairstyle)

The Ramble:

So the first big news is that Maggie's route is finished! Well, the rough draft. I still have to edit, of course. Maggie's route turned out the longest at 116,000 words (it's about 2k longer than Caleb's route and 8k longer than the shortest route. But Caissa's route is getting at least one scene fleshed out so that difference will definitely shrink in the future.)

The total project word count at the moment is 609,000 words (un-coded. As I've said, coding always shrinks the word count).

With Maggie's route squared away, I only have one more of the original six LIs left to complete, and that is LANCE. Finally.

I've started reworking his synopsis and am now currently working through the revised story climax to work out what exactly happens in the new plot. Lance's route originally was going to involve the "main" antagonist, Brenin. But I'm veering away from that plot now and thinking to downscale things away from the "everyone wants the A.I." aspect of the story. That features heavily in Magnus' route in particular but also comes up during Caissa's route. And while, in some ways, it makes sense for this to feature heavily in Lance's plot...

I kind of want to do something unexpected. Right now what I'm trying to decide is if I want that as a sub-plot or if I want to remove it from the route entirely. It could be another route where Endgame is the semi-bad guy (like Jack's route). Sometimes there are so many directions I can take a plot that it takes a while to settle on one as the best option. And, of course, my goal is really to make sure all the routes are original and interesting so I want to try to avoid re-using plot elements in the exact same way.

So yeah, basically there are a lot of decisions to make and I'm still contemplating some of them. Most of the routes are heavily focused on Morgan learning to use her psi and having these intense training sessions with the LIs. But I don't want that to be the plot of every single route. That gets old and it gets repetitive. So each route is an adventure in figuring out a new direction to take the story. OwO

The other thing I did this week was work on some sprite improvements. I wasn't originally planning to but sometimes if I get stuck on writing or planning I work on art because I can think about writing and untangle plot ideas while I draw. So it's kind of a two birds-one stone situation.

So this time around, I worked on Caissa's sprite a little. I didn't do much to Caissa - nearly all the LIs need additional outfits but what I was working on this time around involved smaller details and changes. For instance, I ended up giving Caissa's sprite some additional jewelry just to add some more visual interest (plus, it feels in character for him).

For Jack's sprite, I gave him some jewelry as well but I adjusted his colours. His sprite used a very dull red and sort of faded blacks. I ended up increasing the saturation of the colours to make him stand out a little more.

I haven't done much to Reuben's sprite yet. I did increase the saturation of his skin colour as I realised he looked a little gray when side by side with Edan and Lance.

I worked on Caleb's sprite to just play around with his "messy" hair style but I also contemplated giving him another tattoo. I sketched it out but am still undecided on it! LoL. Maybe a sneak peek somewhere in the future? XD

In addition to everyone's outfit changes (of which there are numerous ones for each character), additional hairstyles, etc...I have a list of small sprite additions like this that I eventually want to get to. Working on them *now* wasn't the plan but since I got stuck on the synopsis, working these helped me work through some of the details so I was able to get more work done than if I just got stuck planning and did nothing but think about the synopsis. LoL

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

Upcoming Week:

I plan to finish Lance's synopsis in the upcoming days. Usually my process is to write a:

Small route summary (usually a paragraph)

A larger summary (usually a page) fleshing out the plot details

A scene-by-scene and chapter-by-chapter synopsis detailing the events of every chapter and scene individually.

I hope to have all this planning done soon so I can jump into writing. And, like Magnus, I'm going to try to have the writing done in about two months. That means a somewhat grueling writing schedule with intense word count goals. However, I'm really eager to be done with writing so…

I'm going to do my best. This intense writing schedule will mean that I probably won't work on much else for the next two months since I don't want to take away time from writing. But there are some days I can't write during the day and have to focus my writing time in the evening and late at night - so there's a chance I'll continue to work on sprite improvements and outfits here and there as well.