12/07 Patreon Devlog

 Hey guys! 

Sorry for the delayed devlog this week! As some of you know, I had a medical exam situation on Friday that literally took the entire day. It was a two hour drive (in one direction) to the main clinic so there was a lot of driving, plus exams.

(No one is sick - these are just routine exams related to visa stuff for us living abroad).

Anyway, yesterday was catch-up day and then I got stuck working on a THING! 

Anyway, I'm slightly changing how I set up our devlogs. Just trying to find a slightly more efficient way to do things! I've been doing our devlogs the same way for a long time - so much that I've even seen other developers adopt our exact update format! LoL

I decided it's just time for a change. OwO Gotta try to keep things fresh.

So here we go! 

Summary:

• Writing - Finished Caleb Chapter 11 and got started on Chapter 12.
• Art - Got one finished background this week, including a really, really cool BG you guys can see below! Also worked on a new sprite and some additional GS artwork (including what I hope will be a new set of wallpapers! 
• Coding - Completed the coding for several sprites.

The Ramble:

This week's ramble is mostly about writing! As usual. LoL

I managed to finish most of the potato draft of chapter 11 pretty quickly this week. Eli was sick with a mild cold and Nicky has been getting over a cold as well - so this meant I had a bit more free time than usual earlier in the week. I was really determined to put it to use as I'm super, super…..*super* tired of this route and I want to be done with it already.

The latter half of the week ended up with a few more distractions than planned, but I was still able to get the chapter finished. In spite of the fact that Chapter 11 has the first love scenes of this route (Which are always so FUN to write. And by fun, I mean super challenging. LoL).

Of course, this is just the potato draft though...

The route is also going to probably come up a bit short word count wise because I'm not fleshing out the chapters in the later half like I usually do. I also have been leaving out some of the choices and branching because those are fairly easy to add in during editing and I'm really, really trying to just get through it.

Right now I just want to be able to declare the rough draft done.

I was calculating numbers the other day (for all that I complain about hating math, it's amazing the amount of solace I get from calculating stuff related to the game. LoL. Or maybe it's just a convenient way to procrastinate.

Anyway…

I was calculating numbers the other day and realised that (not including the additional 3 LIs - I don't include them in any calculations), one route in the game is equivalent to 15% of the total writing.

I can spend two months writing, and that 'percentage complete' chart is going to crawl up by only 15%. It can be so frustrating at times to see that calculation barely budging. I'm relieved to have crossed the 50% mark, which is always a huge milestone. But I'm really eager to hit the next milestone of 75%.

It always feels like that is where the stress starts lessening and it feels like I'm actually making a GAME….not just flailing uselessly at the keyboard.

I'm really, really hoping Jack's route proves easier to write than Caleb's. I can really use a break after how gruelling this route has been. I know I've been whining about it a lot but it's been really tough. That said…

I can't deny that part of the issue is just the stress from the situation going on in the world right now. Not to mention having my spouse working from home (which makes it hard to focus). I feel like it's useless to pretend it's not incredibly difficult to be creative right now. 

Side note, but I discovered listening to rain ambience is really helpful for helping me focus. I found a really good one that has rain + fireplace + ambient white noise. It's enough to mostly block out whatever is going on in the room with me but isn't distracting in the way music can be. So I've been using this a lot while writing lately.

In other news, I ended up (unexpectedly) working on the sprite for Caissa's dad. I don't really know why I wanted to randomly work on it. I remember at some point during the week I was thinking about...something regarding Caissa and his brother not looking much alike. And then that got me thinking about what Keres looks like - and somehow this translated into me working on his sprite. 

Recently I picked up Clip Studio Paint while it was on sale. 

I've been using Photoshop as my primary art program for a really long time and I'm really used to its layout and tools. CSP is similar in some respects and very different in others. When you think about it, while photoshop is used as a drawing program for many people - its purpose is there in the name. It was created to edit photos - not draw.

Even so, it's great drawing software and has a lot of really useful tools. But CSP was designed for drawing (specifically, for manga and comic artists). It has a lot of shortcuts and tools that can make drawing much easier and faster. But getting used to it has been a challenge.

Keres' sprite is the first one I completed entirely in CSP, though I have worked on some of the others in this program here and there. I'm finally starting to get used to it and learn the tools. Certain things about this program are quite convenient so it'll be interesting to see if I slowly end up switching over. 

I really like some of the "real media" brushes (specifically, the watercolour ones). So I want to experiment with them more. OWO

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

Let's have a peek at some art! OWO Just a teaser BG this time, though. Mwa ha ha! 

Keres Fianchetto, boss of the "Crimson" crime family and Caissa's dad. Not a nice man.

What is this? ...A THING.

It's an idea for a wallpaper set that I've had for a while - and it gave me an excuse to play around with CSP's watercolour brushes. I nearly killed my hand working on it. @_@ (Seriously - I drew for HOURS and am shocked my hand isn't hurting today).

Upcoming Week:

So what is in store for the upcoming week??

FINISH CALEB'S ROUTE >=O

Okay, that might be aggressive, but I can dream, right? I am going to continue to write. And probably work on the next flower based piece. Which will be Lance and his asphodel - which I'm kind of looking forward to and kind of not since asphodel is a fairly small flower. Which means….TONS OF THEM. LoL

But this is how artists torture themselves. It's tradition. LoL.

Anyway, see you all next week!