Hey all, I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently. As mentioned in my last report, things have been a bit challenging for me recently, but
Hey all,
I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently. As mentioned in my last report, things have been a bit challenging for me recently, but that's no excuse. I forced myself to whip up a little Sabrina post last night/this morning, and I hope you all enjoy. There's also a Gold tier version of this post, though, full disclosure, don't expect a big 'Sabrina reveal' as she hides everything important.
Unfortunately, even in your dreams, Sabrina is too nervous for that just yet.
4K versions are in the attachments below! Again, I hope you all enjoy! Much love! JB
As you can see from the numbers, it's been a fairly productive week for development. I'm finishing a lot of animations and making good progress through the S6 content. I didn't devote as much time to testing or scripting this week, but since I seem to be having an easier time with the rendering side of things, I didn't want to slow myself down.
I apologize for not posting as much subscriber content lately. I've been going through some personal matters, and perhaps even more importantly, I'm a little obsessed with getting this update finished as soon as possible. The 1-year anniversary of the last release is only 2 months away, and I hate that it's taking me this long. I have a lot to sort out for future development and I've even been floating the idea of doing quarter-chapter releases in the future, if I can't get my shit together. Whatever the case, I'll do my best to post a couple of subscriber posts this week.
I wish I had more to tell you, but I already waste too much time rambling away in these posts, so I'll cut it short-ish today. I hope you all have another great week, and I'm hoping for another great report to show you all next week!
Relatively speaking, it was a very good week for development, though admittedly, I feel like I'm still not working at 100%. I don't know what's wrong with my head right now, but I promise I'm not happy about it either. Whatever it is, I'm trying to fix it! Thankfully, the work is moving so fast right now that it's harder to get distracted. Anyway, I spent my weekdays after work finishing up every little hole I could find for S2 and spent my free time on the weekend diving into S6.
As I expected, S6 is going much faster than S2, and I think I can wrap it up in the next couple of weeks. In fact, it's rendering so much faster than I expected that I'm probably going to be able to elaborate on the content a little more without costing extra time. I was worried that this half-chapter wouldn't end with enough of a 'bang', but I'm much less worried about that now.
As you can see, I finished 3 animations this week, though I probably could have done a little more if I hadn't spontaneously decided to add a bonus animation to S2. I promise that's the last major content needed for s2! Though, as with all the scenes I haven't fully tested, I've left a sliver of space at the end of the bar since I'm sure more holes need patching somewhere.
There are still some big chunks of script that I need to hash out, and I'm doing my best to power through them. Thankfully, unlike with rendering and animations, when I finally get some traction, I can knock out huge chunks of the script. I doubt that will take more than another week or two to finish as well. I'll still need to do a fair amount of testing, since with every chapter comes more intersecting decisions that could cause issues. However, I hope all the advanced testing I've done will help speed up that process.
Alright, I'm rambling now, so I'll stop here. Hope you all have another great week! Much love! JB
I spent the entire week on S2, and I'm happy to say that it's almost entirely complete! There was a lot of content to organize and lots of little patches to fill, but I was able to finish nearly everything! I'm probably still missing something, but I'm confident that I'm down to the last dozen-ish S2 renders. Although there's still a lot of testing/coding/organizing to wrap up, one day locked-in should be enough to wrap that up.
I know I've mentioned this many times before, but I think people will be surprised by how fast the last scene might be wrapped up. S2 took a while because it has a lot of choices/variations that require a lot of coding and testing. S6, on the other hand, is quite linear by comparison, and the scene itself is incredibly fast to render.
It's still too early to accurately estimate a release date, but the update isn't just within sight, it's within throwing distance. It shouldn't be much longer now!
I hope you all have another great week! Much love! JB
Hey all, Here is a quick render of our favorite shopkeeper. I don't have a lot of time for bonus content, but I wanted to get something o
Hey all,
Here is a quick render of our favorite shopkeeper. I don't have a lot of time for bonus content, but I wanted to get something out. There's a gold-tier version as well, if that interests you. 4K version is in the attachments below!
I'm sorry for the late report, but I took a nap that turned into a proper sleep. I barely remembered to get up to write this, so it's going to be a short one.
I wrapped up the last of the animations for scene 2, and all that's left for that scene is filling in all the cracks and testing it until it's finished. There really isn't too much left at this point, so I'll be able to start working on scene 6, some of the backend things like credits, menus, etc.
I wish I had more to say, but I'm struggling to keep my eyes open. Hope you all have a good week.
Jedi Kaela and Sith Sabrina are back for another installment of May the 4th posts. Apologies for being so late with it. I wasn't online that day until it was too late, but better late than never. It certainly wouldn't be the first time I was late with a holiday post lol.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy them! Also, the 4K versions of these will be available for Silver tier members shortly after this post goes live.
Another week down, but I was able to finish 3 animations this week, with one more nearly ready to render. This should be the last animation needed for S2 before I can finally finish wrapping up the scene. I've been testing like crazy as well, since I know that this update has taken far too long already.
I've actually started to make some progress on the script for it as well, which is a welcome change from the past few weeks. It may not seem like it from the numbers above, but that's because I was turning my notes and point-form dialogue points into a proper script.
I don't have much else to report today so I hope you all have another great week. Also, I apologize for missing my 'May the 4th' render(s) this year. I'll be sure to post some later this week.
Hey all, We're finally back with another player choice poll, and it's one with some potentially significant results. Many might remember d
Hey all,
We're finally back with another player choice poll, and it's one with some potentially significant results.
Many might remember dealing with a certain disgruntled ex-shop owner/ex-husband in chapter 4 while defending Kaela and Gloria. Shortly after the encounter, while speaking with Miranda, you're given a choice as to how you want to help protect them should he ever return.
How did you choose to protect Kaela and Gloria?
This choice could have some very different outcomes, so I'm curious to know what everyone chose and why.
I'm looking forward to seeing the result! Much love! JB
I didn't finish a ton of testing this week, but I was finally able to start making some progress on S2. After abandoning my usual attempts to script out a scene before rendering, I tried the opposite, and I've started rendering what I want from the scene in the hopes that it will help break past my writer's block. It worked out alright so far, and it's made it easier to script out the S2 content, but I spent most of my time this week on the animations.
I finished 2 animations this week, and I have 2 more almost ready to go, but I might still need more after those. It's hard to say until I can properly test that section. I want every path to have substance, even if you opt out of specific content. I'm also a big fan of some of the content in this scene, and I may want to expand on it even further. However, that will depend on whether I can keep building on this momentum.
I've started working out some of the details for the beta testing changes, but it's still a little too early to give many specific details. I can say that it will still only be available to Mithril members and that there will be a very basic application process. I imagine it will be similar to the player choice polls posted here, but condensed. It will make it easier for me to find any errors if I already know the choices of the tester, and it makes me more comfortable sending out the beta to specific people rather than an entire tier. No joke, it's easily been the most stressful part of the entire release process for me, and I hope this will help ease the worry of the buggy beta leaking before I can fix any issues.
Sorry for the late report, I hope you're all doing well. Much love! JB
Another week has flown by, but at least I'm still making decent progress on testing. S3 and most of S1 are practically finished, though I'll need to run through them several more times before I'm satisfied.
I'm still rendering and writing whatever missing pieces I find along the way, and I even added a bit of substance to something that was going to be waved off in a cut-to-black moment. It's nothing major, only a few additional renders, but I think it adds a little more depth to the world-building. Still, though, for some reason, I keep avoiding the larger unfinished sections. Obviously, I'll get to them eventually, but for whatever reason, any time I load up one of those scenes, I always seem to get distracted by something else.
However, I've at least been able to plot out the remainder of S2. I'm not exactly sure how many renders I'll need, but my best guess is 30-40ish more. As for animations, I'm pretty sure I only need another 3-4 more to complete S2. My estimates could easily be a little off on this, but it's in the right ballpark
S6 is still in need of a little more framework, but as previously mentioned, it's only one scene, in one location, with surprisingly fast render times, so as soon as I actually get to it, it should wrap up fairly quickly.
I suppose that's it for this report! I hope you all have another amazing week. Also, I'm trying something new to display the testing progress. Let me know if it works. Much love, stay safe! JB
Hey all, Please be warned that if you don't want a sneak peek at what will most likely be the player's main sword, then you should avoid sc
Hey all,
Please be warned that if you don't want a sneak peek at what will most likely be the player's main sword, then you should avoid scrolling down any further. For everyone else, please continue.
Now that I'm testing a lot of the content, I've come back around to a decision that's been bothering me for a while. Many of you might remember me complaining a while ago about trying to find the right weapons for the MC, and I searched for quite a while to find something I thought was adequate. The problem is that there are 2 swords available in this pack, and I've been struggling to figure out which I prefer.
Now, months later, I've debated this for so long that I have no choice but to pass the decision off to the players.
I'll avoid giving any specifics other than the image and the style of the weapon to prevent any more spoilers than necessary.
Options are below:
The first option is a Longsword.
The second option is an Arming Sword.
The third option is, of course, having both available for the player to choose from.
Ideally, I would like to have both, but that will mean that I'll need to make 4 separate versions of most fight scenes rather than just 3. This choice won't affect the current release too much at all, but it would likely slow things down a little in the future.
Although, if you're like me, the only choice might be to have both, because, as they say: Variety is the spice of life.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks, and if you have any complaints or concerns, drop them in the comments. Much love! JB
Hey all, I had to scroll for a while to see when my last gold-tier post was, and I was ashamed to see it was on Valentine's Day, just a lit
Hey all,
I had to scroll for a while to see when my last gold-tier post was, and I was ashamed to see it was on Valentine's Day, just a little over 2 months ago. This didn't sit well with me, so I worked on some 4k renders last night/this morning.
The 4K versions and the trans variants are in the attachments below!!!
I was still having some trouble with the writing and rendering this week so I decided to work on the testing and coding instead. I think it helped spark some of my creativity again.
I think one of the reasons I was having so much trouble was because I've had my nose buried in my work for so long. When I can only work on one small piece at a time, it's hard to see the big picture and how everything fits together. After I started testing the content, all of the pieces started to make sense again.
The tested content is looking good so far, despite still being in what I would consider a first draft. Still, I spent a lot of time refining the code and lairing in the music/sound effects, and things are starting to shape up into a proper update. I can feel myself getting back into the swing of things, and I hope to have some proper progress to show everyone in the next report. Again, I'm sorry for the lack of numbers lately. I know that an apology is no substitute for results, but it's the least I can do until I can pull my head out of whatever hole it's in right now.
I'm sorry to say that I was almost entirely useless this week and it wasn't because of my back, which thankfully healed up pretty quickly after my last post. I have no valid reasons or excuses, I just couldn't concentrate on anything. Maybe it's burnout, maybe it's stress, maybe it's writers-block (developers-block?), I have no idea. All I know is that I'd rather be honest with everyone rather than make up some lie or fake the numbers to buy myself some time. It just wouldn't feel right.
I pray to the goddess that I can pull myself out of this funk and get back to losing myself in the work like I used to. It would certainly help to distract me from everything if I could. Speaking of, things are getting a little crazy in the world these days, so I pray that everyone stays safe and makes it through the other side of this thing in one piece. If you need to unsubscribe in order to protect yourself financially, please do so! Trust me, I understand!
I need to keep this short because of an injury. Long story short, I messed up my back and I've been stuck in bed most of the weekend. It's difficult to sit or stand for too long, but I'm doing what I can from within the haze of these painkillers.
I haven't continued as much with S2 as I had planned. It had been so long since I had worked on it that I felt the need to make a dry run through S1 first to get a feel for S2 again. Before I knew it, I was patching holes throughout just so that I could start the official testing phase of S1.
I wish I had more to report, but my decrepit old ass needs to get back to lying down. Much love! JB
I hope you're all doing well! It's been another difficult week, but I don't have much to report on that, so I'll just get straight into the report.
I dove into S6 this week and I'm nearly finished with one of its two scenes already. It is the smaller of the two scenes, but I'm still happy with the progress. After this chunk is done, I only have two scenes left, and I don't mean two scenes that are multiple scenes combined for the simplicity of the report. Two actual scenes, both of which have already been worked on a little. I'll be bouncing back to finish S2 first, so I can start testing as soon as possible.
However, I like to frequently remind everyone at this stage of an update's pre-release that I still have a fair amount of testing, coding, and sound design to refine, even after all the renders and animations are finished. If I'm lucky, I may even be able to start testing some of the early scenes this week, but that may be a little optimistic.
Also, as a heads-up, I think that I'm going to try something new for the beta testing going forward. I haven't decided exactly how it will work yet, but I'll update everyone as soon as possible so that folks can alter their subscriptions accordingly should they feel the need.
That's all for today! Stay safe, and much love! JB
I finally finished rendering S5, though I'm sure there are some missing pieces somewhere that I just haven't spotted yet. Also, there's still some coding and script work needed, so I left a sliver of that scene unfinished in the image.
Thankfully, S2 is only a single split-scene (a scene with multiple paths) with a few pickups for some of the already completed content. Hopefully, that won't take very long since everything (apart from the pickups) is happening in a single location. The best estimate is there are around another 30-50 renders plus a handful of animations left.
S6 only consists of 2 small/medium scenes with what I hope are no more than 100 renders and a handful of animations left between them. Again, these are all early estimates, and it would be wrong of me not to point out that I've been off on my render predictions for the last two reports, so please take these estimates with a grain of salt.
There's not much else to report otherwise. It's just been another wacky week living on the border of a nation that wants to annex my country. Fun times... Personal stresses aside, my heart goes out to everyone affected by this silly trade war, and I hope it all gets resolved quickly, peacefully, and diplomatically.
Hey Homies, With this poll, we have another seemingly small choice, but you never know how it may change things later on. I try not to crea
Hey Homies,
With this poll, we have another seemingly small choice, but you never know how it may change things later on. I try not to create any choices that don't have some effect on the story eventually.
For those who don't remember, near the end of chapter 4, you have a conversation with Cordelia regarding how you feel about the upcoming mission. To be more precise, her exact question is:
How are you feeling about starting your first military tour tomorrow?
It's been another wild week of uncertainty in the world, but I was still able to bury my head in the sand and get a lot of work done. Scene 5 only has one small section remaining. I estimate that there are another 20 renders or so before I can move on to one of the other scenes.
So far, I'm thrilled with all the additional content I've added to Scene 5, and although I won't be sure until it's properly tested, it feels like it was the right call. It might have added a few weeks to the dev time, but I likely would have done it regardless once I started testing and discovered how important it was to add more to the chapter.
I'm tired as hell, and I don't have too much else to report, so I'll keep things short today. Hope you all stay safe! Much love! JB
I can't believe it's already been another week. Time doesn't seem to work the same after the pandemic... Well, at least the seemingly short time wasn't wasted.
I finished 2 animations this week, along with another large chunk of script and code, leaving scene 5 nearly finished. I should only have another handful of animations and renders (best estimate 2-4 animations/20-30 renders). If I can lock tf in, I might be able to wrap the rest of s5 this week, but knowing me, that may be a little too optimistic.
We're getting pretty close to the home stretch for this release. It's still far too early to give any kind of time estimate, but I feel like I can finally see the finish line on the distant horizon. I'm extremely anxious to get this new content out to everyone. Believe me, nothing annoys me more than not being able to realize my vision faster. I'm so grateful for everyone's support and hope the final product doesn't disappoint!
Sorry for the late post, but I've been busy dealing with some BS. I'll spare most of the details, but once again, one of Windows' Mandatory updates has messed up my PC and I spent most of the weekend trying to undo the damage. My Bluetooth is completely non-functional, my PC has frozen several times for seemingly no reason, and I can't even play videos without an insane amount of lag. It's been frustrating, to say the least.
Just to be clear, my PC still works and I'm still able to render and script, for the most part. It just feels like I've downgraded my hardware. I'm still working on the problem, but, as with all new Windows updates, I fear it'll take a little while for people to figure out how to fix their BS.
All things considered, I was still able to get a fair amount of work done this week, especially on the script. I've finished scripting nearly the entire scene that I recently added (see last week's post for more details on that) and I've almost finished rendering all the build-up to said scene(s). Honestly, the more I work on these additions, the more I feel like they were a good idea. The chapter was a little light compared to my usual releases and I feel like these scenes compliment the existing content in the chapter very well.
That's all, folks. Hope you all have another great week. Much love! JB
This was another good week for progress. I pumped out a big chunk of renders and practically finished S5. I was able to cut a little fat from the scene since it was redundant, created better buildup for later in the story, and possibly most importantly because I'm likely adding additional adult content to S6.
All in all, not much to say this week, but at least there's nothing bad to report. I hope you all have another great week. Much love! JB
Hey all, Potentially minor teasers below I recently noticed that the first half of chapter 5 is a little light on the adult content. Initi
Hey all,
Potentially minor teasers below
I recently noticed that the first half of chapter 5 is a little light on the adult content. Initially, I didn't see this as too much of an issue because there are still a couple of significant adult scenes, and I was a little more concerned with progressing the story in this chapter. However, my concern is that if someone isn't pursuing the characters in question, then they won't have any adult content in this update. I know that's always a risk when adding a wide variety of characters to a story, but when I noticed that the characters in question may fall into certain less popular genres, I started to get concerned. I know that everything will eventually balance out in the end, but I've been completely stumped on the issue and have been curious about your opinions.
I've already outlined some options for potential scenes with other characters that I could slip in without affecting the story's flow. The additions could even add more depth to some of the existing content. The main problem with this is that it would add more time to development. I wasn't planning on adding too much with any of these scenes, but as with most things, I usually underestimate the work required or get inspiration to add more elaborate content than originally planned.
TLDR: -I was too focused on progressing the story in this chapter. -If you don't pursue certain characters, the adult content will be slim/non-existent for this release. -I can add more options, but it will take more time.
So... Should I add more adult content to the first half of Chapter 5, at the cost of more development time?
FYI: I'm not going to leave the poll open for too long because I don't want to linger on this problem. The sooner I can get past this and get back to wrapping up the release, the better.
Thanks all, I hope you all stay happy and safe! Much love! JB
