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Development Update - 13.01.2023
🕑 Added 2023-01-13 20:55:21 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
Welcome back in 2023! We’re working hard, things started to moving really fast 😄 I adjusted my working habits by transcribing scenes (writing down and describing all the images for the scene). This way I’m no longer wasting time thinking about what image I should do next but just sticking to the transcription. It may sound obvious but it was a real discovery for me 😄 Thanks to that I’m able to do x2 more images per working session. One day I was even able to do almost a 100 so that’s really great! All in all the number of images just crossed 1200. This weekend I’ll post some polls for January wallpaper and extra scenes! Joshua did also an amazing job lately but just read what he has to say:
OK, 2023 is on us. We're closer to a release and the game is progressing really well.
At this point, it's obvious that episode two will be a big one. Actually, that's an understatement. It's massive.
A lot of people said episode one was large. when it came out. By comparison, episode 1 had 208 pages of dialogue (about 63,000 words).
Episode 2 is almost finished, but already has nearly 300 pages, and will likely top 120,000-150,000 words when complete (Which I hope will be in the next few weeks).
The size is my fault entirely. When I plotted the script at the start of this, I didn't take into account that the characters would have almost a life of their own. Scenes I thought would be a few lines grew larger, and scenes I thought would be mostly just following the script benefitted from having real, impactful choices, which required alternate dialogue, and so on.
The result though is, I think, a great story that the player can tailor to their own desires.
So for everyone asking "when?", we hear you. We want to release the follow up as soon as we can. In fact, we could cut the script in half and it'd still be a decent update. But the thing is, we want our players to feel like the story is moving, so the end point of the episode matters a lot.
I know some people might think this is too much thought to be put into an AVN, but hey, there's plenty of games out there, we're hoping to add something a little different, and it seems there are people who agree.
I can't wait for you to see what happens next.
Stay tuned!
Comments
Terrance Phillip
"I know some people might think this is too much thought to be put into an AVN" Not at all. Simply by not opening with several minutes of lumpy exposition about the MC's life story, followed by mini biographies with the introduction of every other major character, you are providing something more interesting than like 90% of the AVNs out there. A depressingly vast number of AVN devs have never even heard of "Show, Don't Tell." You're putting an honest-to-god story out there with proper structure, relatable character motivations, clear language, and even professional-grade punctuation. Several times, I found myself thinking, "I'm not sure we even deserve something this good."
bgray9054
I'm glad you're putting a lot of thought into the story and I'm a fan of bigger updates, personally. Last thing I want is to wait months for a release and then only get like an hour of gameplay. That's one thing that hooked me in after playing Ch1 - it was a big chapter with a good chunk of content so definitely don't want you guys to get lazy with the script and scene setup just to pump it out quicker. I say all this despite really wanting to play Ch2, but I'd like it done correctly. So by all means be as efficient and quick as you can, but while maintaining good writing, scene setup, image / animation quality, etc.
