Greetings from the smut-forge! It’s looking fairly good over here – all the fires have been put out, and our kobolds are (very) hard at work. I’m not going to linger overlong on the calamitous month of May, besides to tell you that all of our problems have now been sorted and that I’m still very grateful for all the support that you’ve shown us.

We were able to get a reasonably chonky build out last month, which I am proud of, but it has also impressed upon me the need to focus. You might be experiencing a bit of ‘update fatigue’ while waiting for Chapter Two, which I think is reasonable. For that reason, I have decided that our next update will be Chapter Two. We will halt our monthly update cycle to free up all of our resources, and fully commit them to the task at hand.

And gosh, what a task! A novella’s worth of court events, new interactions and scenes and costumes for our harem, and new developments amidst the various powers that brought you to the throne. And new offspring! Our lead writer Mattrex has been drafting this monster of an update since last year, and Irrelevant Art has been spending that time getting all our art assets ready. The principal bottleneck has been my own availability, which will now be laser-focused upon getting everything finaled and tested and ready for your enjoyment.

That means this is likely the last you’ll hear from me for a little while. I’ll return, triumphant, when we’re ready to finally turn that page. Until then, I hope you enjoy exploring what we’ve already created – there’ll be a lot more of it, soon.

I’m back! It’s been a difficult couple of months for me; Corona-chan hit me particularly hard this time around. Fortunately, we have an excellent team, and they have kept everything in motion in my absence (and while I’ve been catching back up) - something I am extremely grateful for.

Now that things are back to normal, let’s have a look at what’s coming up. The first piece of news is that we have our soundtrack coming out this month! This has been requested for ages and I’m very glad to finally get it sorted. You’ll finally be able to chill out to Marina Montague’s beautiful voice, or bop to Exo Spectra’s insane beats. We have a launch party planned for the 28th April on our Discord server, if you’d like to come along and listen to them jam together live for the first time.

You might have noticed that our lead writer Mattrex has been very quiet this year. That’s because he’s been working on Act V Chapter Two, which is now starting to be fed into the vast editing/coding/playtesting machine. It’s already an easy hundred thousand words long, and will get bigger still before we’re done. Despite my virological woes, I still very much want to get Chapter Two out this summer, and I will be prioritising that work going forward.

Which is not to say you won’t have anything to enjoy in the months between! Our lead editor DoItToJulia and her team are busy filling out the remaining pieces of Act V Chapter One - Balthorne, Eburon, Mother, and Zizeryx. Our scene artist Lubbio is remastering his oldest work, to bring it up to his impeccable modern standard. Our sound squad under HereToHelp is working on a fresh mountain of voice acting. And Exo Spectra is working on even more new music!

So thank you, all those who support the game. With your help we’ve been able to build a little studio that’s able to leap forward in many directions at once, even when I’m out of the picture. And that’s humbling, in a really nice way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82R2DnYJDtQ

Midwinter is always the most cursed period of development - a constant onslaught of plagues, family commitments, and other terrible woes. This year, we’ve been able to keep the smut-engines running (at a slightly slower pace) throughout. Now the ice is thawing, spring is around the corner, and we’re revving up for the most pivotal year in our journey.

First amongst our priorities is Chapter Two of Act V, which I know everyone is excited about, and which will release in June. This means a fresh roster of court events, which our lead writer Mattrex has been working on for the last few months. It also means we need to add the last interactions for Chapter One, and start populating new content for all your lovely waifus - a large team effort, expertly enabled by our lead editor DoItToJulia.

Once we have that foundation laid we will continue to populate it with more content, in much the same way we did (and are doing) with Chapter One. Our sound team under HereToHelp have stepped up their production considerably, and you can look forward to a lot more voice acting, sound effects, and new music in the months to come.

But Chapter Two is not the end of our main plotline! We will be gathering together all of our narrative threads, and allowing you to find the ending that best fits your dragon (and his harem), in Chapter Three. That’s all planned out, and ready to commence development as soon as we have Chapter Two in hand. It’s going to be a very busy year.

Before I get back to work, I ought to mention that it’s Ravager’s birthday next month - the anniversary of my very first (and very humble) build. If you would like to celebrate, come join us over on our Discord server on 23rd March. There will be appearances from our voice talent, AMAs with the crew, party games, and all sorts of frivolity. All are welcome, and I hope to see you there.

Last month we were dropped by the only remaining payment processor for Itch, meaning that we could no longer make (or benefit from) sales there. This was a pretty awful turn of events, but not disastrous - the whole team pulled together to offer lots of new benefits in the Great Subscription Drive, and a whole lot of you added or boosted your contributions. This has been a huge reassurance in a time of financial terror, and I would like to thank you all very sincerely for your kindness. Thank you.

If you haven’t had the chance yet, the Great Subscription Drive continues through to Sunday 17th December, so it’s not too late to get yourself a custom welcome note from Nyono.

In development news, we continue to power onward: our lead editor DoItToJulia is masterminding the completion of the last elements of Chapter One (including Balthorne, Eburon, Mother and Zizeryx), while our lead writer Mattrex is leading the charge into Chapter Two. We plan to release Chapter Two in the first half of 2024, as soon as it is ready. This is an adventurous timeline to pursue - there’s an awful lot to write and draw - but we have our foundations in place, and we are very serious about finishing what we have started.

Monthly updates will continue in the interim, as always. Our next one will arrive in the first weekend of 2024, after a brief shutdown across the festival period. These might be a little more media-focused for a while, as our writers’ attention is focused on preparations for Chapter Two, but our artists and voice talent will continue at full tilt throughout.

Looking further out towards the horizon, we have also commenced very early pre-production for our next game, codenamed P2D. Our occasional splash artist Undoodle, who made the beautiful CGs for our set-pieces, is joining us as a full visual lead for it. We will be working on it at a gentle-but-steady pace, with the intent to have a demo available for you shortly after Ravager’s main plotline is completed. You can look forward to a proper announcement about P2D in the near future.

In the interim, I hope you all have a very cosy winter period (or a very breezy summer, if you’re in the other hemisphere). I look forward to kicking off the new year with more high-grade draconic content for everyone. Cheers!

State Of The Realm: October

I am back! After a month spent catching up on sleep (and very occasionally other things), I am settled at my desk and burning through all the delicious content that was crafted whilst I was away. It is going slightly slower than I would like, thanks to my first personal introduction to COVID, but you can still look forward to a slightly-delayed release this coming weekend.

Getting to the end of Act V Chapter One’s main plotline was a major undertaking, but it’s not the end of our work on the Chapter. We can’t call the 5.1 branch done until all of our cast have new content in it! Enid, Eburon, Zizeryx, Balthorne, Mother, and Breaker are all jockeying for extra content – and they’ll all get it in the upcoming months. And at the same time, we’re preparing to make our jump into Chapter Two.

That sounds like a lot of work, and it is. Fortunately, our lead editor DoItToJulia has had success with her writer recruitment drive, and our new crop of talent will yield its first fruit in the coming release. With your ongoing support, we’re able to bring more and more resources onto the project. So thank you, all, for that.

In other news, we have continued our experiments with Live2D: Amon Ra has crafted a beautiful animated scene with it, which you’ll all see soon, and we are commencing very early pre-production work on what will happen after Ravager reaches its conclusion. More on that in our next State Of The Realm post!

Hail to all you draconic kings (and queens, and other assorted monarchs)! This month’s State Of The Realm is a little later than usual - after the massive release of v5.0.5, I took a much-needed week off to go outside and touch some grass. And a very pleasant week it was. I figured that maybe this month would see a nice little tidying-up build, but no, everyone in the team has been extremely industrious and I am doing all I can to catch up. You should see the results this weekend, assuming playtesting goes smoothly.

A lot of my other efforts this month have been focused around sound. It has always been my ambition to have a fully and professionally voice-acted game, and our means are slowly catching up with that goal. Thanks to you! Our newest VA Demi Goggles will be stepping up to voice Enid, and Commander Hector will soon have a voice also. We’ve got new studio recordings from Catkit (Maelys) and Marina Montague (Adeline/Chia/Marie-Anne/Mina/Naho), including replacements for old voice acting done in far humbler times. Our range of ambient sounds is getting properly populated with Michael Ghelfi’s work, as well as an effects suite mastered by GreyScale (Ravager/Rhyll) - who has also been working on getting a full soundtrack ready for you all. And I can’t go this far without giving a shout out to our amazing sound team (HereToHelp, GerdGenus, Mokkel, and Stuke), whose fierce work behind the scenes has kept pace with the avalanche of new recordings.

Sound hasn't been our only area of focus, however. Amon Ra and Irrelevant Art have been spending a lot of time this month with Live2D! The results aren't quite ready to share - not just yet - but their work is very promising, and if their experiments yield fruit then we'll see the benefits for the rest of Ravager's development. And beyond.

Speaking of development, I had best get back to it. I'll leave you with this parting message, drawn and animated by BeeFeeBoyo on our Discord server, and voiced by Catkit herself.