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Dev Log #10
Chapter 2 Progress
I've almost hit the half way point for chapter 2! I know that doesn't sound like a lot, especially when you consider that I'm aiming for early access to release in late January, but most of this progress was made in the last month alone.
Future Updates
I think giving myself 3-4 months for updates as large as mine are, is setting unrealistic expectations for myself and for you all to have of me. The main reason being that I have to do this in my spare time between work and other day-to-day responsibilities.
The better quality all around, means things are starting to take longer than they initially did when I set these expectations for myself. Chapter 2's development has shown me that I don't think I can really meet them without dedicating all of my free time to it, and let's face it, I have other things that I like to do as well, like spend time with my family or play other games.
I've personally never faced creative burnout before, but I'm certain that if I continue pushing myself as hard as I have for chapter 1 and all of chapter 2 so far, I almost certainly will... I don't want that to happen though. So I need to find a way to compromise with myself and all of you lovely people who decided to follow and/or support me in some way.
What's Next?
This isn't to say that the next chapter is delayed, I'm working on it probably more than I should be in order to get things done in time to hit my self-imposed deadline. I just don't think the following updates will be doable in 3-4 months, if this one even gets done in that time frame.
Really, the whole point to this dev log, is to get some insight from all of you. So after this post, I'll be publishing a poll for the free followers and paid tiers on Patreon and Subscribestar to see what you all would like as far as future releases go.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope you all are having a great time! I'll be looking forward to your feedback in the poll.
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Dev Log #9
Chapter 2 Progress
Progress on chapter 2 has been going well enough. I've been fighting near constant tension headaches that have slowed things just a bit. I find myself having to take a break and rest more often than usual thanks to how bad they get sometimes. However, overall, development is still picking up speed. It's looking like I'll be cutting it close for getting it out to early access in January, but I'm going to give it my all and hope to not disappoint.
Currently, chapter 2 is sitting at;
826 Added Renders
10,433 Added Words
7 Added Music Tracks
Various New Sound Effects (Some old ones were replaced as well.)
General Development
There's a new tool that will allow me to customize particle effects quite a lot, which means magic effects are going to look a lot cooler going forward, the only downside is that they take some configuring time to get them just right. I'm really enjoying creating some awesome new effects with it though, and I can't wait to show them to you all when chapter 2 come out!
I've still been making small jumps in visual quality as well. I'm keeping everything consistent looking, just gradually better and better as things go on.
I've also vastly improved my custom save upgrade system. It will now patch bugs or missing code into older saves so that you can continue with your save and not have to worry about missing data. So far in my testing it works quite well without breaking anything, but I know that probably won't be the case for different users and their unique scenarios. Fingers crossed that it works as intended in beta testing and eventually the release of chapter 2.
Anyways, that's all I've got for you all this time. As always, thank you to everyone who follows and/or supports me and my project! I never expected 0.1 to reach this many people in such a short time and I will forever be grateful to all of you who've made this possible! I hope you all are doing well and that you enjoy the holiday season!
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Dev Log #8
It's that time again! I never know what to write in these dev logs, since I want to avoid spoiling as much as possible, but there's a few important things that should be discussed.
The Graphics Rework
Since the last dev log, I've completely finished reworking the graphics of chapter 1 and gotten back to working fully on the next chapter. My focus is no longer being split and progress will continue to be made at a quick pace. I think the new look is absolutely what I wanted for SotD from the start and I'm glad I got to a point where making it how I envisioned was possible.
I reworked the lighting in every single scene for every render, I changed up some camera angles for a more cinematic visual flow, I even redid the animations (they look a lot better). I truly hope that the change will be enjoyable for everyone, as it was a lot of work.
I will also reiterate, that this was only a graphics change. Nobody has to go back and replay chapter 1 if they don't want to. Other than some slight dialogue changes that most won't even realize, nothing else has change with chapter 1.
Patreon Changes
Even though nobody was subbed at these tiers, I feel like it would be disrespectful not to mention that things have changed for them. Commissions were moved down to the Scion tier and the Deity tier has been unpublished. I may bring it back in the future, but for now, I feel like it didn't really have much to offer, especially for the amount of money that it was set to.
Early access has also changed for the Scion tier. Instead of getting the game 30 days earlier than public, it'll now be 21 days earlier. I mostly did this to shorten the length of time between early access and public releases.
Chapter 2 News
Chapter 2's production is back in full swing with the rework of 0.1 finished. It's a bit early to say anything about release dates, but I'm thinking I can get it out for early access in January, with the public release landing in early to mid February. This is just an estimation and it could end up being a little earlier or later. I'll nail down an exact date when it's closer to being finished.
I also have a few beta testers now, so hopefully I can deliver higher quality and bug free updates from here on.
That's all I've got for you guys for the moment. A bit late, but Happy Thanksgiving to my American followers! As always, I hope everyone is doing well, and I love and appreciate every single one of you for being here and supporting me as I bring this grand tale to life!
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Dev Log #7
This dev log is going to be a shorter one, since I don't have too much that's new to share. I touched on a lot of this already on Discord, but I'll talk about it here too, for those that aren't in the server.
Also, I do apologize for the log being a day late. I was feeling very bad yesterday and didn't get around to posting.
I've been working on revamping the graphics of 0.1 while simultaneously developing chapter 2. I figured as long as it doesn't extend the release time, why not improve things? The graphics overhaul is about 2/3 of the way done in about a week's time and should be finished soon.
Why Change the Graphics?
Some of you probably noticed that as chapter 1 progressed, the graphics got significantly better. With the time after releasing 0.1 where I was mostly just marketing my game, I was also working on refining my graphics to get a good and consistent visual style that I like. This caused chapter 2 to look vastly different and much better than 1. Too different, I think.
I really wasn't happy with the majority of 0.1 visually, but I was really excited to get it out there for people to experience. That excitement caused me to overlook how bad the start of it really was and led to the dissatisfaction that I now have with it.
I told myself that I'd try and remaster it alongside developing 0.2 and not delay the release of it, which should have a patron release in January, if nothing goes awry.
For those who may be concerned that this will become a habit, don't worry, it won't. I will likely still improve and older things will look worse than newer things... but they won't be outright bad. So I won't feel the need to go back and do this again for future releases.
Anyways, that's about it for now. I've attached some images from the rework for those who are interested in the improvements I'm making. Oh, and nothing else is changing. So, for those who don't want to go back through it just to see the graphics, there is no need to. Thanks for your time, and have a lovely day!
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Dev Log #6
Chapter 2 Progress
I've completely finished Chapter 2-0 and Chapter 2-1 with the latter being one of the largest parts in all of Chapter 2. Audio, visual, and writing are completely done.
I know most developers include percentages for each thing, but my process is a bit different. I write the dialogue for a scene, render the scene, then add sounds, transitions, and such. Because of this there's not much of a point to separate things since they'd all be the same percentage of complete.
A Break from Coding
I haven't really had to do any intricate coding since I finished up the things mentioned in the last dev log, just the basic things necessary to put all of the scenes together. So, there's not really too much to share on this front.
I did fix quite a few typos from Chapter 1, I guess that kind of counts for code. I combed through all the instances of "your" and "you're" to correct all of the places my brain messed up. Despite knowing the difference between the two, my brain likes to throw me off sometimes.
That's about it. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I'm 300+ renders into Chapter 2 and those eat a lot of time, and since that's most of what I've been up to there's not really much to say about them other than that. I could talk about the story, but I don't want to risk spoiling things.
As usual, I hope everyone is doing well and that you all had a great Halloween!
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Dev Log #5
Chapter 2 Progress
I've been making some good progress on chapter 2 so far. I'm almost done with all of Ch. 2-0, which is the first of 11 total chapter parts. The way I do things is I get all of the writing into Ren'Py dialogue, render the scenes, and then go back and add all of the effects and audio.
I'd say I'm sitting at about 7% completion for Ch. 2 right now, but I've been doing a lot of work on the coding end of things, which I don't factor into the completion percentage. So if this seems kind of slow, that's why. I'm nearly completely done with the code now. So it'll soon be nothing but story progress.
Speaking of code...
Coding and UI Changes
I have been doing so much work on the coding side that it's unreal to even begin listing off everything. My hopes in doing this all now, is that I won't have to do anything else with the core code throughout the rest of development. Which means faster chapter releases for all of you!
Like I said, I can't list everything I've done with code, as it's simply too much and most won't be interested anyways. That said, here are the notable features and improvements.
Changed "Preferences" to "Options" and divided settings into categorical pages for easier navigation.
Drastically improved the UI for better Android usability and a cleaner look on PC.
Added a save naming feature. This can be toggled on and off right from the save menu, to use either a name you set or the default chapter part names that are present in v0.1.
Implemented a save versioning feature to migrate and patch any bugged code between updates. (Hopefully meaning that saves will never break from an update.)
Fully integrated lore unlocks into the in-game Developer Menu and completely rebuilt that for ease of use.
A lot more on the backend...
Translations
Those in my discord have already seen some examples of the work I've put into getting proper translations done. A lot of my old code was missing the structure to export translation strings. That has now been fixed.
Basically, every piece of text in the game will now be translatable. Also, based on talks with a translator, getting just Ch. 1 translated to Chinese would be a minimum of $3,000, so I think proper translations will be out of the question for quite some time. Especially, when you factor in other languages that I'd like to have.
With that information, although I'd rather not, I'll be shipping a few other languages with Ch. 2 that are machine translated. It'll be rough, but with the community's help, we can improve upon it until proper translations can be done. Let me know what languages you'd like to see implemented into the game.
When loading up Ch. 2 for the first time, the game will pick up on the language that's set for your device and should switch to that language accordingly, if it's a present translation in the game. I'll also be bundling some alternative fonts that it will automatically switch to so that the translations can display correctly. This will only happen the first time you load the game and if you manually choose a different language in the options menu, it will keep that language unless you yourself change it again.
Anyways, this post has become pretty long, so I'll leave it off there. I'll also include a render from one of the scenes to show off some more about the graphical improvements. I hope you're all doing well!
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