Update: Leaps, hurdles, and stumbles
So, it's been a month or two.
First thing's first: I did not think it would that this long to get another version update out. Alas that my life has been complicated lately for a plethora of reasons that will become blindingly obvious to anyone interested in such things in a few months or so.
For those uninterested, allow me to ruminate on game development!!!
Learning how to code for this has been a pain. A rewarding pain, yet a pain nonetheless. Ditto for trying to nail the game-flow for Singularity - The Final Experiment. I know a lot of HTML games have frustrating design and a tendency to over-or-under reward a player in terms of the sexy stuff. Some games are completely linear, and some have a sandbox approach. Some give short snippets, others give a main course of plot with a smutty dessert on the side.
My natural tendency is to do the long-winded writing spiels seen in the prologue/intro section of Singularity - The Final Experiment... which, after some thought, felt more suited to VN fair. Cue me taking a hacksaw to how long I planned on making most of the sandbox'y sex scenes (which still ended up amply sized, all things considered). Right now the plan is to be as restrained as I can be; that means short-snippets of lewd stuff during the free-roaming, some medium-sized storied lewds for the nanyte dosing, and a free pass to be a windbag whenever tackling main-story stuff.
I've reworked the Nanyte-Dosing interface about twice now, as well as bug-fixing the passage of time in the game. I've added in a talk menu where you can ask Sin's friends and pseudo-family stuff about X and Y and Z, which will change depending on how you've affected them. This is something I intend to take my time filling in as I get those permutations coded, scripted, and written out story-wise.
There's been some trouble on the imaging front. Namely, I am terrible at file compression, so I've tried replacing gifs with looping videos. This has worked, but also there's a dozen-second lagging startup for the loops to begin (afterwhich they loop seamlessly) and IDK what's causing it and if it's even worth spending the time to fix. So, that's been unfun }:(
Story plotting has, on the other hand, been going seamlessly enough. I've about plotted out the next series of main quests, and have a rough outline of what comes after that. Big picture wise, I intend to take a chapter approach to escalating the narrative, split into three chunks: the house/lab and some choice locales while the Quarantine is up, then the University once Sin finally goes off there, climaxing with Sin getting a job at Cyber-Corp HQ.
Naturally, I'll condense these beats if I feel the need to speedily wrap up my HTML game-making career.
On the non-HTML side of things, I'm still doing a Ren'py VN thing on the side, which has suffered from some headache-inducing complications. As it turns out, juggling between two coding systems isn't good for the health. Not to mention some stuff I'd rather not yap about because I don't wanna be a petty bitch about it. All you need to know is I've wrangled some art people and asset-commissioning has begun.
Parallel-development: I wait on assets while working HTML, then dip into Ren'py when those goodies are delivered. So far, I've coded up a basic opening story segment (kinda like I did with Singularity - The Final Experiment) and am waiting on Art Assets for all of it so I don't expect to dip back into that pool for awhile.
I thank you all for not yelling at me. If any of you are impatient, you've a right to be. I won't make any excuses for the slow pace, only offer explanations, curse the weakness of the uncooperative human meatsuit, and endeavour to take this whole project more seriously.
Expect next version to come next month. This month still has some doozies left in it for me to overcome. It is how it is. Thanks for listening to my ramble, have a great day, see you around this time next month at the latest.
At the latest cause if I can't manage something this time next month, I'll probably pack it in and give anyone who sent money my way some exclusive video content related to the Lewd Review Show I'm on hiatus from as recompense. Assuming Subscribestar doesn't allow full re-funds, which I guess I'd look up how to do if worst goes to worst.
Do you people SEE why I went through a whole character arc figuring out the proper word-count ratios for the smut in this game? I honestly cannot help myself. I meant to type out a quick speedy update and have been hammering away at this for half an hour.
Send help plz. Emotional support help. I have a guy for physical help.
See ya }:)
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