This past week saw a series of failures and achievements which hopefully will result in better overall renders for Council of Lies. Here's the breakdown:
◙ Created a new banner for CoL
  • This instituted a making Marie's hair dforce, which means that on occasion this will be used to make the hair look less like a helmet.
  • It's still fairly experimental, since I haven't found the absolute perfect settings.
◙ Spent a fair amount of time in Blender making custom morphs for Marie's clothes.
  • This means a better fit overall and thus more realistic looking clothes.
  • Performed some other experimental morphs in order to institute certain scenes. (they failed)
◙ Created and rendered JE scenes
◙ Created and rendered NPC busts
◙ Added menu enhancements to CoL
◙ Added options enhancements to CoL
◙ Added new NPCs and dialogue to make the castle feel more alive
◙ Started Kiaran letter event.
◙ Other things I am forgetting.

This was a long time coming, which I will address. But first the bullet points:   
  ‣Addressing the long time in updates   
  ‣Plans for the game   
  ‣The next update   
  ‣What has changed
  ‣The game

          To first address the long time between updates, it's quite simple really. I didn't work on it that whole time. However, the combined time I was able to and / or did work on the game for this update is somewhere north of a month and half. It was likely more than that, but considering how much time has passed it is hard to have a concrete answer. 

          When Council of Lies started to get noticed, I wasn't quite prepared. The version that was released before this current one I felt proud about at the time. However speaking over it with some people I know, I decided to instead push the game once it had more substance. Thus we find ourselves here.

        There are a number of things planned for council of lies, but what is achievable is another thing. In the short term content regarding the dinner sequence in game will be added. Further progress with the council members will definitely come. And further interactions for Marie when she is alone is certainly a possibility.
       Long term goals are listed on the roadmap available in the public master post. Some of these goals require their own plugins to be written for them. Others are simply a matter of time and patience to cobble them together. I'd also like to be able to upgrade the entire sprite set to be 48x96 sprites. I have already found a template I would like to see used for this, but it requires someone with far more skill than I have. Which means contracting out the work.

         The next update should take roughly three to four weeks to push out. Based on prior experience it's about a week and a half to two of preparing renders. And a week (maybe more) of using rpg maker. The caveat to this prior experience is that it was from a time where my main work computer was unreliable at best. That looks to be resolved now, so it may be faster.

       I'm not going to talk up the work done, because frankly few people understand just how much goes into it. So here's the short of it (this is also available on it's own individual post).

◘ Version 0.1c (Alpha)   
  • Resolved some major issues regarding the memory room and playback
  • Resolved issue regarding Edwin and Alex event. (there are two triggers, and one wasn't turning off).
  • Added Marie's dress outfit sprites
  • Fixed dialogue at dinner time.
  • Resolved Jennevive being in her room when Ben was with her.
  • Other minor issues.
          -Thank you to moonkblack on the discord for reporting a good 90% of  the above.
  • Excluded newer content. 
◘ Version 0.1b (Alpha)
   • Resolved minor issues with picture placement
   • Ensured that player wouldn't see stuck scenes due to wearing chainmail after temple scenes.
◘ Version 0.1a (Alpha)
   • Fixed minor issues with pictures not being deleted
   • Fixed minor issues with move route causing player to be locked in place
◘ Version 0.1 (Alpha)
   • Initial public showing
   • 10 scenes added (Some with clothing variations)
   • 23 maps added
   • 6 story characters introduced
   • Bust images, lots of bust images
   • 6 character sprites added (two more on the way)
   • Framework for image optimization laid out (All images should erase, but if you find one early on that doesn't, this is why.)
   • Autosave added
   • Intro redone (If you have an old save you may need to start a new game)
   • New main character busts corresponding with outfits
   • Skip indicator on warning page (this was always possible, it's just now clear)
   • Event balloon icons have been updated to distinguish follower events
-Known issues-
   -Night time may lag the game in some parts of the castle, this is due to the lighting. It will be addressed with a likely complex fix.
    -Marie and Alex are missing sprites for the dress and casual clothes respectively. This work has been contracted and is nearing completion.

     CoL v0.1c via mega.nz 646mb
      Update files for converting any version of v0.1 to 0.1c.

If you happen to find an issue, you may contact me in a few ways, but the fastest is via discord. See the master post or FH subscribestar landing page.

The following consists of change logs for Council of Lies.

Version 0.1.1 Changelog:
◙ Eight new scenes.
• One scene is urination content, and may be turned off from the menu.
• At least one scene is fairly long, so buckle up.
◙ Added a few NPC busts
• Despite getting a bust, the princess has nothing to do. Yet.
◙ Revamped the way Marie's busts are drawn
• This was to save on file size in both the current and future version. Roughly a 300mb decrease. And png compression has yet to be explored.
◙ Ninja'd in some stat gains on scenes
• I don't recommend replaying for these as of yet. They don't do anything right now.
◙ Probably some things I've forgotten.

◘ Version 0.1c (Alpha)   
  • Resolved some major issues regarding the memory room and playback
  • Resolved issue regarding Edwin and Alex event. (there are two triggers, and one wasn't turning off).
  • Added Marie's dress outfit sprites
  • Fixed dialogue at dinner time.
  • Resolved Jennevive being in her room when Ben was with her.
  • Other minor issues.
          -Thank you to moonkblack on the discord for reporting a good 90% of  the above.
  • Excluded newer content. 
◘ Version 0.1b (Alpha)
   • Resolved minor issues with picture placement
   • Ensured that player wouldn't see stuck scenes due to wearing chainmail after temple scenes.
◘ Version 0.1a (Alpha)
   • Fixed minor issues with pictures not being deleted
   • Fixed minor issues with move route causing player to be locked in place
◘ Version 0.1 (Alpha)
   • Initial public showing
   • 10 scenes added (Some with clothing variations)
   • 23 maps added
   • 6 story characters introduced
   • 8 character sprites added
   • Framework for image optimization laid out
   • Autosave added
   • Intro redone (If you have an old save you may need to start a new game)
   • New main character busts corresponding with outfits
   • Skip indicator on warning page (this was always possible, it's just now clear)
   • Event balloon icons have been update to distinguish follower events
  -Known issues-
    -Night time may lag the game in some parts of the castle, this is due to the lighting. It will be addressed with a likely complex fix.
     -Marie and Alex are missing sprites for the dress and casual clothes respectively. This work has been contracted and is nearing completion.

◘ Version 0.01 (Early Alpha)
   • Initial release
   • 4 scenes included (3 optional)
   • 19 maps added
   • 10 story characters introduced

The image consists of the working road map for council of lies game development. You may notice a fair amount of blank space. That's because what is prioritized from version to version may change over time. Long term goals however are listed on the right side of the map and are fairly concrete.

The story of council of lies is laid out, and by version 0.5 or 0.6 the story climax will likely be started within the game. This is due to the events that will occur during the climax potentially taking some time to lay out.

I laid out this content map to give stars (and potential patrons) an idea of the content layout of the game. It does not serve as a guide to reaching such content nor will it ever. Guides may be made at a later date (no promises).

Also please note that the "content crossover" might be a bit misleading as it stands on the map. And may not mean that characters from one route show up in another. More on this later.