Have you ever noticed that there’s always something to write about when something goes wrong? When everything goes smoothly, these end-of-month reports end up being short. Which is good, of course, because if there are no problems, that means the work is progressing well. And right now, it is progressing well. Essentially, I’ve reached the point I wanted to reach by the end of this month. Although I haven’t been able to finish this section yet, for the most part it’s just “routine work” left—that is, I need to set the facial expressions for the three characters in the conversation (Rick, Kendra, and Felicité). There are also a few minor details and one more complex scene left in this section, but nothing too serious or time-consuming.

With that, I’ve made it past more than half of the chapter. What’s left consists mainly of conversations or scenes that can be portrayed with a few images. There’s also one scene that “repeats” a scene from Chapter 10 (Rick brings money to Terence), but those go by quickly, since I just have to adapt the existing images to fit the new day (well, okay, it’s not a 100% exact match, so there will be a few more tweaks here and there).

And that's it. Work is coming along well. I wouldn't dare give a release date yet—I don't want my optimism to get the better of me again—but I'd still like to release Chapter 11 this year. Right now, I'm feeling optimistic and can't see any obstacles in the way.

Until the next post thank you for your kind words, your honest criticism and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my patrons for their support. I'm available on Discord (where I also post pictures and little news of my progress) or here, if you contact me about anything, I'll answer. Maybe not right away, but I'll do my best. Or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Be good and take care of yourselves!

September wasn’t a month of inactivity either. At the beginning of the month, I brought Distant Horizon back to life with a short but action-packed update. The game had been in a state of apparent dormancy for a good two years—even though I’d been under the impression the whole time that I’d released an update for it last year. But that’s how it goes. To err is human, but it feels divine.

Now that the Distant Horizon expansion is complete, I can devote my full attention to Chapter 11 of Rise of the Crime Lord, which is coming along quite well so far. Of the 13 sections, the first one is completely finished—except for the translation—which is good news, since it was the longest and most complicated section. The rest aren’t nearly as tedious. This one section contains 157 images and 11 animations, plus three trophy images.

Originally, I had planned for this to be shorter as well—it was going to be just a simple conversation between Rick and Cora. My original idea was that this chapter wouldn’t contain any serious erotic content at all—no sex scenes, for example. Then I realized that people have been lynched for less, and I’d rather not risk that—plus, while writing the scene, I felt that there was a spark between Rick and Cora (at least when their marriage is going well), which I had to explore. So I expanded the scene. But there won’t be any such expansions in the other sections—what’s there is what I planned from the start.

So, the most challenging section is behind me. I’m not sure yet how quickly I’ll be able to move through the next sections. For the most part, they’ll be simple conversations that can be set up and rendered quickly. Plus, they’ll mostly take place in familiar locations, like the SSG. This just makes the work easier, since I don’t have to build the scenes from scratch.

There’s only one location I built from square one: the Royal Restaurant. It appeared in Chapter 7, but I really didn’t like it—back then, I only used those assets as a stopgap because I had nothing else. Now I’m well-stocked in that regard, so the Royal will appear in a completely new look. However, for this reason, I’ll also be reworking the scene from the previous chapter to ensure consistency (plus, this will also serve as a test for something I won’t say more about just yet). Don’t worry—it won’t be much work; I’m just replacing the background; everything else will stay the same. Also, while I’m at it, I might re-translate the text there and streamline the code a bit. But I won’t do anything that would prolong the workflow or render the saves unusable.

And I think that's it for now. I'm already working on the next section, and you can already see some pictures from that as well. I made a bit of slow progress today because, as you can see, I had to place quite a few characters to keep the place from looking deserted. But this is only visible in a few pictures, and now that I’m done with the setup, I can delete them at any time and bring the people back with just two clicks. For most of the scene, the camera will be focused on Rick and Jess, just like you saw in Chapter 10 at the Castle café. And despite the slow progress, I'm still working, even though it's already half past one in the morning here in my little country. I want to get as far as I planned.

So October will be devoted to Chapter 11 of Rise of the Crime Lord. On Discord, I’ll try to share updates from time to time on the percentage completion of each section (those who’ve been following along have already seen this before the Distant Horizon update). You’re also welcome to ask me at any time how things are going—here, on Discord, or even on the F95Zone forum.

And that's really it for now. Until the next post thank you for your kind words, your honest criticism and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my patrons for their support. I'm available on Discord (where I also post pictures and little news of my progress) or here, if you contact me about anything, I'll answer. Maybe not right away, but I'll do my best. Or follow me on Twitter and Instagram. Be good and take care of yourselves!