I'm just gonna lay it out straight.
The game was leaked again yesterday and it's completely destroyed what little mental I had left after December. I can't even think straight. It's 9:25am and I'm still awake from yesterday just trying to calm my mind down. My hands have been shaking for hours, my forehead is numb (I have a tic when I'm stressed) and I'm just altogether in bad shape.

December was a really challenging month. I'm well used to long hours at this point but December was the most extreme development cycle period that I've ever pushed through and I'm not sure that I've ever felt as unwell as I do right now because of it. I promised myself that I'd take a day or two off work once the alpha launched but the second I woke up the following morning I immediately started working again because that's just what I do.

This project has been my life for a long time. It's had it's fair share of heavy blows but I've always been the type to just put my head down and work through whatever may come.
Right now I'm in this strange cycle of work and work alone. I feel guilt when I'm cooking dinner, I feel guilt when I'm at the shop, I feel guilt when I goto bed simply because I'm doing something other than working.
I don't really know how to train my brain away from this obviously horrendous habit but it's hurting me and I can see that clearly. It's so blatently obvious to me how bad it is because I can't even focus on work right now which is the most alien situation I can recall.

This is NOT a retirement post. It's an "I need a break" post.
Years ago I stated that "either I finish the game or I die trying" or something to that effect and that is as true today as it was then. If you've been around me for more than a millisecond, you know how devoted I am to this game, to it's characters, to it's story. There is no conceivable universe in which I don't see it through.
I just need to take some time and force myself away from it temporarily, for real this time. No sneaking back to generate a video or two because I think of a good pose, no creeping onto the computer to touch up that one CG that's sticking out in my memory. I think I need to create distance and let my brain recalibrate to that of a normal human again.

I've always been very open with all of you which is a risky move when you're public facing but in return you guys have always been so extremely kind and so patient and so thoughtful and I can't express just how grateful I am for that. It means more than you know.

Knowing me this "break" will last all of five minutes but I am seriously going to make the effort to stay away from all things development related for at least 1 week. Enough to give me a new system restore point.

I've made the Deviant release post public. I have things that I wanted to add regarding the patch but I'm so out of it right now that I'm just gonna leave it as is x

I'm sure you're all sick to death of hearing how thankful I am for all of your support but I am thankful and I always have been and I know that I always will be.
I'll be back in the dev chair again soon once my brain stops vibrating.

Love you guys x

HAAAAAAAAAAPPY NEW YEAR!! ♥ ^_^ ♥

I feel like I've run a marathon, my whole body is aching lol
I've barely moved this past month and I'm on my 17th hour of work today so it isn't exactly a mystery ^_^

ANYWAY PATCH TIME!

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YOU KNOW THE DRILL! BE CAREFUL WITH OLD SAVES UNTIL THE PATCH IS 100%
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Links: https://gofile.io/d/B7eija

FIRST THINGS FIRST: If someone could download the patch, open the game and check that your saves are all still there then report back to me that'd be a REALLY big help. I had to update the nw.js for RPGM to correctly translate video however this screwed up some plugins, one of which is the save to appdata plugin which was completely rewritten - if your saves aren't appearing, don't panic. In that case the game is simply looking in the wrong directory and I'll need to tweak the plugin. Mac users may run into totally different problems but I'll talk more on that below.
Also you may need to use "nw.exe" to run the game on Windows now. I just tried it myself and the old game.exe no longer works with the updated nw.js lol

I mentioned it in the last update but I'll say it again; the patch is not finished yet. The scene will cut short and it'll probably break your heart at the point it stops but rather than start the final stretch, I thought I'd just cut it where it currently ends. I feel cruel ending it where it stops but I didn't even have time to finish what's currently in there so I had to cut it somewhere :(
One of the CGs in the set is a placeholder which I don't think I've ever done before but it'll be quite obvious when you see how rough it looks lol
The final 30 CGs are also still left in their first draft writing so it's VERY barebones there which is sad because it's my favorite part of the entire scene with my favorite CGs as well - finishing this is a top priority for the Model patch.
Also one of the new soundtracks is extremely quiet and I apologize for that too (it's the song that plays after the first choice). I stupidly left the master volume low when I was mixing it the other day and I completely forgot to fix it. It'll be sorted for next patch.
Some of the video currently in the scene will also be replaced and other sections of video are missing. The problem with some of the video is that the base CGs simply don't work well with AI and I need to re-render them strictly for generating video and I just didn't have time. The missing videos are:

1: Jake fondling Lisa's breasts - this part I actually showcased 2 or so months ago but the video is so terrible that I didn't see any point in editing and implementing it as it's getting removed. I'll be working on this animation passively over the next few days and will likely be added in either the model or the tutor patch
2: Lisa giving Jake a handjob - This one needs fully re-rendered images expressly for AI use but likely won't take more than a couple of days as it's only a 1 or 2 shot video.
3: Troy fucking Lisa whilst pulling her hair - I tested this one quite a bit but couldn't get it working correctly. I'm gonna try rendering an image that I think would be best case for AI and give it one final attempt but if it doesn't work, it won't be included.
4(Maybe): I am gonna attempt a fourth but I won't spoil what until you've actually played the patch x

There are animations to be added to the final section as well but the aforementioned are just from the currently implemented content. I wanted to have 5 minutes total footage for the entire scene and currently there is around 3:30. Given that there is missing footage from the scene as it stands right now and also remaining footage to be added in the final section, I expect the final length to actually exceed 5 minutes which is very cool ^_^

If you've already completed Jayce's Party just goto the mirror in Lisa's living room and select the third option - until I restructure and reorganize the entire Recollection Room, this will be how new content is stored for replays (the Recollection Room crashes when I add more content to it so it needs to be completely re-done and that's time that I never have lol).

The new animations are controlled globally per save. The DS Cheating event and all future events will have a still image version and an animated version. Which one you see will be controlled by what you have it set to in the options. When you start a new game or when first loading a previous save the game will ask you whether or not you'd like to enable animations. You can toggle this at any time (outside cutscenes) in the options. Anyone currently saved within the DS Cheating route of the party will be prompted within the event. Animations on or off applies both to live events and to the Recollection Room.

The rest of the post isn't really important so feel free to skip unless you're a Mac user and your saves are missing ^_^

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Technical issues getting videos working within RPGM:

What a nightmare xD
Getting video to play in a manner that I could reliably use text alongside was a lot more work than I anticipated. The native video player in RPGM sort of takes over the entire game, it becomes a video player for the duration of the video which isn't at all what I want. The primary issue here is the game's nw.js being so outdated alongside a few other plugin conflicts. I had to take the plunge and update the nw.js which was something I had actioned a couple of times in the past but ended up reverting the update because of plugin issues but sadly there was no way around it this time.
The main issue is the save location. The old plugin I used defaulted to a directory that would change based on the nw.js and I had no idea how to stop it. Thankfully now I have my javascript bot ChatGPT to help with such things however I still don't know how Mac computers handled the old plugin instructions. I can predict with ease how Windows would act but Mac, I have no idea. I have added a secondary plugin which attempts to migrate the Mac saves to a new concrete directory that will be saved across any future nw.js updates but there's no guarantee that the migration will work.

To Mac users: Don't stress if you open the game and your saves aren't there, they haven't been deleted, it just means that the migration didn't work. If this ends up being the case I can upload a quick fix to restore the old directory which you can manually install but this issue needs fixed at it's source. If your saves aren't showing up; if any Mac user could tell me a rough directory of where your saves have been stored with each version of the game, are they stored with the game files, are they available to use across game versions without transferring them? Answers to these questions would help me massively.
There is a chance that there could be issues with the Mac versions with the updated nw.js. If there are problems, I may know a way to fix it but the fix would completely break the video elements. Do let me know if things are either okay or not okay, no mountain's too steep! x

Scene status and the next morning event plan:

As mentioned previously, the scene is currently unfinished. It'll take me a few weeks still to finish everything. Where the scene stops will be really frustrating and I'm sorry for that but I have things sort of sectioned in this scene and I thought it best to cut it off before entering the final section. I had mentioned a potential for cumshot choice but I don't think I'll be doing that - instead the cumshots will be animated so hopefully that'll put a smile on your face lol ^_^

I've also decided that the next morning sequence will be the longer version - I don't wanna cut corners here and I think the long version is just better for the cheating route moving forward so I'm going with it. It'll probably be another 30 CGs on top of the remaining CGs in the DS Cheating scene but they'll be dead quick to make because I already have all of the sets ready and waiting. I can probably get that entire section done in under a week including RPGM implementation.

Writing dialogue for video:

One problem with having two events per scene (one with video and one without) is the writing. When I'm writing a scene, I write the rough outlines of dialogue for each CG when I'm actually making the image in Daz. This keeps things cohesive and glues the scene together - makes total sense to work this way. However AI video isn't reliable enough to create the exact dynamics I'm looking for in a scene so the writing has to be altered for the video side of things. I can't tailor a series of expressions in video to reflect exactly what's being said in the text box and even if I could, the scenes are series of videos, not a single shot. This was a design choice that I might have to double back on. I wanted to make it cinematic and interesting to watch so creating 2/3 different angles and stitching them together felt right to begin with but the oversight here is how do I write on top of that? I might have to create loops (loops are a nightmare btw) of single angled shots and let the text run on that frame before moving to the next to keep things at least somewhat aligned with the still image text.
These are simply growing pains of new features that I haven't fully figured out yet. I hope you'll go easy on me over the coming months while I get a firm foothold on how best to tackle video implementation.
The dialogue in the scene has been mostly reviewed but I do want to go over it a couple more times to try to achieve the best feeling possible with it all.

Time allocation:

Learning this AI stuff took a huge amount of time this dev cycle. I'd estimate that at least 30% of my time was dedicated to trial and error testing AI video. My previous statements on generation overnight aren't actually as useful as I first imagined. AI is really finnicky in that it requires subtle tweaking of LoRA strengths, prompts, etc to get the desired results. Then some scenes look better with different sampler settings that I currently find impossible to predict so it's really ALL just trial and error. Whether it's a different AI model, different prompts, different LoRAs, different scheduler, etc. Then finding the sweet spot between all of the aforementioned is like solving the world's most frustrating and time consuming puzzle. I can't action all of these changes overnight, they needs tailored in real time so it certainly is more time consuming than I originally estimated and sitting waiting for 15minutes per video without access to Daz during this time isn't ideal.

This doesn't mean that I'm stopping, not at all. It just means that I still need time to get a better grasp on what works and what doesn't then I can formulate strategies for each scene that I plan to use animation in. I've generated almost 4000 (yes, FOUR THOUSAND) individual videos over the past 3 months.

I had to double take that figure myself. I used powershell to check my comfyui output for .mp4 & .mov files (I first pass h264/.mp4 videos then I'll generate the same seed as prores/.mov for higher quality when it comes to interpolation) which returned a figure that had my jaw fall to the floor. Explains why my electricity bill has literally doubled since the start of this cycle (xd) and yet I still don't feel confident creating a plan of action but it's like anything else. I have no doubt that that confidence will come in time.
I am also still limited by hardware. Generating higher resolution imagery is a steep curve in VRAM requirements and I'm literally capping my VRAM with every video I make with ZERO headroom. I'm not certain how much higher quality the video quality could go with more VRAM but I know it's significant.
Ultimately, I just want to make things that you guys love so please let me know if you liked it or if you didn't.

Quality variance in video:

You'll likely notice that some videos look better than others, this is due to several reasons but the primary one is experience. The worse looking videos were generated a month or more ago whereas cleaner video has been made more recently. I can't ever really promise that all videos will look ultimately crisp because I simply don't understand how the AI will translate each image but I can promise that consistency will improve over time as is evidenced in my more recent generations.

After 3.3.X final is released:

Once this scene is fully finished I'll actually have at least a week of free overnight generations to test things whilst I get the groundwork sorted for the remaining scene so I was thinking of making a poll to see which previous scene you guys would like animations added to. I have a funny feeling that Moddy is gonna win regardless of what I put on the poll but I'll probably throw it up anyway ^_^
I probably won't put the Lisa x Sharon scene on the poll because I'm not sure how easy it's gonna be to get good movement between two women and one man but I'm expecting it to be kinda rough. I know a popular request will be the orgy but I simply can't include the entire orgy because that's like 20 different scenes but I could attempt specific portions of it. However I am concerned about how the AI will handle how contrasty those images are. I'm happy to attempt it though, worst comes to worst I'll just re-render the images with less contrasty lighting ^_^
I don't have an exact time frame on how long the scene will take to fully complete. Say around 80CGs total to finish then at least 4 more videos (this will actually be something like 12-15 videos but it will appear as 4/5 in the final cut). 30 of the CGs I think I can do in a week and the other 50 probably 2 weeks? As for the videos it could be a day or it could be a month, it's impossible to say but it shouldn't take too long.

Reflecting on 2025 and looking into 2026:

This same day last year I had just released the patch with Lisa's journey into Aoife's home. I dunno if anyone else feels like that was a lifetime ago but I certainly feel that way lol. The big achievement this year was getting Exhibitionism operational. It's still my favorite content that I've made to date but perhaps next year I'll top it with the bathhouse ^_^
There wasn't a lot of story content released in 2025 but that same trend won't continue next year. My goal is to get most of Episode 3's content wrapped up by this time next year which includes a lot of story progression with Aoife specifically.
I also expect to have the main Rubbins' credit completely finished, most if not all of Brava done, Theos completed as well as we gear up towards Lisa's graduation. I don't expect to get quite that far in 2026 but it'd be nice to get close.

As for what else is in store for 2026? Who knows.. I have a lot of ideas and I'm as enthused as ever.
I am deeply considering the biggest change in my life in a very long time in that depending on how the launch of the website's members area goes, I may consider making Lisa my full time job. I've been back and forth on this for a long time now. It'd be a totally insane move on my part but I dunno man.. I want more time to work on the game AND I want a bit of a life back outside of only working for five years straight but this is completely impossible with my current schedule. I'm burning the wick at both ends currently. This December for example, I've worked something like 14 hours every day this month with the exception of Christmas day and one other day that I spent with my Mother and I probably worked 6+ hours on both of those days as well. Something's gotta give eventually.
I'm a pretty safe person, not much of a risk taker and this would be well outside of my comfort zone but it's this recurring thought in my head that I can't shift. Nothing's set in stone so we'll see how things go in the new year ^_^

As per usual if you come across any typos, any lingering sound effects, any weirdness happening, bugs, inconsistencies, etc please let me know so I can clear em up before the game reaches more people x)

Alrighty! I don't think I've had a full nights sleep since November so I am gonna try to wind down and get a snooze tonight with no alarm. I hope the video inclusion is interesting and to your liking guys, let me know what you think please <3
I'll hang around for 30 minutes just to make sure that saves are working but after that I'm just going to bed lol x

Sending my very, very sleepy love your way and wishing you all a Happy New Year!!! ^_^ xoxo

//pG

Deja Vu from this very same day last year lol! Just wanted a quick public note that the patch will be uploaded in say 7~ hours-ish. I'd really like to get it done early so I can spend NYE doing something other than development for once (probably sleep, zz) but it if it requires it, I will see it done ^_^

The patch is, as previously mentioned; unfinished but it should be stable given that it's only the single huge DS Cheating scene.

That's really all I wanted to say. I'm still alive albeit quiet, I just get tunnel visioned in work in the lead up to releases ^_^

Happy New Year to anyone that doesn't see the release post later today lol! ♥ ♥

//pG

Just a quick stop to wish you all a happy Christmas ^_^

I don't have a holiday Lisa image or anything ready but I'll share this wee picture that ChatGPT made for my year in review thingy. I thought it was super, super cool. I find pixel art so charming to look at even if it is AI generated lol 
Is it obvious from this picture what I use ChatGPT for? ^_^

Anyway I hope you all have such a great day today. If you're sharing with it loved ones, tell them how much you love them x
Patch online next week!

Love you guys ♥

//pG