Ashley's Day - and Other News

Hey everyone!

If you recall, back at the end of last year I took a poll to ask what little side project I could work on to offer in between game updates. A continuation of the Broken Watch Branch of Hypnosis won the contest (although one of the other options, Beth's Ending somehow got released first), and it's now polished up and ready to go at last.

What is it?

We pick back up right after Leah's birthday party. That night, to be precise.

In the game, we skip a week ahead from this moment as we realize we haven't seen Haley for a few days and decide to search for her. This script picks back up for the events of that week, spending a day with each girl. We end the day with Leah, and begin wake up to Ashley's day.

To Ashley's surprise, Leah wants to give her time alone with the MC, as Leah had a great night getting some solo time with the MC. Most days are spent as a trio with Leah, if not several other girls, and there is an awkward moment as they realize they haven't experienced one on one Ashley and MC adventures for a while.

They start by going over their finances and trying to figure out how to make some more money to fund their group, especially after this expensive cruise has effectively cleaned them out.

This script is a total of 88 pages with 105 images.

Originally I pitched this project as a comic format with words on top of the images. This was my goal, but after several attempts I realized it wasn't going to work. Once Ashley, Leah, and the MC got in a room together there was no stopping their mouths from making word sounds. Trying to keep it contained to a purely visual format wasn't working, as much as I wanted it to. So, you may notice the first several pages is a lot of images, and then they slow down a bit once I accepted this was going to be more of a script with images.

I got a few pages of outlining before realizing I needed to go back and replay the game and take notes for consistency and making sure I picked up on the different open plot threads. After I replayed the path there was too much to go over, so this ended up being more like a script with images. When I did, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the experience. My memory in making the Broken Watch Branch was focusing a lot on what I didn't want to include, mainly storylines that were already planned for the main path, so I didn't realize how much fun the cruise adventures could be.

A big piece that is missing, I feel, is simply spending those quiet moments one on one with each girl, and a chance to get to see them without clothes getting in the way. This path is a focus on the girls getting big, so skimming over that feels like a missed opportunity.

When I originally wrapped up the Broken Watch Branch, I knew there would be a demand to continue it at some point, so I ended it with the goal of returning. However, after working on it for almost two years straight I was getting burned out, so now it's much more fun to return to it when I have the inspiration, not when I'm trying to force it to a conclusion.

So, depending on how you guys respond to this, I plan to continue with small increments at a time. This one took a lot more planning and time than future installments would, as I wanted to plan out overarching storylines and research where we left things and try to play it all with fresh eyes. This installment focuses on Ashley's day, but it only focuses on the morning, and will continue with another update. At 88 pages already, I don't expect the other girl's days to be nearly this long, as a lot of time was spent on the MC, Leah, and Ashley planning out the events of the upcoming week.

Later, I plan to bring this script into the game itself. With the majority of images completed, and the scenes saved so I can also make animations relatively quickly, it seems to make sense to add it with the next Hypnosis game update. However, adding smaller, more incremental scenes between game updates was the goal, and I feel this does that pretty well.

Ashley's Day can be downloaded here

Let me know what you think!

What's next?

I'm still working on the next update for Endowed, but I decided to simplify things a bit. Instead of two more updates (a small one which would focus on adding the new Bad Reputation path to previous chapters) and a larger one with Chapter Six, I realized two updates in a row without progressing the main storyline isn't a great idea. So I planned to combine both into one update, but now, after a full year since the past update, I'm going to simply focus on Chapter Six and worry about the Bad Reputation update later.

I'll still finish up the missing scene with Jazz in Chapter Five, and possibly the new prologue where we see Uncle Henry's last moments in the club, but otherwise I'm going to try to just finish out Chapter Six. A lot happens in this chapter, and I'm excited to get it out. Mainly the MC's libido is raised significantly, and this leads to several exchanges where he can decide how professional to act.

I still don't have an ETA for you guys, but I'll let you know when I do.

Otherwise, I want to launch a Landing Page for each game where all the relevant info is put together in one place. That was my attempt with the Links and Resources page, but with extra scenes and content now, I feel each game would benefit from having a full post dedicated to it.

I also want to get the next chapter of Taylor out in the near future, and once Endowed is finished I plan to have the next chapter of Unexpected out shortly after. After that, I'll get to work on the next update for Hypnosis.

Thanks, everyone!