[~August Mini News~]

Hiya everyone!~ Sorry it's been a bit quiet here lately, we've been extremely busy trying to get everything ready to presented for our newsletter soon. 

The newsletter will cover a range of screenshot previews for the upcoming content, new features and systems added to the game in action, highlighting exactly how much work has been going into Episode 1's content to give a better idea of what to expect for the rest of the game.

Once again, we'd like to remind everyone that the improvements and additions to earlier content doesn't mean we're scrapping existing content or starting over, limiting fans/supporters in any way. This isn't a reboot or starting fresh, etc.

We are doing improvements to existing content to better the pacing and of course the addition of new gameplay systems and features included, adjusting those to fit with existing moments and in-between them.

It has taken us far more time than we would've liked personally to have Episode 1 ready, but there was a lot of foundation building needed for these new systems and gameplay, not so much the time it takes to get it into the engine and functioning.. But rather, we have to lay out exactly how the timeline of events take place. 

That's typical for the story content & writing, ensuring there's no major plot holes or the pacing ruins the experience. There's a story/lore document we've been refining and improving for over 5 years, that alone has taken time to dig through everything, cross-reference and make sure nothing clashes or doesn't work, etc. Once players get their hands on Episode 1, it'll begin to open up the story majorly as we have the outline of how the pacing improvements and additions there pan out.

It'll make a lot more sense, trust the process! 

Basically, there's a lot of moving gears in setting up these new systems, not all of them obviously.. Like new player choices isn't suddenly a new concept or anything crazy at it's core.. ^^" 

But we are leaning more into meaningful choices that are paced out, and trying to ensure these choices either impact CG content, possibly unlocking new future written scene/moments, or changing the direction of how events play out during a given scene itself.

There's a early choice shortly after the protag and their buddies come across a teacher (Tara), where there's a lot of processing taking place with the sudden news of diapers being a thing, let alone the other rules, and their shock leads into a player moment that splits into 3 paths that differ from each other.

One choice leans a bit more into erotic focus early on, totally changing up how the scene proceeds and plays out, while the other two feel similar in how those play out vs that choice, but one choice leans a bit more into the oddity of it all, a bit more mystery vibe. While the other choice leans more into comedy, etc.

On paper it sounds easy "Well, I'm going with the erotic path choice!" XD but we're keeping that in mind, trying to ensure whenever player choices appear, it isn't going to default to one really fun or rewarding choice, while the other two feel lack luster. That'll really shine as Episode 1 gets into the 2nd half and how the game tracks things into Episode 2 forward, really starting to open the doors a bit more and play more into the protagonist (player) making choices based on what seems best, or possibly how you'd react in that moment, etc.

The phone interface system is another thing, where in theory it isn't like it takes us months to get that one system into Ren'py and working. It's more so, figuring out how the system will hold up throughout the entirety of the game, basically everything being worked on can be seen as the foundation of these new systems and gameplay added, where once we have these sorted. (Which we do now!)

Episodes 2 and beyond shouldn't take us more than 30-35 days ideally to deliver new game content. Can things still popup out of the blue from one day to the next? Sure! But, in the event we find that we're not going to make a given release date window for new content.. We're looking at ensuring we get any level of content in your hands regardless.

We're trying to find that balance between quality content vs rushing to get everything ready and out all at once, having to slow down and return to already released content to fix it fully, delaying new content development because we pushed content out when it wasn't in a 95% finalized state. :S

So, our solution moving forward is that if Episode 2 in full isn't ready and we know it won't happen realistically within that 30-35 day window.. We'll do smaller release chucks of content to keep things steady. What we mean by that is, say September comes along and halfway through the month, we realize only the first 2-3 scenes are fully ready by then and the rest of the episode is easily going to need 20+ more days to get it all sorted out entirely..

We'll make a game build that contains those first 2-3 scenes to provide a steady flow of content for players. 

(The only issue there that we see, is if it happens regularly, some people might not want to download new builds bi-weekly or so. Ideally this is more of a last effort if we really can't hit that 30-35 day window.)

We don't want this news post to be too long, but we needed to break the silence and let everyone know that new content is underway still! Our newsletter will be shared around on Twitter and openly when it's ready, all the previews and highlights, etc. 

I don't want to toss a exact or estimated time window for when to expect the newsletter, much like we're feeling awkward about listing dates for releases of new content.. <.< But, the chances of seeing the newsletter by next week with some other goodies that same day is fairly high. 
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We'll probably mention this last tidbit in our newsletter as a highlight as well, but simply put. Our game development that's on-going/active has reached a point, where there just isn't nearly as much stuff to share with new posts. We still have art previews, mainly for CG art needed all the way until the game is fully finished. 

But I think we've come to realize that we're just simply at a far enough point with game development that the only kind of posts we can make will be news/game related talks for the project itself (like this post and newsletters) along with some similar stuff like a voting poll for the month, a few things like that..

But when it comes to more exciting visual related posts, honestly... We have all the game's BG art completed, the sprite art needs are wrapping up in the next few months (most of those are heavily story spoilers, so it's hard to share those yet without huge questions for us). Which kinda leaves us in a spot where for visual previews of stuff to expect from month to month for posts, it'll most likely be CG art previews & game screenshot/video previews. 

Sometimes we'll have an odd post for chibi related art asset previews or similar smaller tasks, but overall what we're getting at with these mentions is firstly addressing the lack of posts lately. <.<

The other thing is that quite simply, we're probably looking at a more relaxed posting schedule. I'd like to get back into tossing out at least two posts on Subscribestar each week, expecting 7-8 posts in a month, quality posts.. But, we just wanted to address what the expectations for regular posts and exclusive content for supporters will be like moving forward.

(I think this point of development naturally hits anyone, where at first, a brand new project will have tons of stuff to share and show off as it's getting a lot of visual stuff done. But as those assets are taken care of one by one, it shifts into a more auto-pilot mode. For example: Our main team after Lisa finishes sprite work will consist of myself (writing/editing/lead director/etc) Our programmer, CG artists (two of them), and our composer/sfx person mainly. Once in a rare while our chibi artist, but even those needs are dwindling as we have the assets needed mostly.)

In short, it's nothing to fear about the project as a whole.. ^^" We're actively developing new content and we'll showcase that here shortly, moving forward again with regular releases. But.. We just wanted to address our post schedule and expectations, explaining why that's slowing down a bit.

With that, I think this post has gone on long enough for a "mini news" post. :S But hopefully everyone's been doing okay lately!~ It's been extremely busy this summer, both the project and personal stuff going on, but it seems to be settling down too. <3

[Next post will come for supporters by Wednesday/Thursday, featuring CG art previews for some upcoming additions for Episode 1 and Episode 2! Double feature!~ Post after that should be next week early on for the newsletter, then trying to keep with a Sun/Mon post + Wed/Thurs post weekly.]