The past week has been very fast-paced, and some lessons have been learned.

After I posted Dev Blog #007, I went on a roll! Let's put it this way my progress went from everything being 100% done besides Rendering & Music. They both hovered around the 60% mark. Oh, and my estimate that the additional 2000+ words I wrote for scene 3 would add around 10+ renders was way off! I shat myself when it turned out to be an additional 50 renders that were needed!

Well, Daz has been a little bit of a shitter this week. It's not done what it's being told, and just downright getting stroppy when I want to change to a different scene. I've been dealing with many crashes only when loading a different saved scene. This has been frustrating; I'm not sure if it's a memory issue or what. I've checked the log, but nothing is written in there. So besides doing a full refresh, I'm out of ideas, and the refresh is something I can't be arsed to do.

So I decided to review my code and experiment with some ideas I've had from the start but didn't have the know-how to implement until now. I have added the ability to change the character's name via the in-game preferences window. I have also added some code for various game build packages, and I've tweaked numerous lines of code.

The way I have Ren'Py setup now allows me to provide a 'Standard Edition' and an 'Extra Edition'; the latter will be for patrons only and will include extra scenes and animations[1]. The main menu screen will tell you when you load in to let you know which version you are using. If you are in the middle of the story, the options menu will have a 'Bonus' heading with an 'Extra Edition' toggle.

The Standard Edition will always be free for patrons and non-patron alike. In addition, patrons from Adventurer and above will have free access to the 'Extra Edition'. Alternatively, the extra edition will be purchasable on itch.io for around £5.00 (TBC) for those who want to support the game but can't commit to a monthly expense. I always intend to provide extra content for Patrons, so now that this setup, I can freely add these as I develop the story.

Note: The Demo will NOT have an Extra Version. Instead, this will be released soon after Chapter 1 is released and will provide additional content for scenes in the Demo.

I think I've had my SubscribeStar setup now for maybe two or three weeks, around Dev Blog #005. I've been waiting since then for it to be approved. Not sure what took it so long, but the lack of communication from the EXPEDITE process wasn't comforting. Anyway, I politely raised my frustrations on Tuesday, letting them know I felt they could be doing more to keep creators up to date. A simple autoresponse could say, "Thank you for expediting your account approval process. Unfortunately, it is currently taking us x weeks to approve an expedited account due to increased demand". I'm not sure if that email did the trick or was purely coincidental, but I was one happy bunny when I got the approved email back.

Secondly, I purchased www.postboned.co.uk this week and have created a very quick and dirty web page using Google Sites. I haven't committed to buying a hosting solution anywhere yet, but depending on the success of PoD, this is something I will do. This will be yet another skill I'm going to have to master too.

So, this is Dev Blog #008, which means I've been writing these for eight weeks. That alone amazes me, and I can't believe I've been able to write enough shit for this long. When I first started this journey, I was alone, blogging away to the void that is the internet. So, yes, I'm making this AVN for myself first and foremost, but obviously, I want to share this with others, and that's why I have a few different platforms to share information about everything. But I never imagined that I would have 88 community members on Discord or that I would have two people donating before I have released any AVN content at all!

On Thursday morning, I woke up and did my usual check Discord, other Social Media accounts, and my emails. I had an email saying 'You just got a first subscriber' email from SubscribeStar for the 'Hero Tier'! Honestly, I was completely blown away; not only had my SubscribeStar account only been approved for less than 24 hours, someone had decided to subscribe at the mid-tier level. It meant a lot to me that people deem what I've posted to date without a release worthwhile and worth their hard-earned income. To put it simply, I was excited, exhilarated, ecstatic and emotional all at the same time; shit, that's a lot of E's! So to anyone who does support me now or in the future, I am eternally grateful.

Snowy

 My Linktree: https://linktr.ee/postboned_games

 [1] Animations will be added later in the story development, as I currently do not poses the skills or time to undertake these at the moment.