Hey everybody. Sorry about this one.

So the good news is, we have a final selected date for our first Launch Update. Like THE final one. FINAL final. Hell or High Water, this is a promise of the nth degree, we know we've done this before, but this is the truth, final, final time. So that's the good news.

What some may have the right to construe as the "bad" news, is that this release date has been pushed back to May 31st. Approximately two months from the previously believe March 31st. Oofdah. Does that mean it can't come any sooner? Absolutely not, it could be finished in any time sooner than that. But the guarantee is that it won't be any later than may 31st. Take it to the bank!

Now, was March 31st ever really a solid plan? No, and it technically never was, officially. Neither was January, neither was December, neither was October even at one point. But this one is, and we've got the schedule break down planned out on our end to show for it. We just knew we'd be in a better state of presentability if we gave us some additional time on this, and we really hope people will understand that. I myself initially stated, that I thought the first ever thing we produced might take over a year, which this in fact seems to point towards. I'm very happy with the progress we've made the past year though, and will be looking forward to what we produce with the remainder of our expected time as well!

We have a lot of stuff to show off soon, including the work of a brand new artist we've actually been able to hire on! Her work is pretty neato, and she's been a great help in stuff like icons and logos to help supplement all the major art as well. Can't wait to introduce her and her craft. I just gotta get some sleep at the moment, work week is starting right back up again.

Feel free to post any questions you may have below or on Discord as well!

-Morah & the SDG Team

Hey everybody! I already made my stupid joke in my impromptu posts yesterday morning, but...

So, I figured out the simplest way of getting my info, the important stuff, off my busted laptop and onto my EHD. That includes all my archived files and PNGs, scripts, desktop materials, downloads, everything. I think the only thing I lost in reality was my pride, a pricey Macbook, and, for some reason, some bookmarks in the SDG google chrome account. Don't even know why that would have happened, but when logging it onto my Mac and my backup Dell, they seemed to have disappeared. Odd, but again, nothing I can't recover!

The big booty cartoon girls? Those are the priceless things we just can't replace.

So, with that, I'd like to proudly announce a new Go Fund me to help me pay back the computer I accidentally- nahhhhh, you thought I was some punk ass bitch or something? I made a mistake, no reason you guys should need to suffer for it. Don't worry, when the money's actually really flowing through this bad boy, and I can start paying off wedding stuff a bit at a time, I'll also buy a good PC. Gotta broaden my horizons!

...no food or beverage to be near it. And things are now backed up on that EHD, I promise!!

Anyway, the crisis has more or less been averted. We shall rejoice. Keep your eyes and ears open though, there's a lot of new posts and little news updates to come for various different things! Stay tuned!

-Morah & the SDG Team

I don't know if things are completely fucked at the moment, but I am currently dealing with a totally fucked up Macbook, that had the bulk of everything I've had for this project. I even thought to myself "Geez, it's kinda scary that I don't have a proper Time Machine backup for any of this stuff, I really should take a look to see if I have an EHD lying around I could use for that", all an hour before a rogue hand movement knocked the remainder of a glass of beer onto it. Quite silly. Now of course, I didn't even THEN think to try backing it up, no, no, that'd be too common sense. I had to go and chalk it all up to "Well, I gues now that I've dried it and everything SEEMS fine, that it is!! Again. Silly. Me.

So I'm just totally shot and fried right now... All my own personal files and stuff are inaccessible, I never ever figured out icloud, so that's not an option, and now I'm stuck in recovery mode until I can get an appointment with the genius bar. The files that were on my computer included everything I personally saved and archived for Dark Dimensions and Stray Dream Games alike. Though this isn't as if I was the one and only person to have files or images for the game, certainly not, it just makes my archival a complete star from scratch. I also did in fact have a number of script corrections for the remainder of the prologue script, that, of course, I never sent a backup in the Scripts channel to in Discord... so that would and will take some time to make back up if I can't get this data recovered onto a drive, or have this Macbook repaired.

Thankfully, my computer does in fact at least SAY that my files according to Utility Disk are fine, or it doesn't really say anything about it, so, idk. I'm just fucked. This is the second Macbook since May 2023 I've had to go through, so this is fucking shitty to say the least. And it's all screwed up. If I can get my files back, great, I'm just down a $1100 laptop, at the same time I'm saving for a wedding in less than a year and a half, and going into the holidays where my work is asking for 60 hour weeks now... I hope to have some better news in just over 12 hours from now, but Idk... I just feel this was the worst thing to have conceivably happened at this moment. I really am just praying I can get things backed up onto my EHD and I'll have to use my desk computer in the meantime. That won't be so bad... it'll be godly fucking annoying, but it'll at least be what it is. Setbacks are setbacks, and I apologize for this one if this one ends up affecting any of you guys.

Going to bed now, or going to try to anyway. Will update you all by the end of this weekend, hopefully... it's just time and money that may be lost, but we can always put more time back in, and money isn't everything. It hurts a lot right now, but I am glad I can at least lend my ear to you guys right.

-Morah

Hey all you find, beautiful people out there. I don't know how long this post will be, but it's important, so please read each part. There'll be a TLDR at the end, but we find it'll best be digested if we have each bit of information understood. Sorry I didn't get this out earlier, my day only really started around 5:00 PM on Thursday cause I'm lazy and I don't like posting stuff too late so that way everybody gets a good chance to see it. (And I still only finished this while watching the Paul v Tyson Fight :P ) Anyway, our update on the Launch Update:

Overall, things are going good! Lots of quality art is being made, coding is getting shape to the point that we're gonna be ready for when we need it, and the second script, focused on Sam and her Dark Verse counterpart is already in the works, so we'll be prepared ahead of time for that one. And here, check out the main menu key art! Pretty spiffy, no?

Previously, we mentioned having a kind of internal deadline for sometime in October of this year. I think we had that scheduled around June or July. I personally thought it was a bit of a stretch that we'd have the time needed to get there, I knew the complete asset list and all. Regardless, we chose to work within that set deadline and set that expectation for ourselves.

Then early September rolled around, and we sorta all looked at each other and said "Oh, well, don't think that's happening, let's readjust what we think it'll be, and go from there." Now I thought we'd probably best bite the bullet and say "Let's push it out far and be pleasantly surprised if we get it done within the year since the development of our team", which would have been March into May of 2025. But lead dev, Lostraven and other important members said it would be pragmatic to try and get the game out within the year. And I still thought it was a far fetched dream, just looking at the art asset list still available.

But we made that public and tried to make that conceivably our goal, letting you guys in on that information, so you could all gear up for it with your excitement. So by the end of December, that was going to be the goal.

The goalpost, sadly, has had to move out a little further.

We're really sorry to have to report this information to you guys, but the project's first update will need some extension to get a respectable amount of material to work with. As we've said several times before, the Launch Update will take the largest amount of time to complete out of any (forseeable) update, as a grand number of assets that we require in the game have to be made from the ground up. Obviously our main's like Danny Fenton/Phantom, Maddie, Sam, Paulina, etc. take up a good deal of time to make on their own. But then you have to remember that the show and game have a larger membership of side characters that we're attempting to get to.

Somebody like Clockwork, for example, who didn't actually get to appear in the old game, Amity Park, was actually designed for it back in ye old day. I've attached some visuals of his design to show you what WAS made for him for that title. But for this game, which actually does have a different style choice as compared to Amity Park, we have to start all over with him. The Amity Park models were also designed only be made as much as they filled up the screen, so what you see in Amity Park models is usually what you get. That's why so many of the model comparisons have cut off legs, and both adult Clockwork's are no exception to the rule. So there's a long line of material we have to get through for even just one character alone, and we want to utilize our time as best we can to, as I said before, turn in something to you guys that's RESPECTABLE.

So, where does that leave things? How are we gonna do things to keep us on track for our new release window? What even is our new release window? How long can we keep pushing this out?!? Believe me, we don't like extending the window out any further than any of you guys. I want you guys to see the care and effort and passion we have for this game and these characters. It's also not even the most beneficial thing for us: we have a staff of five full time members, and we can barely afford to pay 3 of them just enough so they don't feel like schmucks. A release of the game would do us a solid boost of eyes and cash inflow that we could do some real good with. Delaying the game will only be a struggle for us in the long run, so that's why we don't wanna have to do it too much.

That's why we're gonna be shooting for late January into February, with March as a possible extension. So, for the sake of your own sanity, just tell yourself March is the due date, and then be pleasantly surprised otherwise. We need the time for polish as well as sheer volume of assets, so we really, really, hope you don't mind too much. Time has flown by for us as devs, so we hope it flies by for you guys as well.

Our new strategy however entails us working on assets to a *certain* degree, and then moving onto a new asset. Our only exception is H-Scene content, H-SCENES WILL NOT BE HALF ASSED IN ANY UPDATE. That's the bread and butter, that's why you guys look to play this stuff at the end of the day. But things such as:

-Character portraits
-Varied expressions
-Poses
-Backgrounds
-Overworld Map
-Portrait Animations 
-Finalized character Line work
-Coloring
-Combat Sprites
-GUI

...will be treated as "Not 100% Necessary" for this first update. These are all elements that can be added in at various other updates, monthly updates as it were. You'll be able to tell what elements are non finalized in the game as well by a tiny logo at the corner of the screen, that looks something similar to an "Men at Work" sign. We want it to be as clear as can be, not every character asset will be clear as day unfinished like black and white sketches. Hope that makes sense.

The game's launch has been delayed to late January to February, with March as a possible extension. While we're making great progress on art and coding, the sheer volume of assets needed for the launch update, especially with new character models and content, requires more time to finish properly. We want to deliver a respectable product and avoid rushing. Expect polished H-scenes, but other assets (like portraits, animations, and backgrounds) may be unfinished in the initial release, with updates coming monthly. Thanks for your patience, and we’ll keep you posted on further progress!

See you guys soon with more news!! Oh, and enjoy this other preview, on us!!

-Morah & the SDG Team