Hey everyone,

sorry about the delay, had a really busy month.

The topic of this progress update will be Kara's sprite with some previews as promised last time, and then a couple of other things. Kara's sprite is currently only lineart, but it should give you a pretty good idea of where it's headed.

Below is a side-by-side comparison. In defense of her old sprite, I don't think it was ever quite "finished". And before you ask if Kara wears no shoes - I just haven't drawn them yet. I don't think there's ever an instance where a character sprite shows the feet, so... low priority!

Here's a variation without the apron and with her hair tied:

I'm not 100% finished with the lineart just yet, but I'm happy with the general direction. After Kara, I think Anasteya's sprite is due for a rework next. While her current sprite is not necessarily bad, the proportions are a bit off from what I've been drawing in scenes and I'd also like all of the sprites to be consistent in style. Besides - it only takes about a day to do it when I get a vibe I'm happy with. That being said, I'm not 100% sure if it will be included in the next episode.

Aside from this, I've been playing around with ideas to make certain scenes a little more dynamic - fight scenes, for example. Using Adobe Premiere, I was able cook up this in less than twenty minutes:

I can't post videos (or gifs, apparently) on Subscribestar, but - the actual version wouldn't be looping like this. Instead, it would play once and then effectively freeze on the last frame. Hopefully, it will make fight scene feel a little more dynamic (especially once I get better at doing it). I might be able to leverage this for making sex scenes feel a little more dynamic as well, but nothing complex. In Adobe Premiere, I'm just taking the existing assets, moving them around and rotating them - nothing as sophisticated as a penis entering a vagina. But a little camera panning and such might still help make them look more appealing.

Outside of arting around, I've been heavily focusing on tightening up the script for the game as a whole and trying to make a realistic plan for what I can and can't do. There are many things that I /want/ to do but won't be able to in the interest of keeping the story going at a reasonable pace. But that's probably something best discussed in a separate post.

Anyway, that's all I have for now, so let me conclude with a quick sketch of Kara!

Love you all,

Worlaix

Hey everyone,

we’re still a long way off from episode 6 release, but personal and professional life has slowed down after a few bumps so I’m looking to speed things along as much as possible.

I think many people figured out by now that even though it’s been a while, Elvensang’s story is still in its infancy. It’s easy to think how that spells doom for it ever being finished, but despite the lengthy development time, I am consistently managing more work in less time – even if it doesn’t show because there are periods when I simply have don’t have that much time overall. I’m not a student anymore, you know...

But while the road ahead may be long, it’s my sincere hope that it will be enjoyable all the way through. There’s stuff ahead that I am really looking forward to in the story, and honestly, cutting away the unnecessary tidbits to get to those points quicker definitely takes a little finesse that I still need to attain. They’re small things that collectively add a lot of clutter, but it’s hard to find a way around them without harming the immersion (if you’re a noob like me, at least). Transitions between scenes, for example – back in the day, I used to effectively narrate everything step-by-step way too often. For example, if the current scene is in the Ealdorman’s house while the next is in the smithy, I’d narrate the character going down from the fort, through the village, and into the smithy. However, when handled with finesse, all that’s needed is to just transition from one scene into the next; and then let the player fill in the gaps of what happened. A good little thing to ease in these transitions would be actual images that go inbetween, which could be reused as well, within reason. But figuring out such small details is how I plan to cut away a lot of unnecessary clutter and keep things focused on the substance of the story.

A somewhat related thought – I was thinking about some of the better tv shows out there as well for comparison. Think of a masterfully made TV show where each and every scene is integral to the story, adding to character development, world-building, the plot – or all three at once, ideally. But focus too much on one, and you’ll get encyclopedic quantity of needless exposition (half of which you forget before it becomes relevant), or a story where nothing moves forward because the characters just sit around talking about their feelings.

I may or may not be guilty of some (or all) of the above, but it’s all a learning process. I’m aware of the mistakes I’ve made, and the best I can do is learn from them and hopefully do better next time.

Anyway, that’s it for this log. Next progress log (within 10 days), I’ll show a couple previews – maybe even a preview of Kara’s sprite. Maybe.

Also, I wanted to make the cover for this progress log something artistic but couldn't get Sunny's face right, so it's just hands for now. Even more artistic, right?

Love you all,

Worlaix

Hey everyone,

just to give a general update on episode 6 development direction, here's a little summary of how things will go.

Episode 5 was just a half of what I initially planned, which means that its "second half" will be coming in the form of episode 6. It's important to note that Episode 5 wasn't exactly all that "short" at 43k or so words (when 16 months development time is ignored anyway). Moving forward, I want to be more deliberate with episode length; and that brings us to the progress on episode 6.

I would say that the script outline is 90% finished. I shuffled some things around when I decided to make the split, so I had to make up for that with some adjustments. One thing I should mention is that there was a certain poll about a character scene; and rest assured that the winner has not been forgotten, and the scene will show up in episode 6.

Polls are quite fun, so I'd like to do them more often as well, mainly regarding stuff that I'm indecisive about. I want to work a bit on drawing clothes, so I will probably design some sketches for a new Sunny outfit and then have a vote about which one you like the most.

Outside of the main works on episode 6, a full Kara sprite rework is planned for the episode. As you may have noticed, her sprite is a bit shit and does not match how robust she is in unique scenes. I had decided to make Kara a bit burlier as mentioned in another post a long time ago, so I need to make sure her sprite reflects that. Some other less exciting sprite reworks are going to be for Rodrick, Wilbur and Clod, and young Sunny, too. They are desperately needed because the sprites are really bad - and redrawing them all will be like a single day's work, anyway. 

Lastly, the GALLERY feature. We will be seeing more and more juicy scenes, and so having a gallery feature is becoming a necessity. Nothing sophisticated there; review erotic scenes from the past (and MAYBE get a hint about scenes that haven't been unlocked yet). 

Anyway, that's it for now. I am helping someone move over the next few days, but I will try to think of something more visually exciting for progress updates moving forward.

If I forgot about anything, please do remind me!

Love you all,
Worlaix

Hey everyone,

I'll keep things brief for once! Here's the public version of Episode 5:

PC: WORKUPLOAD
MAC: WORKUPLOAD

Some 43k words, 
45 or so unique pictures, 
a couple new backgrounds, 
Sunny's sprite rework

There will be another post in a day or two about what's next in Elvensang's development.

Hope you enjoy the episode!

Love you all,

Worlaix

Hey everyone,

I should start this post with a huge apology for the delay. I'll go over things in more detail down below, but for now - sorry for keeping you waiting!

Let's address the most important topic first; episode 5. The early Patreon access will be on Christmas itself (24th, or 25th at the latest). Everything in the update is completed, so the public release will come out a week later as scheduled in more or less the same shape, barring any bug fixes.

Regarding the episode itself, I am not very happy with it. It's very short considering it's been in development for like 16 months, the art quality is all over the place, and the main story development is insubstantial. Maybe it's not all that bad, but you'll have to see and judge that for yourself.

It should go without saying that longer development time does not necessarily mean a longer episode, but possibly that the development ran into some hurdles. And I really don't like going into personal stuff, at least not while it's unresolved. It's not that I don't want to share, but I just don't think I should be using this platform for farming pity or venting about personal shit like it's my twitter account. Of course, radio silence as the opposite extreme is hardly the better option, so finding a balance between the two is something I have to work on as a 'creator'.

A huge mistake I made was announcing that I would release the next episode in July. First of all, I think it's clear now that I am utterly clueless when it comes to estimating how long a huge chunk of work will take to complete, and that same overconfidence makes me averse to announcing a delay because I am perpetually convinced that "I can finish it next week!!". Second of all, even if I did estimate accurately - there's always outside factors fucking shit up. In Summer, I experienced probably my first ever complete burn out. Transitioning from student life into 'real life' left me with very little headspace for creative endeavors - and if I can't do it properly my way, I can't do it at all. I know a lot of people might think "dude it's a porn VN just draw some tits and let us fuck the landlady", but that's just stupid. It might be why YOU play adult videogames, but it's not why I am making one. Complaining that at this rate, Elvensang will take 15 years to complete is nonsense as well. I don't plan to be finishing my law degree every episode, so I think we're good. Besides, even if it does take 15 years - you better stop smoking and eat your veggies, baby.

Outside of my little writer's block in Summer, my recently acquired law degree unwittingly made me the family lawyer, so I've had to deal with some legal issues since October concerning family members going after each other's throats/attempting to commit suicide when they couldn't get their way. But that probably contributed a month of delay out of the 16 at most, so it deserves no more than a short mention.

Either way, I've long since recharged my batteries and the family troubles are very much concluded, so we're back on schedule.

On a more positive note, I've learned a lot while working on episode 5. Making strides in figuring out a suitable artstyle, better organizing my workflow, and working out a lot of small ways to be more efficient. I'll discuss those aspects in future progress updates (especially the artstyle things), but it all makes me genuinely look forward to working on episode 6 to start fresh, because man, let me tell you - constantly returning to unfinished work is a real nightmare.

Anyway, that's it for now. I only have some minor polishing left on the episode, so expect it to arrive 24/25th.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I love you all,

Worlaix