Hi folks!!

Ugh, it's been 94 days since my last devlog (and the demo hasn't been updated for 9 months......). We're long overdue for an update here.

The actual update itself is more important than the reasons for my absence here, but it's more of the same - working a FT job + game dev is really difficult and I end up working at a snail's pace, and Twitter is so easy for quick updates (here it is, if you want near-daily updates on the game) that I never chat much here. However, I am still (as always!) working on the game and making progress!

Anyway, here's some dev news. Scroll down to the bottom for some progress pics! I'm having technical issues - I was going to upload four but the rest will up on Twitter to compensate. :D

Game progress

Let's start with a picture! I originally made a collage but it was 8 MB so we'll do it one by one.

The last time I posted here I was apparently finishing up with QA? The first round has been long completed since then and I've implemented the feedback and polished the script. It's now ready minus the pinch points listed below.

The biggest areas of concern from QA for me are as follows:

• The lack of cultural information in James' and Nova's routes,
• GUI (confusing to use and not modern-looking),
• Music (the lack thereof).
• Another round of QA is needed for the final version of the game.

These, along with drawing the final 6 CGs, are actually the final tasks I want to complete before the full game goes live. The remaining CGs are:

• Toby: DONE
• Nova: Bad End (thumb done), Kiss (currently in progress)
• James: Kiss (thumb done), minor edits to 2 CGs
• Devlin: Kiss, minor edits to Bad End CG maybe
• Ava: Kiss, Story 2

Tl;dr we're pretty close to being done! GUI and music will be 'outbound' work that I'm assigning to contractors so I'm not too worried. I'm finishing up the remaining CGs and tidying some others, and after that, it'll be the last round of QA.

Pre-order?

There seemed to be some interested in the game being up for pre-order/beta on Twitter. I'm very honored by the interest and recognize that it's a privilege to be trusted with pre-orders as there's no guarantee that a dev will finish a game for which they release an alpha or beta. I want to do right by everyone and be certain that I don't betray that trust.

To that effect, I've procrastinated with setting the game up for pre-order/beta until the game is functionally complete (i.e. final CGs done and in, bug free and cultural modifications complete) and I can actually have a hard release date, for accountability's sake. In addition, if I am releasing a pre-order/beta, I would likely only ?release Toby's, (James') and Devlin's routes as a pre-order and hold Ava's and Nova's. ??I'll try to decide whether or not I'm doing this hopefully by the end of this month at the latest.

Tl;dr I'm considering posting a beta/pre-order once the game is "functionally complete" (final CGs done and in, bug free and cultural modifications complete) but it'll likely just be (James,) Toby and Devlin due to ?the narrative and programming complexities in Ava and Nova's routes

Demo update?

I really want to update the demo, but I don't have any time between creating the final art pieces and running Twitter. :-/ I may re-download it and see if the game's current introduction scenes are drastically different, but this is pretty low on my priority list atm unless people are interested! Let me know, I always love hearing from you folks. :-) 

Release date?
Still no release date, sorry. I've delayed the project often enough due to life getting in the way that I'm really anxious about giving a specific date and then not holding myself to that - I don't want to disappoint you. :-/ Once I'm done with those CGs and I've spoken with the contractors, though, I think I'll finally be able to set one.

That's all for now! I'll attach some of my recent progress to this post. Thank you as always for your downloads, your patience, and your passion for the project - you genuinely keep me going with this. :-)

Oneirocritica Games