WEEKLY POST - July 6th 2025 - Mandatory inspection

Hey guys!

Quick little side-note that I should mention. The heat spike in my city had the annoying consequence of causing an electrical black-out in half of the city. Took almost a full day to get the lights back. I was forced to go outside and touch grass.

That 'grass' thing sucks, I hated it and I'm never doing that again, thank you for asking.
Joke aside, I pretty much lost an entire day of work. That being said...

Here's what I've done this week!

• I did mention that I was going to add a sprite of Johan with his back turned while he fiddled with the centrifuge. Admittedly, he kinda looks like he's unzipping his pants, but let's not think of that too much for now.

Not gonna lie, this single sprite too a lot more time that I thought it would, because Stable Diffusion seemed insistent on having Johan sensually removing his labcoat to showcase his bare back, sometimes with tattoos, when it wasn't trying to make him look like some kind of bad guy from a fighting game, like Mr. Bison, down to the evil smile. Anyway...

• I've made some improvements under the hood as to how the interactive objects are displayed during Inspection segments, and I've redone the code of the little pop-up animation when an topic/item gets added (either to the inventory or to the conversation system). From your perspective as a player, this won't change anything, but from mine, it'll be better optimized. It's a little like comparing a metal plate held with duct-tape to one held with screws and bolts. Any pro-Python-coder would've looked at that old way of doing it and would've screamed at me for being either a monster or a dumbass.
There is still a big code improvement which I'm not yet sure how I can do it, but if I do it, It'll be a HUGE quality-of-life improvement for me. Actually, as I'm writing these words, my brain is working in the background and I think I've got a solution. Thanks, ADHD.

Anyway, with that being said, I added the text for all of these interactive objects in Alex's apartment. I'm happy to report that they work great.
While I was there, I've redone the view from Alex's apartment window, which wasn't working well for me, as it gave the idea that he was living on top of a tall hill.

Also, I wanted to have a bit of a fun self-insert, so I've replaced the random Undertale poster on the left with a custom displate I made for myself a few years ago. In-game, you'll be able to see it up-close during the inspection segment.
But just for you guys, here's the real-life one above my computer.

I still have to do a quick close-up sprite for at least one of those interactive objects, but that shouldn't be too hard. Today, I'm gonna also try to quickly make the sprite of Johan looking outside of the lab.
I'm also going to make an icon for 2 or 3 stimpacks of serum, which will be easier than trying to add a quantity feature to my inventory system.

The scene in Alex's apartment has 3 objectives:
1) Giving a breather to Alex so he can change and call Elena before going to her place.
2) Dropping 2 of the 3 stimpacks he got from Johan.
3) Allowing the player to learn a tiny bit more about Alex.

The good shit:

Yeah I know why you're here. So here's a very quick animation of Elena, as her biceps are growing bigger, fresh off the presses:

I've spent the past few weeks finishing my weekly objectives less than an hour before my usual Weekly Post scheduled publication time, and although I'm happy with not actually posting things late, I think once I'm done with the first update, I will need a bit of rest. ^^

Creative poll:

Here's a bit of a question which will have an impact on some writing I do in the next few days, which regards Alex's parents. You might remember how there's a family photo box on Alex's desk in his apartment background. That box will be interactive and is meant to hint/indicate early what's the status of Alex's family.

So far, I've gone with the idea that they passed away in some accident, which means they won't play a part in the story. But I'd like to know what you think.

Do you think Alex could have a sister and that this could lead to funny non-sexual serum hijinks? Maybe he's a single child and his parents could just show up to his place, and this could lead to some fun conversations with Elena... or maybe it would be too much and the story should not go there? Let me know in the poll below!

That is it for this week! I will catch up with you next Sunday! Cheers!