05/06 Patreon Devlog

 Hello everyone!

Sorry for being late with this again! I had some things to deal with this morning that just sort of took over. And then I got really distracted with other things.

So here we are with another late devlog! 

(Also, where is time going? How is it already June? WHAT IS HAPPENING?)

Writing:

Okay! So...this was a weird week in writing.

I got the potato draft of Caleb-7 finalised but then…...went back and revised a bunch of stuff because it wasn't working and, as I started working on Caleb-8, I realised that the romance just isn't developing fast enough. This is one of those issues that really does require me to go back and change up some earlier chapters. Usually, I try really hard to not do any major editing until everything is complete. But sometimes I end up with an issue that just requires it.

So this week involved some rewriting of some earlier moments in order to boost the romance to where I think it needs to be by the time we get to chapter 8. This means that forward progress didn't really happen since I was mostly editing. I did write a lot but...I had to backtrack a bit and then rewrite things I'd already previously written.

Fun times.

So the other thing that happened in writing this week was that I made a decision that I am going to try to keep the routes at 100k. That's going to be my goal and while I'll allow myself to go a bit beyond it, I'm setting a max limit of 105k. I'm not going to beyond that for any route and I'm really going to try to keep things much closer to the 100k mark. 

This will keep the total game, even with 9 love interests, below 1,000,000 words which is a threshold I do not want to cross in this life time. LoL

With Caleb's current word count, his route is now 61% complete. So we are well past the halfway point and that makes me happy! 

Art:

We received a couple of new BGs this week. Usually with this artist, I have to do a little post processing stuff that I haven't gotten around to - but I'll show them off when I've made a few adjustments! 

I also set up and sent in and ordered the stickers and thank you cards for the KS. I didn't have to do any new art, but I did have to arrange the art on the templates and sort of decide how I wanted everything to look.

We ordered another set of Backgrounds, so I had to spend some time gathering up BG references and writing descriptions. This takes a stupidly long time - especially for this setting because sometimes I can't really find a perfect reference for what I want. I have to pull together 10 references that are kind-of-sort-of what I'm going for, then write out a lengthy explanation of what elements I like and don't like in each BG.

This takes sooooo long. And it's frustrating because it's such a time sink and I walk away from it having spent 6 hours doing it...but with nothing to show for it except an artist going "Okay! I'll get started!" LoL

We also had a bit of a development with one of our Kickstarter backers - this has thrown Kauri's fate as a love interest into uncertainty. Our top tier backer was refunded, leaving that tier empty. There are a couple of people who have maybe expressed interest in taking it over. But, as such, that means they could choose someone other than Kauri to be the final love interest.

This got me thinking about some of the other potential characters that were on the list of options we originally gave out. I started working on some sprite sketches for them as we contemplate changes that might be occurring (or might not! No decisions are made yet!)

I started working on a sketch of one character - Roan Murdock - who is a citizen of New Terra. Roan will still appear in Yuu Sasaki's route for sure. He was also going to appear in Kauri's route - and still will, if Kauri gets a route. But instead, I ended up with a sprite for Edan Riviera...LoL

Sometimes that happens. I was just struggling to capture the vague image in my head I have of Roan. I kept sketching and sketching and thinking "This isn't right. This isn't Roan." As I worked on the sprite, I kept having this growing feeling of "This kind of looks like Edan…" And at some point, I just had to acknowledge I was drawing Edan, not Roan. 

As a fun fact - this also happened with Caleb! I was originally going to draw Ari and at some point went "Nah, this is Caleb." Caleb's sprite file, for a long time, was "Ari_sprite.psd" LoL!

This doesn't happen often but, every now and then a different character than intended just slips out.

Anyway, Edan is a character that will definitely appear in Lance's route, but he was also on the list of "maybes" for additional LIs. He's around Morgan's age, I think. And he is a Nomos - one of the nomads that lives in the Wastes and that sometimes hang out with Lance! Through him, the player will get to learn a little more about the history of the Nomos and maybe some of their sekrety secrets!

This is him. He has a cybernetic larynx, which is the device on his throat, and he also has implants in his ears to help him hear. Because of their lifestyle and location (and lack of nanites!) the Nomos don't have access to technology that is quite as advanced as inside the domes, so his cybernetics aren't perfect. But they serve their purpose. 

He's a sweet guy. And apparently also very attractive! 

Upcoming Week:

That's kind of it for this week. I don't know where the week went. I feel like it was Monday just yesterday, and here I am on Friday, writing the update I should have written this morning.

(Unfortunately, I had some distractions to deal with this morning.)

First, there is at least one background I am really hoping to get in this week. I'll be checking in with the artist this weekend. It's a BG I'm really looking forward to so I very much hope I get to show it off next week.

I want to finally make some forward progress on Caleb's route and get chapter eight finished. Hopefully he stops being such a pain. His route has been such a difficult journey so far. ;A;

I want it to be easy again. 

I'll probably do some work on the sprites for Roan and Quill as well - two of the other LI options. 

So yeah...that's all for now. Sorry for being late again. It was a super weird week. Here's hoping next week is better.