03/01 Patreon Devlog

Hey Everyone! 

Time for this weeks Patreon devlog! 

I actually feel like I had a really productive week this week. So let us jump in! Sorry this is late! I was basically convinced it was Thursday for most of the day so it didn't even occur to me to post this in the morning.

Then when I finally sat down to work on it, my spouse decided that was the moment we had to go shopping. =w=;

So here I am at nearly 6:30 PM. D=

But let's jump in, shall we?

Writing:

I finished the rough draft of Caissa's second chapter and started doing the first edit sweep of it. This is still all outlined out so writing the very first rough draft - the potato draft - is pretty easy. But it does need to be fleshed out and smoothed out some. 

In this chapter the player meets Veli Rahl - the queen ranked Esper that works for Crimson and will be Morgan's teacher. Choices made somewhat determine how well they get along. Currently Caissa's word count is just under 20,000 words. The overall word count for the entire project is around 201,000 words long.

I've gotten a lot done, but there's definitely still a really long way to go.

It definitely doesn't feel like I'm already 200,000 words into this script. I feel like I've barely gotten started. LoL And, of course, my spreadsheet is flaunting the 31.02% at me going "You literally HAVE barely gotten started. Wtf are you so excited about???"

Art:

This week in art, I finished up all the YCH artwork bases - I may continue to tweak and refine them here and there but they're basically done.  I also finished the last of the special wallpapers. OwO

This was basically all the artwork I wanted to have done before the Kickstart launched (aside from KS banners and stuff).

It's good to finally have it out of the way. There was some other promotional art I was hoping to do but I'm honestly not sure it'll happen. To be honest, with all the other things I want to get done - and with how December went - I probably just need to focus elsewhere.

I might try to work on some things, but I don't know yet. It still might be fun to do an image of everyone in tuxes or something. 

But we shall see! 

The other art related stuff I did was all boring stuff like making banners and headers and buttons and character cards for the KS. That stuff is so tedious and I don't enjoy doing it at all.

Stuff like this:

Or, more interestingly.....THIS:

LoL

The good news is that I think most (or all) of it is done. There may be a few things I realise I've forgotten at some point but for the most part, I think I'm good. That said, I do still have some things to make "countdown" images for the day leading up to the KS, some milestone promotional images for things like hitting 25% or 50% funding.

Probably an actual bar graph thingie that shows where we are in terms of the total.

I also wanted to do some funny character clips for milestones and I think it would be nice to code those ahead of times as well. That way they're ready to go when we reach those points.

So I guess when I think about it, the tedious art for the actual KS page is done but there's still a lot of tedious art for other places to do. LoL

I think it can be easy to not grasp how much work goes into setting up a campaign until you do it yourself and it feels like a neverending avalanche of stuff to do. @_@

And it's all...so....riveting. LoL!

Coding: 

I did manage to get the wiki re-coded and expanded. I think I got this figured out the day I posted the last update - just later in the day. Then I worked on expanding the entries and doing some reorganising for the rest of the weekend.

Most of that was just tedium - the hard part was getting the darn scrollbars to work. 

I contemplated working on Chapter Four and starting to put it in the game but finally decided to wait until I push the public update for the demo before I start doing that. LoL

(I did do another edit of it but I guess that's more of a writing thing than coding thing).

Demo:

Chapter Three went out to patrons - first to the higher tiers, then to everyone else. I haven't heard any feedback from anyone! (Naughty)

But I suppose if everyone hated it, you'd say something??? Probably? *sweats profusely*

I think I'm going to try to post it publicly....on either the 14th or 21st.

I am really, really bad at waiting on things like this because often when something is ready I want to just PUT IT OUT THERE. Share it! Do the thing!

I'm going to try to be good and make myself wait so I can do a proper announcement and release leading up to the KS.

*tries to be patient*

*sweats more* O-O;;;

Upcoming Week:

Kickstarter. Q_Q

I'll be trying to just work incessantly on all the things I still need to get set up for the KS. Even if the page itself is ready, there's a pre-launch page to do and all the promo images, milestone images, etc.

And in the in-between moments, I'll try to finish editing Caissa's second chapter...and maybe start on Caissa, Chapter Three! (Which is also fully outlined and should go pretty fast as far as the potato draft!)

So yeah. That's all! I will keep you updated on the goings on. OwO

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and I'm really looking forward to the madness of February!

See you next week! 

~Esh