Review of 2024
Good morning,
the holidays are over (at least for me) and since this will be my last friday report for this year I want to look back on the past year and talk about what worked out and what still needs improvement.
The year began with much-needed rework to some scenes and the combat system. Imawyn's scene in particular was in desperate need of a rework and I was very happy with the changes. However, the reworking of Claire's scene caused mixed feelings as some liked the old animation better and felt the new version was too bright and doesn't portray the mood right.
For this reason I put the old animation back in so that you can see it when you wake Claire up at night. At that time, the dream system didn't exist yet, otherwise I would probably have included the scene as a dream, something I might still change in the future.
The changes to the combat system have made it more interesting, but with Bianca's update I've just realized that I still need to work on the balancing to make combat more fun. So it's definitely something I want to work on in the coming month.
This was followed by Gavina's bonus scene, which included the addition of the dream system, which I had been wanting to add for a while to make scenes that were no longer available because you were simply too far along in the story available again.
That wasn't easy and I also wanted to deliver something particularly good for Gavina's scene (which had been a long time coming). In the course of this I polished up her character model and also reworked all her old animations. The scene itself was also elaborate and with the plug in/out mechanic something new in the realization.
Afterwards we finally continued with Kate and Claire and the journey towards Kirlic. I know many were hoping for more, maybe even a conclusion to Kate's story, but since Kirlic was/is still not implemented, I couldn't complete the quest and instead focused on the interaction at the inn. I also tried something new here. on the one hand there was the wagon ride with moving background and on the other hand the dice poker game with Bjorn for which I wrote the code myself. In the course of this I also slightly adapted the code of the blackjack plugin to fix an error in the calculation of the dealer money.
In the end, the update itself was mostly about Claire and Carmen, with Kate only getting a small part, which I was a bit sorry about in retrospect. With Kate's next update, I definitely want to make significant progress on the Kirlic quest, if not complete it.
All in all, the update took a very long time to make, because of all the things I put into it. At that time, I didn't realize that what would follow would be just as complex.
As after every update, I wanted to insert another bonus scene. in this case, it was once again to Rumah for Ayita & Hiba. I thought I could just take the existing scene by the fire with Raaisha and add a few more animations for Hiba and Ayita and be done with it!
Until I realized that I had linked the animations so unnecessarily complicated that a complete rework would be necessary to realize the scene the way I wanted it.
Ok, so I started making new animations for Hiba and then decided that if I ever wanted to put in a love route where you don't have to corrupt her, now would be the right time. So that's what I did, including suitable animations by the fire.
Next came Ayita, and since the scene had already taken far too long, I just wanted to finish it quickly... But in the end I couldn't do that after all... Ayita's character story had been a patchwork for a long time and I was very unhappy with it. in addition, some of her animations were still very old, which is why old animations were mixed with new ones and therefore looked very strange. So i decided to tidy up a bit and reworked her old animations. And then came the decision that I would make again today: I finally decided to complete her story. So I built in a complete love story for her that also included a bit of character development for her.
The scene was already a monster, but of course a 3some scene with Ayita and Hiba was still missing, which I quickly added, even if not as detailed as originally planned (to this day the dialog for it is only a transitional solution). And because I thought something was still missing, I also added a sex animation for Tia by the fire... to round things up! To this day this is the biggest and most complex scene I ever made with all the alternative animations of women having sex with other men in the background (which I also added and forgot to mention until now).
After that the long awaited Penny update came. Again I had big plans for this one but I also missjudged the time it would take. New long-planned characters and environments as well as new mechanics related to Penny's farming were on my to do list. Originally I wanted to make the animal husbandry system much more complex. incl status for each individual animal... an idea that I ultimately abandoned because it would have focused far too much on something that should really only be a small side feature. Nevertheless, the work on modifying the maps as well as scenes such as Penny at the lake was very complex.
In the middle of all this came a long-needed vacation on the occasion of my 40th birthday. I used the subsequent “free time” to FINALLY update the Deep forest map and tried my hand at an android version.
Regarding the android version, however, I was very dissatisfied with the implementation and I have come to the conclusion that the Maldives emulator is the better option for all those who want to play ASWS on their smartphone. Which is why I didn't continue the development of the android version for now.
Continuing with Penny: After I finally had everything together, it felt like an eternity-long process to put everything together. There were so many loose ends that I had to close that I didn't even know where to begin. In the end, the whole thing somehow came together and I was immensely relieved when the story had a reasonable ending. That wasn't the ending I had originally planned, because that would have involved Lilly moving into Penny's house. But adding that and everything that would have gone with it would probably have meant another month of work (if not more)... And I really needed a change of scenery. Still, I didn't want to leave Lilly without any content at all, so I added a few scenes and character development for her too before I finally called the update done.
It was time for another bonus scene, this time Ophilia with the MC and Rick. To make it a suitable scene, Ophilia had to be willing to have anal sex... So I worked towards that. And then I added Rick as a second partner as an additional option. Overall, this scene was finally easier to implement. I had to modify the mini-game involving Kate slightly, but overall it was finally an event/scene that wasn't too complicated to make.
This brings us almost to the end of the year, as work on Bianca's and Gavina's update followed. Here I started with the goblin models, which I wanted to make thematically appropriate. The same applied to the deeper level of the mine, for which I really wanted to create the right atmosphere. Working on this update will take longer than originally planned... but here too I will make sure that the wait is worth it in the end.
But now that Christmas was just around the corner, I wanted to make a scene (actually not that complex) this year. In the end, the whole thing got a bit out of hand, but I was very happy with the result even if it meant a little crunch over the past weekend.
So that was the year. When I read through it all, I see all the work I've done again. Sometimes it gets a little blurred and you don't know "was that this year or last year?" Of course I would have liked to create more updates, but due to the high level of complexity this was unfortunately not possible this year. In the coming year, however, I am sure that I will finally be able to work on Kirlic and thus make good progress towards the main story. We will see.
At this point I want to thank you all for the continued support of this game. Without your support I wouldn't be able to work fulltime on this with all my heart and energy .
Thank you! This means everything to me.
That said, today I will work on some images for Bianca's update and then continue with renewed energy in the coming week!
I wish you a nice weekend and of course a happy new year!