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For this week's update, I've tried to estimate the remaining render time by monitoring the number of frames per day and average frames per animation. Render time varies depending on many factors, such as render quality, animation duration, environment, number of characters, light, camera position, etc. I estimated the remaining render time with mean values.
Given that there are no problems with any animations that would cause me to re-render something, we're looking at 24-28 more days of render time before all animations are 100% rendered and post-processed. I will keep you posted as time progresses with new estimates, but right now, mid-November is looking promising for the start of beta testing and proofreading.
I still have tests to complete, but it's going well. Every day, I feel more sure about the episode, and it looks much better than it did when I started this process a few weeks ago.
This week, I played several times, mainly focusing on choices. While playing, I noticed a few bugs and room for improvement with mini-games and the in-game phone. As I worked on improving these areas, I updated the Stats app by making it more useful for mini-game players and other purposes.
I wanted to show you some of these changes today, as it doesn't spoil anything major, and it's always useful to read feedback and consider more changes that players would wish for QoL improvements.
I've added buttons at the bottom of the Stats app, allowing you to browse different useful stats. The general tab is almost the same as in the past, and it's the default tab you view when opening the Stats app.
As you unlock mini-games while playing, more tabs become available at the bottom of the Stats app. The Party Planner tab and other mini-game tabs are exclusive to mini-game players. In this tab, you can see your current build for the party planning mini-game.
You can view everyone's current happiness, your inventory, and perk choices, and also read a log of how activities and choices affected DIKs' happiness and more.
You may have noticed in episode 9 how there's a pop-up message to the top-right of the screen saying that DIKs' happiness increased after activities. Such events will be listed in detail in this log in real-time, and you don't have to replay episode 9 for this to work; your saves and logs will be synchronized at the start of episode 10. Other events relevant to this mini-game will also be added to the log. I hope this will make it easier to plan, evaluate and discuss strategies for this mini-game as it progresses.
Similarly, I've also added tabs for other mini-games: Brawler and a new unannounced mini-game that has become an addictive favorite of mine. I'm not spoiling what it is today, but I believe you will like the new mini-game if you enjoy planning and resource management.
The Brawler tab will show your current skill point allocation and overall stats for the mini-game.
Lastly, there's a tab named Girls, which is available to all players. If you're like me and can be slightly confused about who you've had a lewd scene with on your save and don't want to browse the Bios app every time to find out if you did something with a girl, this new tab will be useful.
It will show which girls you've been with, making remembering what you did in the past easier. This tab will look clean for purists and...not so empty for other players - I'm not judging.
I hope you will come to enjoy these upcoming changes.
I will continue to playtest and polish next week. I'm going through all branches again with the changes I've made and plan to focus extra on getting 100% collectibles and testing them next week.
Have a nice weekend.
Dr PinkCake