I really like the look of the journal, very well done.You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
Thanks. We're excited to work on it over the next couple of updates. The long term plan is to have journal entries for each character that update and change based on the choices you made. When you open it we want it to read like a seamless record of events. We figure we'll do a little here and there and slowly build it up over the next few releases.
Perfect, very nice plan. Especially helpful for people who play a lot of games between updates.
- Jun 6, 2017
- 1,231
- 1,521
I know that feeling. Though personally i'm forgetting mainly new games and their characters, this one on other hand i'm following pretty much from the beginning and is very memorable.Perfect, very nice plan. Especially helpful for people who play a lot of games between updates.
No doubt, I have a few like that, but I'm dyslexic and really bad with names and such, so some days I am lucky if I get my own right (or even remember what I did yesterday but that's another story), not to mention several stories I am writing myself, one having a cast so large even I need a cheat sheet to keep it straight.
A lot of news went up this week. Thought I'd share it myself here.
Teaser Scene
Not a whole lot to say about this one except that Amanda is as cute as a goddamned button! This week's teaser comes from her upcoming blue path update. You knew sooner or later you'd have to talk about the incident by the pool. Or you know what, maybe you don't because you're the upstanding type that chose not to flash a bunch of teenagers with some wet silk pants. Either way you'll get an amazing chance to further your relationship with this beautiful young woman. Cheers!
Progress
Ok. Now onto the meat and bones of this thing. Man is there a lot to talk about. Not sure where to start so I'm just going to dive right in!
It's been a busy week, a very busy week. As you know we've spent the last year really working to bring our Daz skills up to par so that we can bring you the highest quality visuals we can. In that regard we've made some very significant progress! On the upside, we've got some really great art in our game. On the downside, it's large. I mean very large.
Zipped, our last update weighed in at like 630MB and that's just getting us through the introduction. We still have a lot of story left to tell and at this rate we'll quickly be capping ourselves out and having to go to the trouble of splitting this thing up into multiple parts (which we'd like to avoid doing if possible).
However, in our zeal to learn as much as we can about Daz we've altogether neglected educating ourselves on some of the slicker features of Renpy. So in an attempt to bring ourselves up to speed we've spent the last two weeks really scrubbing through the Renpy documentation and playing around with some of the features and code available in that package. It has been time well spent and we've found a number of devices that will both save us time and space in coming releases.
Layers
We've always known layers existed in Renpy but haven't made much of an effort to incorporate them. Well now's the time to change that.
Layer Pros: Reduced file size and easier manipulations of visuals in code. We ran some tests to determine if the additional work was going to be worthwhile and it is. A sample scene we did that took 14MB using our current methods only took 5MB when utilizing layers and transparencies. Multiplied over the length of the game, that's a huge time saver when it comes to downloading, uploading, and storage. Using Dynamic Composites we are also able to alter characters in code resulting in a much faster coding process. It also enables us to reuse some of the generic images (like dialogue cuts) in subsequence scenes thus freeing up bandwidth for more detailed erotic scenes later on.
Layer Cons: Slightly longer set up time. Using layers requires more post-processing in photoshop than we've previously done. It hasn't been determined yet whether or not this added time exceeds the time saved in coding and rendering (we render faster since we only doing parts of an image at once). Right now the perception is that overall time spent assembling visuals will remain relatively the same or less, and that the time spent is just being front loaded in the process. We'll have to wait a few updates to really confirm this theory.
Dynamic Composites
With dynamic composites we are essentially using layers and manipulating the pieces at runtime. What does all that mean? It means the last several Patron Polls we've run have pretty much become null and void. Sorry about that.
Don't worry, we're still going to have interesting polls coming soon, it's just that the last few are kind of obsolete. The results for polls such as Cassie's nightwear, Lupita's work outfit, and Jane's tattoo can pretty much be ignored. Using layers, it's possible for us to incorporate all of these choices at a minimal addition to development time.
Things like changing an outfit or adding a tattoo are disgustingly easy using layers and I regret we are only now exploring these benefits. And since we are only rendering the part of the image that is changing and not the whole image, we don't add much in terms of file size or rendering time. For an extra hour or two of work per scene, we can give players an amazing amount of variety in terms of visual style.
Want Jane with a single tat, you can have it. Want her with all the tats? We can offer that too. Want her with a couple of facial piercings? Easy! Want to stick with just the plain Jane? You got it. The possibilities are endless.
And so the next series of polls we do will focus on what features you want to see added to the game.
Name the MC
Holy hell, we've been hearing about this from day one. Why can't we name the MC? It would be better if we could name the MC! I've patched it so that I can name the MC.
Alright already! We've heard you. And while our intention was to make each game stand apart by having a well defined protagonist, we can't ignore the fact that players and patrons want what they want, and we don't have a strong moral, business or marketing reason to do so.
So in another update or two we're going to begin the task of re-writing some code and allowing players the option of changing the MC's name. To us, he will always be Roger Harrington and that will be his default name. But in your play through, you can call him whatever you want. But wait! There's more!
We've also decided that the power of layers should not be confined to just the lovers in the game. And so our plan is over the next couple of updates to add layers to Roger as well. What does this mean?
It means that Roger's ethnicity will be in your hands.
We've always planned to do games in the future with characters of other races. Val Jones, the private detective we're going to introduce in our next update is one such character that we've slated to one day get his own game. But we know players have different preferences when it comes to the MC's race. We've been at a loss in deciding the best way to handle that. But now we don't have to!
All of the games we produce going forward will offer you a choice of name and race for your MC. None of which will change the actual story, but it will allow you to experience it visually in the way that pleases you best.
But there's a catch...
I know we've stated time and time again that our intention was write, release and update this game in a way that ensured you'd never have to restart...and that is still the intention!
However, we're talking about some major changes here and we're not yet sure the extent to which compatibility will be possible. It is still our goal to incorporate all of these updates in a manner that leaves all of your old saves functional. But there is the possibility some of these updates just won't work without a restart. Honestly, it's too soon to know.
Now the plan is to slowly integrate these major updates over the next several releases. We don't want to stop the game cold and make you wait a whole month with nothing to do while we scrub old code.
So as we introduce each change we'll start testing for compatibility and making whatever corrections are needed to ensure old saves work. In the event that a restart is necessary, we'll put the game on a two or three week hiatus and work overtime to get all of the changes in at once so that if you do have to restart, this will be the only time.
We figure if a restart is necessary, best to do it now while we're only a scene or two past introductions. Either way, we'll keep you in the loop so you know what's going as soon as we do.
Current Poll
Well the Jane poll is pretty much a moot point at this junction as we are now going to offer all of the options presented including a few new ones.
But the whose next poll is still going strong and right now it looks like Jane and Lupita with a strong lead.
What's Next
We got a lot of damned work to do! We're putting the renders together for the Amanda/Nanami update. It's going to be slightly delayed as we continue to gain experience working with Renpy Layers and codifying our new post production process. But once we've adapted to it over the next update or two we'll be completing this part faster than ever.
After that we'll start in working on the next update (looks like Jane and Lupita) and begin easing in some of the changes we've discussed above.
It's exciting stuff and this project is quickly growing in more a exciting and dynamic way that we previously thought possible.
Excellent stuff happening over here and we can't wait to share it with you!
As always, we thank you tremendously for your support. We can't do this without you!
We at Ianvus Salute You!
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
Teaser Scene
Not a whole lot to say about this one except that Amanda is as cute as a goddamned button! This week's teaser comes from her upcoming blue path update. You knew sooner or later you'd have to talk about the incident by the pool. Or you know what, maybe you don't because you're the upstanding type that chose not to flash a bunch of teenagers with some wet silk pants. Either way you'll get an amazing chance to further your relationship with this beautiful young woman. Cheers!
Progress
Ok. Now onto the meat and bones of this thing. Man is there a lot to talk about. Not sure where to start so I'm just going to dive right in!
It's been a busy week, a very busy week. As you know we've spent the last year really working to bring our Daz skills up to par so that we can bring you the highest quality visuals we can. In that regard we've made some very significant progress! On the upside, we've got some really great art in our game. On the downside, it's large. I mean very large.
Zipped, our last update weighed in at like 630MB and that's just getting us through the introduction. We still have a lot of story left to tell and at this rate we'll quickly be capping ourselves out and having to go to the trouble of splitting this thing up into multiple parts (which we'd like to avoid doing if possible).
However, in our zeal to learn as much as we can about Daz we've altogether neglected educating ourselves on some of the slicker features of Renpy. So in an attempt to bring ourselves up to speed we've spent the last two weeks really scrubbing through the Renpy documentation and playing around with some of the features and code available in that package. It has been time well spent and we've found a number of devices that will both save us time and space in coming releases.
Layers
We've always known layers existed in Renpy but haven't made much of an effort to incorporate them. Well now's the time to change that.
Layer Pros: Reduced file size and easier manipulations of visuals in code. We ran some tests to determine if the additional work was going to be worthwhile and it is. A sample scene we did that took 14MB using our current methods only took 5MB when utilizing layers and transparencies. Multiplied over the length of the game, that's a huge time saver when it comes to downloading, uploading, and storage. Using Dynamic Composites we are also able to alter characters in code resulting in a much faster coding process. It also enables us to reuse some of the generic images (like dialogue cuts) in subsequence scenes thus freeing up bandwidth for more detailed erotic scenes later on.
Layer Cons: Slightly longer set up time. Using layers requires more post-processing in photoshop than we've previously done. It hasn't been determined yet whether or not this added time exceeds the time saved in coding and rendering (we render faster since we only doing parts of an image at once). Right now the perception is that overall time spent assembling visuals will remain relatively the same or less, and that the time spent is just being front loaded in the process. We'll have to wait a few updates to really confirm this theory.
Dynamic Composites
With dynamic composites we are essentially using layers and manipulating the pieces at runtime. What does all that mean? It means the last several Patron Polls we've run have pretty much become null and void. Sorry about that.
Don't worry, we're still going to have interesting polls coming soon, it's just that the last few are kind of obsolete. The results for polls such as Cassie's nightwear, Lupita's work outfit, and Jane's tattoo can pretty much be ignored. Using layers, it's possible for us to incorporate all of these choices at a minimal addition to development time.
Things like changing an outfit or adding a tattoo are disgustingly easy using layers and I regret we are only now exploring these benefits. And since we are only rendering the part of the image that is changing and not the whole image, we don't add much in terms of file size or rendering time. For an extra hour or two of work per scene, we can give players an amazing amount of variety in terms of visual style.
Want Jane with a single tat, you can have it. Want her with all the tats? We can offer that too. Want her with a couple of facial piercings? Easy! Want to stick with just the plain Jane? You got it. The possibilities are endless.
And so the next series of polls we do will focus on what features you want to see added to the game.
Name the MC
Holy hell, we've been hearing about this from day one. Why can't we name the MC? It would be better if we could name the MC! I've patched it so that I can name the MC.
Alright already! We've heard you. And while our intention was to make each game stand apart by having a well defined protagonist, we can't ignore the fact that players and patrons want what they want, and we don't have a strong moral, business or marketing reason to do so.
So in another update or two we're going to begin the task of re-writing some code and allowing players the option of changing the MC's name. To us, he will always be Roger Harrington and that will be his default name. But in your play through, you can call him whatever you want. But wait! There's more!
We've also decided that the power of layers should not be confined to just the lovers in the game. And so our plan is over the next couple of updates to add layers to Roger as well. What does this mean?
It means that Roger's ethnicity will be in your hands.
We've always planned to do games in the future with characters of other races. Val Jones, the private detective we're going to introduce in our next update is one such character that we've slated to one day get his own game. But we know players have different preferences when it comes to the MC's race. We've been at a loss in deciding the best way to handle that. But now we don't have to!
All of the games we produce going forward will offer you a choice of name and race for your MC. None of which will change the actual story, but it will allow you to experience it visually in the way that pleases you best.
But there's a catch...
I know we've stated time and time again that our intention was write, release and update this game in a way that ensured you'd never have to restart...and that is still the intention!
However, we're talking about some major changes here and we're not yet sure the extent to which compatibility will be possible. It is still our goal to incorporate all of these updates in a manner that leaves all of your old saves functional. But there is the possibility some of these updates just won't work without a restart. Honestly, it's too soon to know.
Now the plan is to slowly integrate these major updates over the next several releases. We don't want to stop the game cold and make you wait a whole month with nothing to do while we scrub old code.
So as we introduce each change we'll start testing for compatibility and making whatever corrections are needed to ensure old saves work. In the event that a restart is necessary, we'll put the game on a two or three week hiatus and work overtime to get all of the changes in at once so that if you do have to restart, this will be the only time.
We figure if a restart is necessary, best to do it now while we're only a scene or two past introductions. Either way, we'll keep you in the loop so you know what's going as soon as we do.
Current Poll
Well the Jane poll is pretty much a moot point at this junction as we are now going to offer all of the options presented including a few new ones.
But the whose next poll is still going strong and right now it looks like Jane and Lupita with a strong lead.
You must be registered to see the links
.What's Next
We got a lot of damned work to do! We're putting the renders together for the Amanda/Nanami update. It's going to be slightly delayed as we continue to gain experience working with Renpy Layers and codifying our new post production process. But once we've adapted to it over the next update or two we'll be completing this part faster than ever.
After that we'll start in working on the next update (looks like Jane and Lupita) and begin easing in some of the changes we've discussed above.
It's exciting stuff and this project is quickly growing in more a exciting and dynamic way that we previously thought possible.
Excellent stuff happening over here and we can't wait to share it with you!
As always, we thank you tremendously for your support. We can't do this without you!
We at Ianvus Salute You!
- Dec 17, 2017
- 7,426
- 9,693
@RomanHume Have you looked into using webp instead of jpeg?
Here's a study that compares file sizes between webp and jpeg.
TLDR: webp is about 70-75% of the size of jpeg at the same quality.
Here's a study that compares file sizes between webp and jpeg.
TLDR: webp is about 70-75% of the size of jpeg at the same quality.
You must be registered to see the links
We did at one point when we were looking for ways to optimize, but we were having an issue finding a codec that properly saved the transparency portion of the png's. We played around with two or three different plugs for photoshop and we just couldn't get the layers to function correctly. Either the alpha was off or the transparency simply became opaque.
As this format spreads and there is more uniform support across different imaging software, I don't think we'd hesitate to switch over to webp. But right now we've got three different codecs, one for photoshop one for windows and then whatever Renpy is using and they're all on different versions.
It's a great format, but it's just been a bear to wrestle with. And the 400kb it saves us on our JPGS will add up in the long run, but for now it's a burden we can carry.
- Jun 4, 2018
- 513
- 1,585
It's seems our developers have been busy bees.A lot of news went up this week. Thought I'd share it myself here.
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
Teaser Scene
Not a whole lot to say about this one except that Amanda is as cute as a goddamned button! This week's teaser comes from her upcoming blue path update. You knew sooner or later you'd have to talk about the incident by the pool. Or you know what, maybe you don't because you're the upstanding type that chose not to flash a bunch of teenagers with some wet silk pants. Either way you'll get an amazing chance to further your relationship with this beautiful young woman. Cheers!
Progress
Ok. Now onto the meat and bones of this thing. Man is there a lot to talk about. Not sure where to start so I'm just going to dive right in!
It's been a busy week, a very busy week. As you know we've spent the last year really working to bring our Daz skills up to par so that we can bring you the highest quality visuals we can. In that regard we've made some very significant progress! On the upside, we've got some really great art in our game. On the downside, it's large. I mean very large.
Zipped, our last update weighed in at like 630MB and that's just getting us through the introduction. We still have a lot of story left to tell and at this rate we'll quickly be capping ourselves out and having to go to the trouble of splitting this thing up into multiple parts (which we'd like to avoid doing if possible).
However, in our zeal to learn as much as we can about Daz we've altogether neglected educating ourselves on some of the slicker features of Renpy. So in an attempt to bring ourselves up to speed we've spent the last two weeks really scrubbing through the Renpy documentation and playing around with some of the features and code available in that package. It has been time well spent and we've found a number of devices that will both save us time and space in coming releases.
Layers
We've always known layers existed in Renpy but haven't made much of an effort to incorporate them. Well now's the time to change that.
Layer Pros: Reduced file size and easier manipulations of visuals in code. We ran some tests to determine if the additional work was going to be worthwhile and it is. A sample scene we did that took 14MB using our current methods only took 5MB when utilizing layers and transparencies. Multiplied over the length of the game, that's a huge time saver when it comes to downloading, uploading, and storage. Using Dynamic Composites we are also able to alter characters in code resulting in a much faster coding process. It also enables us to reuse some of the generic images (like dialogue cuts) in subsequence scenes thus freeing up bandwidth for more detailed erotic scenes later on.
Layer Cons: Slightly longer set up time. Using layers requires more post-processing in photoshop than we've previously done. It hasn't been determined yet whether or not this added time exceeds the time saved in coding and rendering (we render faster since we only doing parts of an image at once). Right now the perception is that overall time spent assembling visuals will remain relatively the same or less, and that the time spent is just being front loaded in the process. We'll have to wait a few updates to really confirm this theory.
Dynamic Composites
With dynamic composites we are essentially using layers and manipulating the pieces at runtime. What does all that mean? It means the last several Patron Polls we've run have pretty much become null and void. Sorry about that.
Don't worry, we're still going to have interesting polls coming soon, it's just that the last few are kind of obsolete. The results for polls such as Cassie's nightwear, Lupita's work outfit, and Jane's tattoo can pretty much be ignored. Using layers, it's possible for us to incorporate all of these choices at a minimal addition to development time.
Things like changing an outfit or adding a tattoo are disgustingly easy using layers and I regret we are only now exploring these benefits. And since we are only rendering the part of the image that is changing and not the whole image, we don't add much in terms of file size or rendering time. For an extra hour or two of work per scene, we can give players an amazing amount of variety in terms of visual style.
Want Jane with a single tat, you can have it. Want her with all the tats? We can offer that too. Want her with a couple of facial piercings? Easy! Want to stick with just the plain Jane? You got it. The possibilities are endless.
And so the next series of polls we do will focus on what features you want to see added to the game.
Name the MC
Holy hell, we've been hearing about this from day one. Why can't we name the MC? It would be better if we could name the MC! I've patched it so that I can name the MC.
Alright already! We've heard you. And while our intention was to make each game stand apart by having a well defined protagonist, we can't ignore the fact that players and patrons want what they want, and we don't have a strong moral, business or marketing reason to do so.
So in another update or two we're going to begin the task of re-writing some code and allowing players the option of changing the MC's name. To us, he will always be Roger Harrington and that will be his default name. But in your play through, you can call him whatever you want. But wait! There's more!
We've also decided that the power of layers should not be confined to just the lovers in the game. And so our plan is over the next couple of updates to add layers to Roger as well. What does this mean?
It means that Roger's ethnicity will be in your hands.
We've always planned to do games in the future with characters of other races. Val Jones, the private detective we're going to introduce in our next update is one such character that we've slated to one day get his own game. But we know players have different preferences when it comes to the MC's race. We've been at a loss in deciding the best way to handle that. But now we don't have to!
All of the games we produce going forward will offer you a choice of name and race for your MC. None of which will change the actual story, but it will allow you to experience it visually in the way that pleases you best.
But there's a catch...
I know we've stated time and time again that our intention was write, release and update this game in a way that ensured you'd never have to restart...and that is still the intention!
However, we're talking about some major changes here and we're not yet sure the extent to which compatibility will be possible. It is still our goal to incorporate all of these updates in a manner that leaves all of your old saves functional. But there is the possibility some of these updates just won't work without a restart. Honestly, it's too soon to know.
Now the plan is to slowly integrate these major updates over the next several releases. We don't want to stop the game cold and make you wait a whole month with nothing to do while we scrub old code.
So as we introduce each change we'll start testing for compatibility and making whatever corrections are needed to ensure old saves work. In the event that a restart is necessary, we'll put the game on a two or three week hiatus and work overtime to get all of the changes in at once so that if you do have to restart, this will be the only time.
We figure if a restart is necessary, best to do it now while we're only a scene or two past introductions. Either way, we'll keep you in the loop so you know what's going as soon as we do.
Current Poll
Well the Jane poll is pretty much a moot point at this junction as we are now going to offer all of the options presented including a few new ones.
But the whose next poll is still going strong and right now it looks like Jane and Lupita with a strong lead.You must be registered to see the links.
What's Next
We got a lot of damned work to do! We're putting the renders together for the Amanda/Nanami update. It's going to be slightly delayed as we continue to gain experience working with Renpy Layers and codifying our new post production process. But once we've adapted to it over the next update or two we'll be completing this part faster than ever.
After that we'll start in working on the next update (looks like Jane and Lupita) and begin easing in some of the changes we've discussed above.
It's exciting stuff and this project is quickly growing in more a exciting and dynamic way that we previously thought possible.
Excellent stuff happening over here and we can't wait to share it with you!
As always, we thank you tremendously for your support. We can't do this without you!
We at Ianvus Salute You!
Yes Amanda is cute as a button.
I king of like reading a more technical update instead of all the pretty pictures. Gives real insight into what it takes to make these games. Great to hear about all the tricks that you'll be trying out in the future.
Keep your nose in those books boi.
Excelsior
P.S. How dare you stain the sanctity of the poll result.
@RomanHume There was a bit of discussion about daughter/not-daughter dialogue a while back because of wincest modding, but just wanted to clarify my thoughts.
I feel that yes, Roger rather awkwardly telling Amana that Cassie "uh, yeah, she's totally not my daughter" is reasonable, however, it doesn't make sense to me that in his actual interactions with her, that she calls him 'Roger' and not 'Dad'. His inner thoughts are what he's telling Amana in his therapy sessions. In his recall, he doesn't have to be telling her 'she called me Roger', but rather he remembers it as it should be, her calling him Dad. Unless it's a Dharma & Greg situation with Dharma, but I'm not feeling that here.
I understand that being on Patreon required the workaround in the first place, but it would be great if the backend code would accommodate this. For example, PhillyGames' Depraved Awakening [
Of course, there is also a whole 'nother level of modding where he tells Amana that Cassie is in fact his daughter, but that's a bit different.
I feel that yes, Roger rather awkwardly telling Amana that Cassie "uh, yeah, she's totally not my daughter" is reasonable, however, it doesn't make sense to me that in his actual interactions with her, that she calls him 'Roger' and not 'Dad'. His inner thoughts are what he's telling Amana in his therapy sessions. In his recall, he doesn't have to be telling her 'she called me Roger', but rather he remembers it as it should be, her calling him Dad. Unless it's a Dharma & Greg situation with Dharma, but I'm not feeling that here.
I understand that being on Patreon required the workaround in the first place, but it would be great if the backend code would accommodate this. For example, PhillyGames' Depraved Awakening [
You must be registered to see the links
] has separate 'nickname' settings for three different characters. There are of course other examples and ways to do this, but the gist of it is to make it so the dialogue doesn't have to rewritten by hand for wincest mods.Of course, there is also a whole 'nother level of modding where he tells Amana that Cassie is in fact his daughter, but that's a bit different.
- Dec 26, 2017
- 136
- 224
This is another interesting comparison between WebP and JPG images:
You must be registered to see the links
- May 23, 2017
- 1,196
- 1,105
No, you need to read a wee bit more carefully...
You must be registered to see the links
I apologize I have not responded to this sooner. Just been swamped making changes and trying to get this next release out this week.
So this is a topic that tends to cycle around pretty frequently, but it's a significant enough issue that I don't mind retreading the topic.
At the end of the day Patreon has us by the nuts. It's that simple. They shut us down once before and it was such an unpleasant experience that we are doing everything possible to avoid going through that again. Our goal is to make sure they have absolutely zero vectors by which they can come at us.
Getting into the renpy code is easier than cracking an egg. So burying some variable or switch amid the script, while doable, is something we won't do. All it takes is for some enterprising individual, or worse, some vindictive competitor to report the violation and that's it, we're back in the shit.
So for the time being we're keeping the code clean and the relationships undefined until such time as we have completed this project and have moved on to another. When that happens, we'll go back and do a "director's cut" of this game for public release wherein we'll make some of the aforementioned changes. And since that version won't be supported by Patreon, we'll feel safe doing it.
Honestly, I'm not worried about Patreon discovering any jackassery. I worry about us, in our day to day interactions with the community pissing off some butt hurt dev who might use our own code against us. Thus we'll remain straight as a grizzly bear's dick until Patreon policy changes or this game moves outside their purview.
In the meantime, thanks for playing.
Cheers mate!
For certain.
You don't have to convince us. We ran several tests and are sold that webp is a good format. It's just a pain in the ass exporting and importing into the different post production programs we use. It needs just a little more support from other software developers like Adobe before we would seriously consider a switch.
Salute.
Yeah, it's still in an alpha state, and isn't really supported on anything yet.
- May 22, 2017
- 3,097
- 7,521
I would just use png up until a version is ready to publish and then convert png-s to webp as a batch job. Some Adobe tool produced webp-s with a faulty header at some point anyway, resulting with blank webp's for anything but Adobe's own tools and Ren'Py. It's not the best toolkit to work with webp format, IMHO.
But there are free batch converters for webp (and I don't mean stupid online ones) available, even a cruncher for the whole complete Ren'Py game with all the bells and whistles, made by our own @bossapplesauce:
You must be registered to see the links
I haven't used it myself, though. Apparently there was some trouble with losing the alpha channel on webp images because of the compressor used there. In case this is still a problem, xnconvert is a free batch tool, even free for commercial use, I believe (contrary to the xnview that is free only for non-commercial use).
Ren'Py does not care about the conflict between the file extension and the actual image compression format, it works very well with webp images that have png or jpg extension, so you can easily convert your large png-s to webp without touching anything in the script files and the game will still work as if nothing happened, even if those png-s were using transparency.
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
Teaser Scene
A final teaser scene from the Amanda update. This one from her blue path. Just hanging out, watching some TV when a visitor arrives. Welcome company in the lateness of the hour? Depends on your preferences I suppose.
Progress
Strides, massive strides. Though to be honest it's been a bitter sweet kind of week. While we've made a lot of forward movement, it's become increasingly clear that the structural changes we are making to the game won't be backwards compatible.
We've looked at what it will take to modify an old save to work with the new internal structure of the game and the amount of programming involved could be better spent developing more story. As with anything programming related, it's all possible, but the payoff would be exceptionally costly in terms of development time.
However, we've spent this last week really fine tuning the new process and it's going exceedingly well! Using Layers and custom built objects to control the visuals has allowed us to combine the writing/coding/image-integration phases together into a single process.
So now we only have to touch the script once when we initially write it and again when testing the images and making bug fixes and minor adjustments. What was once three separate process is now one, and it's exceedingly fast. This means moving forward we'll be producing content faster than previously before. However, we have to bring the rest of the game up to "code" so to speak.
Since we can't roll out the changes incrementally as we originally planned, we're going to open the throttle and burn a shit-load of mid-night oil bringing the interface back up to speed. It will require you to restart your game, but we've been looking very far ahead with these changes and can't conceive of a reason we'd ever have to ask you to do it again. And, there's a touch of good news.
While the changes you see as a player will mostly just be cosmetic, we are making serious alterations to the way the game stores and uses data. This is really the part that isn't compatible with old saves, but to us it's important because it will allow us to export and import character data much easier. Why do we need to import/export this data? Glad you asked.
The intention was always to make this game part of a larger series, with multiple MC's coexisting in the same fictional universe. Now let's say you are playing the second or third game in this series and you find your new MC interacting with one of the characters from this game. Maybe it's Roger, maybe it's one of the ladies. To make your personal story more cohesive, we want to be able to export the character as you left them at the end of DAST-001 so that they are faithfully represented in the next game in the exact same manner in which you left them here.
That's one of the biggest reasons for the technical update. We needed a simpler way to get that information out of this game and into the next. And since this game consists of a large number of choices and elements we need to be able to do it efficiently with as little overhead as possible. We don't want to write 150 lines of code when foresight and planning at this stage here can let us do it in 5. But the best news is, we've done it!
Now obviously this isn't a benefit we'll get to enjoy in the near future. But when the time comes, it's comforting to know that all the pieces are in place and we'll be able to execute it with little to no effort. It's exciting stuff that is really driving us to hit this game hard and get it done so we can move on to the next. But we won't move ahead until we feel that this game right here is done correctly and is the best we can make it.
And so the work goes on.
Current Poll and Wallpaper
We've had to go on a temporary hold with this just for the next week or two. Since we can't make the next update backwards compatible, we want to focus all of our time and energy putting all the pieces in place so that this is the only time you have to restart our game.
But once we get this next update out we'll return to the normal flow of business sometime around the beginning of February. So hang tight just a little longer because we're busting our asses over here.
New/Old Tiers
So we've reopened some of the old tiers upon patron request, but the rewards for the higher tiers remain the same as the $5 tier. So at $5 you still get all the benefits and rewards, but if you want to give a little more, you have that option.
A special thank you to those patrons that have chosen to contribute heavily to this project. We are eternally grateful.
What's Next
Since the new changes aren't backwards compatible we're doing everything we can to get this new structure distribution ready. We can't put a firm release date on it yet, but it will be before the end of January. We've been developing it in parallel with the regular story, so when it drops we'll have the Amanda scenes, Nanami scenes, and we're going to see about throwing in a bonus scene as well.
So we'll be a few weeks off than originally planned, but we'll get you something meaty before the end of the month for certain.
As always, thanks for checking in with us.
We stand by the notion that our players and patrons are the best in the business! It's your enthusiasm that keeps us going.
We at Ianvs Salute You!