Actually.... this isn't so much of an art update, but more of a general: "hey guys, this is what we've been doing lately!"
Most importantly the coder has been resting up. A couple too many long days to get the end of the slave route of book 3 ready(combined with other worries) really drained his batteries right down to a level I can't even imagine so he really needed the downtime.
It's better to keep him nice and relaxed for now so he can work his magic later. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised If he had asked for a full month off considering the rocky month he has had. When he says he doesn't like to tell you of his woes because it'll just come off as excuses, he means it.
I still felt it was a good idea to let you guys know what's going on concerning his mother because I know from experience cancer in the family cuts deep and will cause some repeat hiccups when it comes to our release dates(to say the least). We'll try our best to keep it minimal, but it's a reality you can't just ladidaah you're way out of. But enough about that, I don't want to depress all of you now that I finally uploaded another (sorta) art update!
Besides taking things easy we kept checking for bugs and the like. Again super many thanks to anyone out there filling us in about them. We try to thank you all directly, but if we missed anyone sorry!
I'm especially concerned with bugs since I've been working on getting the android build ready. It will contain the first two books and the book 3 slave route. For whatever reason the coder has had trouble getting it to work on his system. I had some more luck so it's up to me to make sure this gets done.
It was meant to have been released by now, but contrary to what I expected the coder wasn't just dealing with leftover bugs these last weeks but also putting in some more stuff he didn't had a chance to do earlier.
I would've preferred him just mellowing out some more and just deal with the bugs, but so be it. Once he's done I'll start on the andoid version. A test version of an old version (stilly buggy) worked out fine so here's hoping it'll stay that way when I get the latest version without bugs to work on. I know we've been taking forever on this guys so anyone who's actually been waiting for it, my apologies.
Okay let's talk book 3 love route! Our love routes have so far always been somewhat better than the slave ones(at least in our opinion). It's probably a combination of a subconscious preference and simply the fact we've already had more time with that specific book during the slave route which equals more time to mull over some ideas in the back of our mind. I'm not really certain but I really hope we can repeat that tradition with Toph's love route.
I love myself some mistreating of JooDee, but when it comes to the main girls, I'm all about the love route. We've been doing some brainstorming, talking options and the like and we're starting to get into proper gear once more for the beginning of the love route. I always need some time to acclimatize myself to a new route before I can really dig in.
Actually since we've included a lot of new things in book 3 compared to the older books(the maze being the biggest culprit) it's a bit finnicky to get the love route working without instantly getting lot'sa slave route contamination going on. That means we're building in a few checks while developing which'll hopefully alert us to when that happens.
When I talk about contamination I mean, the player going on about his business in the love route and ending up in the slaveroute without exactly knowing when that happened. It's the sort of bug which kept both of us up all night trying to find it during the development of book2 so we're being extra careful now.
To put you and ourselves into the proper mood I thought it would be fun to draw something reflecting the best of book 2's love route. This was an older sketch I had lying around which didn't need too much time/work to finish.
Originally we wanted to take two months for the next build, but seeing as how we already ate into those with the latest build, we'll just try to speed things up and bring you the next build at the end of next month.
Okay that's it for this update. I have a scaaaary amount of stuff to do and I'm not a fast drawer so I'll have to leave you guys again for now.
Oh btw. I fucked up my drawing tablet ;_; I'm pretty much joined at the hip with that piece of ancient hardware. It's like having old running shoes you just can't throw out (even though they look crappy as hell etc ) because they fit you like a glove. That hardware failure had the potential to be very problematic..
HOWEVER!!! Unlike some other things you can't prepare for I had actually bought a second hand one (exact same version and all) way back when we started FET precisely for a situation like this
Soooo problematic situation avoided! Woohooo!!
Anyway, till next time!
