Notty sent out a big news update, and as it has not been posted, I thought I would do the honours.
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It's the "News" update...
Hello!
A lot of news this post so instead of waffling on as I often do, I'll just crack on.
News the first - Pausing patreon
You may have noticed I've paused June patreon payments. My reasoning is that people supported me in April for the month and, due to events beyond my control, I only ended up doing two weeks work and not a full month.
May has seen some progress but has been slow, patchy and has included me testing and tweaking a few things (
which to be honest was probs about the limit of what I could have managed anyway whilst I recovered.) But it certainly wasn't what I would regard as two weeks work either.
So to my mind I still owe you on the clock. Hence, even though I now expect to be going full throttle in June, I'm not charging this month. Not ideal but it seems fair which is the least I can do.
News the second - Recovery
I'm better. Well, more or less. A bit ouchie at times but other than that as right as rain. Even the scar is fading a bit, so onwards!
As an aside if you're puzzled as to why tearing the muscles was such an issue the next time you pop out of the shower or the bath, stand in front of the bathroom mirror, look at your right shoulder and then pretend to type and/or move a mouse. You might be surprised how much the shoulder moves even when typing. Precision work was pretty much out of the question for a chunk of the month.
News the third - Testing
Testing is due to commence shortly and I have the play testers ready and, due to the complexity of three of the modules in this chapter (
Strip Poker, Tactical Combat and Bobes VR), I've rounded up a few more volunteers as well. These three modules are very complex codewise. Very. With a lot of potential iterations and outcomes through play and so I want these tested until they break (
or don't, you never know I might have got them right first time). There's also the question, especially around the Tactical Combat and Bobes VR over whether people enjoy them gameplay wise (
I'm confident over the Strip Poker). We'll see.
News the fourth - Chapter Five
Whilst laid up and not able to do much I wrote a couple of extra scenes in my head. Well, at first. Not much use just stuck there so I've now rendered and added them as well (So I did at least do something this month). One pads out the free roam a bit and is a nice standalone scene that has no path dependencies. It's pretty funny too which helps. The other is...um, naughty. And a bit
*pinches fingers close together* weird. But, as with everything it's all optional so I'll leave that one up to you.
I've bored you all before saying that coding/line wise Chapter Five is huge. But it is and it really does need a bit of thrashing testing wise. It's bigger than the previous four put together (really). Even Caverns ended up being that complex that it, too, is bigger than the original four combined in terms of code
(Sarah has buffed her traps a bit).
Content wise it's bigger than Four. By content I mean scenes, graphics and animations and not just coding line count. For example, when I was running through all the lewds scenes with someone on discord even I kept forgetting some and had to keep going "Oh and there's this one as well!" Several times. So, make of that what you will (
other than I'm a forgetful ditz ofc). Although the file size is still manageable and there will be a sub 5GB version of the game made available on launch as I know download capacity is an issue for some of you.
News the fifth - the New Machine
Christ on a bike, the 3090ti is fast. Very, very, very fast.
I can't thank you all enough for this. The difference is astounding.
While laid up I did a few test runs (
so just opening up an old render and running it again on the new machine) and although a standard scene is rendering around three to four times as fast as the 2080, on the more complex scenes it's blowing the old machine out of the water. Some scenes, especially those with a lot of assets or complex lighting issues (
so, water or lots of glass and reflective surfaces) are coming out closer to ten times as fast. Now whether this is also to do with no expense spared on items such as the CPU etc as well I'm not sure but the results are the results and it just shows what having the tools for the actual job can do. I'll confess I'm a bit giddy over the possibilities now open to me, but rest assured the first priority is speed of delivery. Making fancier images can wait.
Speaking of speed of delivery, I think once the bumpy Five is out of the door with Six and Seven having no new complex extra coding parts to them and just being pure writing and graphics it's not unrealistic to get those out of the door this year either. But let's see how long it takes to clear Five.
News the sixth - Bonus Pack
Although the graphics packs will be getting an update (
as well as a new Bored Pilot ofc) I'm not adding a new bonus game this time around. Instead I'll be dropping the various strip games from the main game into the pack instead.
Partly as these are path dependent and this way those not on those paths can still enjoy them and partly as I'm not entirely happy with the draft bonus game I have. Concept wise it's good but it needs a fair bit of polish and I'm more minded to focus on getting Five out asap with no distractions this time around. Nothing to stop me adding it a bit later in between Five and Six.
News the last - Release Date
A lot depends on how quickly I can get all the test builds out, the nature of any bugs and gameplay issues and how long to correct. June is possible but I've been blindsided by bugs and gameplay issues before so I won't promise and this chapter is shockingly complex . On the other hand patreon is on pause so hopefully if I do slip over into July it balances itself out.
And, that's about it. Stay, or be, lucky and drive safely - or at least fast enough to get out of trouble
Notty
