News 10.12.2024
Hello, witches and wizards!
One more 10-day development cycle has come to an end, and we're excited to share the latest updates on the progress of
Innocent Witches.
First up — art preview (available in the next post). This piece showcases the Ravenclaw common room, a space filled with the spirit of knowledge and creativity. At its center stands a magnificent statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, watching over the scene. The room is bustling with students, each immersed in their own activities: reading, chatting, or simply relaxing. The richly detailed interior — complete with bookshelves, portraits, magical artifacts, and cozy sofas — creates a lively and immersive atmosphere that perfectly captures the unique essence of the Ravenclaw House.
And now, on to the main updates!
Over the past 10 days, the team has focused on the following tasks:
Most of our time has been dedicated to preparing a seasonal update for Christmas. It will feature a short story about Marcus getting into quite a pickle right on the eve of the holiday. Without spoiling the events we can say that you can expect new Christmas-themed outfits for two female students, along with a small festive addition to a certain scene with one of them.
The texts for this event are fully completed and integrated into the game, while the artwork is still in progress. If everything stays on track, the update is expected to be released around Christmas, roughly on December 24th.
In addition, we’ve been working on some of the technical issues reported by the players. For example, we made significant improvements to how the in-game screenshot system works in the code. Players previously reported issues where the screenshot file size could reach several dozen gigabytes for no real reason, as well as other smaller issues. The system has now been optimized and rewritten in the code to resolve these problems. This overhaul has not only eliminated the oversized file issue but also improved the system's responsiveness and performance, making it more snappy overall.
We are also continuing work on version 0.12A. A hard deadline of December 15th has been set for completing all work on the original texts for Chapter 2, Act 2. After this, the texts will be sent for translation and editing. This chapter currently spans over 190 pages in Google Docs format.
Meanwhile, part of the writing team is already working on the second half of 0.12A - Chapter 3, Act 2. Both chapters will focus on deepening relationships with waifus and introducing some secondary storylines that will continue to evolve in future updates. For example, as mentioned earlier, players can expect the long-awaited initial phase of the skirt-shortening events, as well as activities in the Abandoned toilet.
On the art side, our artists are finalizing tasks for the seasonal event. Once that's complete, they’ll return to the tasks related to 0.12A. It's likely that the artwork will be finished before the texts, which will allow the artists to shift their focus to additional tasks from the backlog while the new ones are formed for the 0.12B version.
In addition, we’ve laid the groundwork for an interactive event on our community platforms, which is set to kick off soon in the lead-up to the Christmas holidays. Stay tuned for more updates!
We also dedicated time to fixing some game bugs. For example, a semi-automated analysis of all emotion changes and visual styles (such as hand positions, clothing changes, etc.) was conducted, which helped identify incorrect calls to this functionality. At the moment, if an incorrect style name or typo appears in the code, it won’t cause any error but will also have no effect in the game. For example, attempting to change Hermione’s hand position to one that isn’t predefined in the code simply won’t have any visual representation in the game.
Such errors were rare, as all such events undergo manual testing by developers and testers. However, they occasionally crept in after post-testing changes. This review identified and allowed to quickly fix all such errors, ensuring proper functionality of emotion and appearance changes in the current content. Additionally, this type of check has been added to the game client build process, enabling automatic detection of similar errors in new content before final builds.
Oh, and let’s not forget our animator, who continues to breathe life into the Polaroid photographs. He’s nearly finished work on the fourth photo and has temporarily shifted focus to a fullscreen scene with the student, adding new elements for the seasonal update. Once this task is completed, he’ll return to animating Polaroids and continue refining them.
That’s all for now, folks! We truly appreciate your continued support, whether through donations or feedback. Thank you so much!
We’ll be back soon with more updates. Until then, take care and remember to enjoy life!
Peace ✌
Your,
Sad Crabs.
And now time for a poll! This time we have a question about a specific feature of the game. Namely, the emotions for the characters. Here’s what we would like to know from our players: how important is facial animation, expressions, and gestures during dialogues to you? Do you pay attention to characters’ facial expressions or hand positions while following the dialogue?
- Yes, I do. It’s important; it adds depth and immersion to the game.
- No, it doesn’t matter to me.
- I check out the emotions and gestures periodically when I read, but not always.
- I just want to see the results of the poll.
Yes, I do. It’s important; it adds depth and immersion to the game.
83 %
No, it doesn’t matter to me.
2 %
I check out the emotions and gestures periodically when I read, but not always.
13 %
I just want to see the results of the poll.
1 %
241 Stimmen insgesamt
