And here's the new one from 12 minutes ago.
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I hate the coding part of the whole process the most, along with spelling checks. There's some real spaghetti code going on again in this episode, but it seems to work? I'll know more once everything is done and I test all the paths.
All the post-render work is done. There are some scenes where I'm not that happy about the renders but it's too much to redo all of them. Also, I've noticed that the colours in photoshop are completely different than when I open the pictures in other apps. So renders turn out darker or lighter than how I see them photoshop. This is really annoying. Can't believe I haven't noticed that earlier. I looked it up if it's a setting on my screen or something else but it seems they use a different RGB spectrum. Nothing I can do about. So, I'm more or less guessing how the end product looks like.
I've already spellchecked everything and also corrected some more errors in previous episodes.
While coding and spellchecking, I'm not particularly happy about a few scenes. I mentioned in previous progress updates already that I want to make some changes in a few scenes, but that's for another time. It's probably because this update is so big and at the end, I just wanted to be done with it. It feels like some scenes don't have the quality I want them to have. They need to be longer because they feel a little disconnected. They jump too quickly from one thing to another. That's also a reason why I won't make this big of updates anymore. I want to concentrate more on each scene. They will still be big, but just not of this calibre. I hit my limit with this one and I think the quality will suffer if I continue like this. Next episode will only consist of one day (Monday back at school) and it will be released quicker. But more info about episode 14 after the release.
I made a big dent in the coding and I hope to finish everything this week. That includes the changes in the gallery, adding some sound files in certain scenes,... I also added and replaced the rework of the first day of episode 3. There is a new variable, but that variable is not used in later episodes so it won't break saves. I've tested it before I made the changes final.
There are 2 big animations in this episode which consist of a lot of renders. But I know that some people have issues loading them and it makes the game crash. That happened for example with the "throw Layla is the pool" animation. That's because I use single renders for animations instead of a movie file. And that's why I changed those 2 scenes into movie files and I hope it will prevent the crashing. I will also change the Layla throw to a movie file so that issue should be fixed. I will gradually change all the 'animations' into real animations but all of the sex scenes will get a makeover at some point. I'm happy with the scenes themself but the writing of those scenes is one of my weaknesses. At the moment it's mostly just the "Ahhh" and "moaning" and so on and it needs to have more. The problem is that I don't use narrative writing. It's a visual novel and you see what's happening instead of in a book where you have to picture it yourself by the description you're getting. And during sex you mostly don't talk much or at all. That's why there's not that much going on scriptwise in those scenes. So, I'm thinking about changing those scenes with narrative writing to make it more interesting. I will have to learn first how to write those type of scenes because I have no experience with it. Also I'll need better animations. Another weakness of mine. I don't think Daz (the program I use to create the renders) is the best to make animations. If anyone can point me in a direction with this, I'd greatly appreciate it. But let me know what you think about all this. I'll probably talk another time about all this and give examples what exactly I mean.
Back to this update. Again, depending on what paths you play, the update can be big or it can be small. Single routes are much smaller. You'll get the longest playtime if you are on one of these 2 routes: Alexis-Valeria-Nikki(Cara) or Erynn-Layla-Nikki(Cara). I think you can see almost all scenes with those 2 routes. I tested the first Erynn scene (the beach date) and timed it and that one took me one and a half hours (Normal reading speed) to finish. There are a few choice options and if you want to see all the changes in dialogue due to the choices, that time will increase even more. It's by far the biggest scene of the game.
There's also a scene which some people don't want to see. There's already a choice in the game which prevents this scene to happen but I gave you another "Skip this scene" option. So if you don't want to see that scene, skip it!
I wanted to talk about more things but I've forgotten it now. I should write these things down...
Anyway.
ETA... If, and that's a big if, everything works out and there won't be some major issues, I finish everything this week, playtest early next week, I might have a release by the end of next week. Here's an issue what makes me question if I should release next week though. I won't be here between Xmas and New Years, even a week after New Years. So, if I release next week and there is a big error in the game which could break some routes, I won't be able to quick fix it. I will do it once I'm back and by that time, that bugged version will be everywhere and people's saves will be messed up and so on. I think you see where I'm going with this. I try my best to test as much as I can so that won't happen. But if I feel like it needs more testing, the ETA will move. Let me know what you think about this and I will let you know early next week what the ultimate date will be.
