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Hi all!
I am doing a public post since it's been a while, and just updating a lot -- some of which will be repeat information for Patrons so I am sorry!
I have attached very non-adult images for Version 0.5 as previews as per Patreon guidelines. (hope they are ok!)
So first, I did pause August billing for my Patrons because I did feel I wasn't going quite fast enough to justify billing a full extra month. I've been there before in terms of being on a site and just feeling a little frustrated at time delays, so I kind of made that decision for the benefit of Patrons. I am legitimately working as best as I can, but this is not my full-time job and my other work really impacts my time. (more on this below)
My business is currently trying to hire a 4th and 5th person due to a very heavy increase in business over the last 2-3 months. It's great in one sense because I'm doing super well now, but bad in a sense that it is impacting my free time. So I did a bunch of interviews over the last roughly 8-10 days, and I think I may hire two people this week. I'm also hiring a personal assistant just for me with personal stuff outside the business for about 15-20 hours a week starting August 10th, so all of this will GREATLY help me stabilize my time better. I feel fortunate I can afford to hire these people to help, as the business started very slowly and is now getting quite lucrative. (my parents were so against me at first for this business idea and wanted me to go to law school instead, but now they are being pretty quiet hee hee!)
I've also kept this under wraps due to an NDA, but I've been helping since about a year ago on a specific "normal" game project (not huge hours, just a little bit here and there for specific dialogue/quests) just doing some quest/dialogue writing/editing here and there in prep for other people doing voice acting, etc. (it's a well known dev studio doing a AAA game that is coming out in Winter 2022) and am helping just here and there informally, but it's sometimes been a drain on me too. Luckily, that has abated for now as they are doing a chunk of voice acting for earlier parts of the game. I will in fact drop this if the demand gets too high, but I really like the project and kind am enjoying it when I can...
Now, as for 0.5. Some key notes: This update will probably have a little more Olivia content than 0.4 given where the story is right now. She is kind of having to make a few key decisions given new information, etc. The size of 0.4 was about 1543 renders, and roughly 7,500 lines of code.
As of right now, 0.5 is currently a little over 1200 images, and roughly 5,800 lines of code. I am a little ahead of normal in terms of music (usually do it all last) as I have done some already. Adding music actually adds a lot of lines to the code because of how I space it too, so I feel like I am getting closer to the light at the end of the tunnel.
I believe the ultimate size of 0.5 will be about the same or a little bigger than 0.4. I thought I could keep it smaller, but given the branching involved, I feel like I can't make it too short because a particular path will feel like a very short update. (As a general rule, I try to make each "path" let's say at least an hour long with normal reading speed.)
I am trying HARD to finish it this month. All of my efforts the last two weeks have been about preparing to free up time and this is just as much about 0.6 and 0.5 now, as I am determined to go very fast on 0.6 this time around. There is no way I am going to find myself in this situation again as I don't think the business can exponentially jump that quickly again, there is a law of diminishing returns at some point with growth. I can't control certain outside time crunches, but I can control effort, and I assure you all that I am trying very hard!
Last few 0.5 Notes: A primary narrative driver (a key Alexander's Karlsson motivation for everything) will be revealed this update, and this is a long-term impact on the overall game. There is also at least one (not going to say anything else on it) "can't turn back" decision that actually impacts the very end of the game. This is very rare before 0.8, but at least one does exist for this update.
I will continue more updates, but for now, I appreciate everyone and enjoy the free month for August!
Mistress Tess