Hello everyone,
Last week was fantastic. I worked consistently every single day and achieved all my objectives. Each day, based on the tasks at hand, I set a quota for the number of scenes to create, and I hit that quota every day except for Saturday. It's been a great week, and I'm quite pleased with my progress. It's also the first week where I haven't focused on creating animations, aside from one small one that took about 30 minutes. I really went all in on creating static renders, and it shows.
I'm planning to maintain this level of productivity over the next six weeks, right up until I leave for my holiday. My goal is to complete all the remaining story statics by October 7th. That way, when I return on the 18th, I can start working on post-production and remodeling the Facegram feature.
I'm excited because, while DAY 3 and DAY 4 in game are arguably the most substantial parts of this update, they're also the most eventful, featuring two character introductions, two LEWD scenes, and a Facegram roam. This means that I'm currently in the slowest part of the development, but I'm making significant progress, which leads me to believe that DAY 5 and DAY 6 will be quicker to create, and DAY 7 is just one scene. This update is progressing faster than I anticipated, but I don't want to jinx it, so let's ignore that last sentence!
On another note, there's something important that I need to mention. I've been aware of this for a few weeks now, but I wanted to work on it more and have a clearer understanding before explaining it to you.
I've decided to make a few changes to Episode 1 of Law School, though nothing too drastic.
First, visually speaking, I've reworked the last day of Episode 1, particularly the trial, as the colors weren't as good as I expected. I've learned a few new tools and decided to recreate the renders, so there are already 40+ renders that will go back to the rendering station soon. I'm also planning to revisit all the night scenes in the first episode and improve them. I believe I can do much better now, thanks to some new techniques I've learnt, including using Lightroom properly with the help of a patron. There are also a few other scenes, like the first class with Caroline, that could use a rework. Fortunately, I found a plugin that allows me to apply the new settings to scenes instantly without having to open them one by one, so I won't waste much time on that.
Secondly, I've decided to add three new Love Interests (LIs) to the game. This is a significant change since none of these LIs had a story before.
I spent a few weeks brainstorming and finding ways to integrate them. The reason for this is that I felt the Law School cast of LIs wasn't diverse enough. After playing a few AVNs recently, I realized that while I've learnt a lot technically since The Entrepreneur, my storytelling could use more diversity, more spice in the cast, and perhaps a faster pace at certain points. Thanks to this, I was able to identify some of the mistakes I made and what needed improvement.
I'm making these changes now because Law School is still in its early stages. I'd rather fix things now while I still can than have them burden me for the next few years. As of now, I'm not sure exactly what will change—definitely the intro, but no canon events will be altered. You should be able to load and play the game from your current save without breaking anything, at least that's the plan. I'll keep you updated once I know more. There might be a few additional dialogues you could miss, but nothing game-breaking.
I realize this is a big change, but I consider Law School : Chapter 1 incomplete until the first three episodes are out and the game is released on Steam. So, it's now or never to make these adjustments.
To clarify, while I've added three new LIs, none of the existing LIs have been changed. Some of the new ones you might have already seen, but I'll keep a bit of mystery there. I'll decide later whether or not to introduce them to you.
Now, onto the numbers:
- 1122 story statics
- 47 animations
- 25 scenes fully written
As you can see, there's been a MASSIVE upgrade in the story statics department. My goal was to create at least 30 renders daily. For the first four days, I stuck to that target, stopping work as soon as I hit it. On Friday, I pushed myself a bit more and worked later to create extra renders, which is probably why I didn’t get much done on Saturday. So, I ended the week with a whopping 201 renders, close to my personal record.
I'll aim to maintain this goal this week, but I'm off to a slow start since I had a lot to prepare today and focused on animations rather than story statics.
That's all for last week's progress update.
I know we had a small event planned for last week, but I couldn't find the time, so it will happen this week!
In the meantime, I wish you all a great week.
MisterMaya
