[Move The Chains] | S01E02 | Play Sheet #7 (+ New Year Rambling)
If you're just here for MTC stuff, just Ctrl+F "/end".
So, it's in the wee hours of the morning here. Sun's just coming up, just getting some coffee and starting an animation. Firstly, apologies for not being super active on Christmas (or Christmas Eve). As some of you may have read, I was somehow a victim of Southwest's "Customer of Size" policy. As many jokes as I want to crack about that, or as much as I'd like to rant about that, I won't. Kind of one of those thing's where it's so ridiculous is, it's funny. Anyways, I was held up most of Christmas Eve there, and finally was able to get one (much too) early in the morning. Spent most of the day with family after that. Just wanted to be up front about that. I know I made something sort of Christmas themed for Patreons, but it wasn't super Christmas-y all the same.
Anyways, with all said, there's a couple people - devs specifically - that I want to thank. Mostly for putting up with me since I'm a contentious piece of fecal matter, and more recently, an expletive that's not allowed on Patreon's public posts. Namely,
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. He's someone I've been talking to for quite some time now. For advice, for feedback, for being a straight up punching bag listening to me complain about something or someone, for conspiracy theories, and all of the world's existential crises. Give Little Regina a look, he deserves way more support.
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and UncleNenard (aka The Walmart Kanye) are a huge reason why this updated UI in Episode 2 looks as good as it does. UncleNenard helped a fair bit with the character menu (and while it won't see any updates in Episode 2, it'll likely be ready for Episode 3.) and other various layout adjustments.
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for (seemingly) constantly pushing/promoting Move The Chains/my work to potential new eyes. Also another dev that should have way, way more support than he does with Leaving DNA. I'll also add
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for being a general body of positivity to literally everybody. Lastly (but not least),
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and
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, along with
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helped a ton in getting Move The Chains up on Steam near seamlessly.
But right there with all of them, I appreciate all of you. Currently supporting and previous supporters. You guys are the ones making this possible.
So, what's happening going into 2024? Well, for the early part of the year, not much. Let me explain a little bit. Those who've followed me for a while now that I'm currently still in University. That effectively ends this year (finally.), but with that comes exam (or finals?) season. But I'm also finishing up on my SI. We're coming up on what we typically call (here at least) "Suicide Week". The last week of the previous year and the first week of the new year often result in a strong spike of suicides. Depression, loneliness, or any number of things. I say all that to say that the early portion of 2024 is going to be fairly hectic. After that, I'll have significantly more time for both an actual job and working on this. I just want to be transparent as possible here, and be clear about what might cause some delays. It won't be much, if at all, but just thought it was something I should put out there.
Onto more VN related things; with the whole Twitch fiasco a few weeks ago, I've been wondering if the streaming market is something I've been missing. It obviously wouldn't have to be Twitch. YouTube, or even Discord could be an option. Just not sure how interested people would be in seeing the scene or workflow, or a streams with a bunch of postwork. I do plan on picking up the YouTube stuff again, as well. MTC just managed to swallow a lot of other plans over the past year or so.
Anyways, that's about it. I'll get into the meat of this post here.
/end
- So, aside from a few variant renders based on choices and a couple preview renders for Episode 3, story-based renders for Episode 2 (henceforth called E02 to make life easy) is finished at 762. It'll probably end up being closer to 780, give or take, when all is said and done. I'll be batch rendering them all after I finish up with the animations. A bit lower than I would've liked, but I feel like holding off any longer would be unfair to supporters. Hopefully I'll reach said goal of a 1000+ for Episode 3.
- I'm currently working on the sixth NSFW animation of the first NSFW scene, which is likely to be the final animation for that scene. Then I'll move onto the next set of animations. This one may take a bit longer to do as there's an option that'll split the scene itself.
- There's also five short, non-lewd animations mostly acting as transitions or intros to other scenes. Hopefully there's more to come in later releases as the framework for the overall project is nearly completed.
- I've started on the writing for E02 while waiting for the animations to render through. A bullet point for E02 is more choices. Most, if not many, are going to be surface/dialogue changes. There'll be some choices with weight to them, but nothing game-changing/ending-defining quite yet. It's much too early for that.
- Gallery for E01 is finished up, just need to add the images and code for E02.
- A bright mode/option for darker scenes. Not every monitor is made equal, nor can I account for what other monitors show. I can only account for what looks on mine. However, for scenes that I deem darker (and thus leading to issues for people seeing them on some screens), I'll be adding versions with the brightness adjusted to a point that I feel doesn't completely ruin/wash out the render itself.
- Added to intro choices, alongside Netori, Drug Usage, and Trans content, you'll find the both the aforementioned 'bright mode' and something of a optional short tutorial. The purpose of the tutorial is to help you navigate the UI, where certain menus lead, and some of the specificities of the stats menu (even if it's not going to see much use as of E02.)
- Streamer / SFW mode. Yeah, I'm aware akin to puttiing a V12 into a Pinto, and a bit niche, but it something that's there for any of the creators/streamers out there who might want it. I wouldn't be adding it if I wasn't already altering the code, but it's just a few lines of code for a toggle and some if/else statements. Again, niche, but might be useful to someone and not a lot of work to manage at all.
- As mentioned, the character menu will be seeing a bit of a rework/redesign in E03. For now, I'll be nulling (making them unclickable) the imagebuttons that lead to trackback errors just to avoid issue with people who don't keep up with progress reports.
- We're nearing the finish line. After the animations are done, I'll be doing the batch renders > postwork > finishing up the writing (if needed) + proofreading/editing > send to proofreader(s) > fine tuning.
- If the support keeps at the same it has been, Episode 3 will be the first to feature licensed music. Likely from Storyblocks for now. But if the eventual Steam release does well, I'll likely be looking into the much more expensive (but more diverse, and less contractually vague) Universal Productions Music.
So, that about covers it for now. This'll likely be the final Play Sheet for E02. I'm aware it's largely a technical one with some sprinkles of rambling, and not a lot is being shown, but I'm really excited about the progress of this update. While I'm mostly referring to the UI here, I feel like there's been a fairly significant jump in render quality with more VRAM at my disposal. Hopefully it translates to the finished product.
Anyways, as always, don't forget to take a peek at preview renders above (or below, depending on where you're reading this.).