Ren'Py Refuge of Embers [v0.18a] [Escape Sauce]

[HentaiGamerN00b]

Prologue pre-release is out now, but yeah we're being careful to avoid burnout since that's how a lot of these projects fail. The artist and I both work full-time jobs and only have nights and weekends for dev work. As of now we no longer have a backlog of core assets like backgrounds, sprites, and GUI to work on so we estimate we can add 3-4 standard scenes or 2 fully animated h-scenes per month. With this huge release in the final stages we're going to go back to our bi-monthly releases soon, then we'll try to shift that to monthly around spring.

One thing that's really encouraging though is that the main complaint we've heard is that the game is good but we're just not making it fast enough. That's been edging us closer and closer to taking a huge risk and going all in on this. This summer depending on where we are with monthly support the artist is planning on leaving her job to do this full-time which would be a huge deal in terms of how fast we can produce content. Depending on how that goes the game could be done as soon as Q4 2024, but it's reeeally hard to estimate.

There are projects which works with two artist, one design the sketches while the other put the colors and shadows, in a way can reduce time, the artist don't burn and can still do what's doing to live without risk, of course, only if the project can allow that and if your artist agree. Don't precipitate taking decisions, heard to your artist and your Patreons.

 

[Oasis951]

I wanted to ask what the options - "trifoliage occlusion" and "mystery option" do. I've disabled them both but am just curious. Also, there seems to be no sound for me at all (I'm using Windows)

 

[gamer012345]

Prologue pre-release is out now, but yeah we're being careful to avoid burnout since that's how a lot of these projects fail. The artist and I both work full-time jobs and only have nights and weekends for dev work. As of now we no longer have a backlog of core assets like backgrounds, sprites, and GUI to work on so we estimate we can add 3-4 standard scenes or 2 fully animated h-scenes per month. With this huge release in the final stages we're going to go back to our bi-monthly releases soon, then we'll try to shift that to monthly around spring.

One thing that's really encouraging though is that the main complaint we've heard is that the game is good but we're just not making it fast enough. That's been edging us closer and closer to taking a huge risk and going all in on this. This summer depending on where we are with monthly support the artist is planning on leaving her job to do this full-time which would be a huge deal in terms of how fast we can produce content. Depending on how that goes the game could be done as soon as Q4 2024, but it's reeeally hard to estimate.

That's really sweet of you guys. I wondered though, if you guys could work full time on this and I'm sure you would love to finish this passion project, how much more funding would you require on patreon to get off whatever your actual work is, and getting into this as a real job? I'm not expecting you guys to do it lol but Darkcookie is making over 60,000$ over patreon and it might seem farfetched but I'm hoping, more people would notice this. Alongside with 'What a Legend!', this game would be a great addition to the community.

 

[Nicophaes]

all's I know is that i've been in love with this game since it dropped. i don't plan to stop support of it either way, I just don't plan to play it again till there are a few more updates. The bit I have played though, fantastic work, keep it up.

 

[Escape Sauce]

That's really sweet of you guys. I wondered though, if you guys could work full time on this and I'm sure you would love to finish this passion project, how much more funding would you require on patreon to get off whatever your actual work is, and getting into this as a real job? I'm not expecting you guys to do it lol but Darkcookie is making over 60,000$ over patreon and it might seem farfetched but I'm hoping, more people would notice this. Alongside with 'What a Legend!', this game would be a great addition to the community.

Not a lot actually. I can sneak a bit of dev time into a workday if I need to so the main bottleneck has always been the artist's time. I'm expecting a spike in support with the next release since we've added a ton of new content. From there we're going back to more frequent releases and I think we could be around $700/m by this summer. If that's the case the artist could at least switch to something part-time and our pace would double.

 

[Zoltan Redbeard]

The story and most important scenes are done so we're doing an unnumbered supporter pre-release tomorrow. After that we're planning to spend another month or so finishing the rest of the scenes, adding in the final music tracks, touching up the existing artwork, and doing a partial rewrite. Version 0.10 is eventually going to be a public demo on Steam so we're going to spend some extra time on polish. Also this will be the biggest update we've done by far. Based on lines of code the entire game has somewhere in the range of a 25-50% increase in content.

View attachment 2103469

I'm glad to see that the Steam page is already up:

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I hope the demo to be released soon as well

 

[Escape Sauce]

I wanted to ask what the options - "trifoliage occlusion" and "mystery option" do. I've disabled them both but am just curious. Also, there seems to be no sound for me at all (I'm using Windows)

Music and sound effects have been finally been added for the 0.10 release. Most of the video options do absolutely nothing and are only there only because we think they're funny. The mystery option however does this:

Spoiler: Mystery Option

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[mixa007]

Escape Sauce
update ?

 

[Escape Sauce]

Escape Sauce
update ?

View attachment 2199609

Soon™

We're working on the last new scene this weekend then moving on to final polish.

 

[455696]

这么久了都还没有更新，啥时候更新游戏呀？

 

[Zallow]

Really enjoyed the game, I can't wait for full release

 

[wiseold6996]

Soon™

We're working on the last new scene this weekend then moving on to final polish.

View attachment 2200466

Update?

 

[Escape Sauce]

Update?

Everything we're doing now is just polish and we're planning the release right around christmas time.

 

[TheoWolf3]

Everything we're doing now is just polish and we're planning the release right around christmas time.

Public 0.10.0 release is around Christmas then?

 

[mixa007]

Public 0.10.0 release is around Christmas then?

Dreaming is not bad. In the best case, the game will be released to the public in a month, and maybe more.

 

[TheoWolf3]

Dreaming is not bad. In the best case, the game will be released to the public in a month, and maybe more.

I re-read things. The early release is out now but that's not the complete 0.10, right? So first they finish the 0.10 and then public release? I've just been waiting to try this game out until 0.10 is done because they're redoing the prologue/beginning. I've been eager to try it.

 

[Vleder]

I re-read things. The early release is out now but that's not the complete 0.10, right? So first they finish the 0.10 and then public release? I've just been waiting to try this game out until 0.10 is done because they're redoing the prologue/beginning. I've been eager to try it.

Out now is the "unnumbered" supporter release. 0.10 should come around Christmas and is a completely revised, animated and polished build. The complete prologue if you want. After that, time between updates should decrease considerably. Escape sauce explained this several times in their previous posts.
Personally, I've held myself from trying the unnumbered version and wait for the finished prologue. I expect it to be one of my Christmas gifts. Great art at a bargain price.

 

[Karnewarrior]

I just played through, but I couldn't find several scenes that are in the previews, such as making the effigy or knocking up that girl in the first image.

I'm a bit disappointed. Is there some kind of secret route I'm missing?

 

[Escape Sauce]

I just played through, but I couldn't find several scenes that are in the previews, such as making the effigy or knocking up that girl in the first image.

I'm a bit disappointed. Is there some kind of secret route I'm missing?

Screenshots are from version 0.10, most of the events from the screenshots will be in the new public release coming out around christmas.

 

[terirheken]

the game looks good so far, beautiful art. But boy (sorry to pick your thread for this little rant right now^^) why does the description of the plot always have to be so effing generic. "Simple boy/gal goes to big city, meets new characters, how will he/she react, it's up to you." Feels like 90% of games here have this plot written one way or another, sometimes with lovely MTL poetry though^^.
I just wish it would be a little bit more descriptive and less generic