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holy shit he's back
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Back from the Dead 2: Electric Boogaloo
I don't know what title to write with this update but Hey! It's been quite a while. I know you guys must be curious about what's been going on, so let me break it down into two parts, my life and just the game.
LIFE UPDATE:
The last time I dropped in here, I was still finishing my architectural thesis. That month was pure stress. I'd love to show you pics of my architectural model if it wasn't on my personal portfolio. Long story short, it was an International Airport inspired by Zaha Hadid and Bjarke Ingels. Did you know International Airports are WIDE and HUGE? Yeah, that project burnt me out like a motherfucker, not only that, but the scale models, the visual boards, the presentation, and the research paper with all the data. I can't say it was worth it but the final result was pretty much a
chef's kiss. Got a pretty good grade for all that.
My original plan was (foreshadowing) to bum around New York and intern with BIG, Bjarke Ingels Group, or some other "starchitect" design firm. But oh boy, did I do a stupid fucking thing, I got my GF pregnant. Then I did the second stupidest thing which was to run away for 3-4 months. Yeah, don't do that, it's just cruel. Basically, a friend was asking around if anyone wanted to intern at his uncle's firm. I said no at first but changed my mind after the news. I just drove there without a plan. Like, I arrived there and forgot I had to actually stay somewhere to sleep. Ended up living for a while on that friend's parent's place. I guess the stress of having no job, a massive student debt, and committing to a family at a young age just fried my brain. I literally went off the grid on social media. I had to plead to my friend to call my parents to tell them where I was. It was a total shitshow.
Working there was probably karma, I guess? The pay was a joke and not to mention, the unpaid overtime. I'd get calls in the middle of the night for "minor revisions" because I was supposedly the "only one good at Revit" which lasted til 3AM. But what really pushed me over the edge was just the guilt. That anxiety was eating me alive daily. So, I finally decided to come back to my GF. I wasn't expecting a warm welcome with arms wide open and I sure didn't get one. I did had plates and cups thrown at me. A lot of it and I deserved each one. We eventually had a long talk and family got involved.
I wish it ended with a happy note there but after the kid was born, the stress levels ramped up to 200%. By this point, I was doing blue-collar work which was plating steel sheets and parts. Got it through a connection when I was researching stuff about building materials. I really wanted to do design-related work but what I saw paid bad and the internship still left a bad memory for me. This job paid well especially since we were still living in a college town, GF was still finishing her Nursing degree. Maybe because both of us were stressed all the time, we often get into these dumb fights for no reason. I'd go home, we'd talk about something stupid, someone gets pissed, we have a shouting match, sleep pissed off, work, and repeat the cycle tomorrow. This was around the same time last year.
Thankfully, that phase didn't last long. After she graduated earlier this year, we decided to move closer to her parents, like, just a 10-minute drive from them to help with the kid. I also wanted to quit that plating job because I was getting paranoid the fumes I constantly inhaled might give me lung cancer or something. Let me tell you, that move did wonders for our mental health. Weekends are actually relaxing now. Plus, I switched to a work-from-home setup, keeping an eye on the kid while she works. Sure, my earnings took a hit, but living in a low-cost area and her having a job now balances things out. Now that I've got free time, I slowly dived back into learning Blender, Daz, Photoshop, and Python again. And that's the roller coaster of my past couple of years. Now, on to the updates.
GAME UPDATE:
Where do I start? Well, this update's been cooking for a while that the narrative changes are significant enough that I'd go as far as calling it a full-blown redux. When I left this game on limbo, I'd wrapped up a bunch of stuff: overhauled the hospital scenes, got through half of Aanya's story and some sex scenes, and had Playbuck scenes that was still undrendered. The dialogue was also restructured but still retained enough of the original story beats.
Coming back, I slowly started tweaking things here and there which turned into a full-blown rewrite of EVERY dialogue. Some got better, some got tossed, and the pacing got a serious makeover. Priscilla and Fiona scenes are still intact but I did change up their dialogue. It's just that rereading some of the old dialogue made me cringe. I also added a lot of new VFX and SFX work. The last update, had just around 100 sound effects. This update, I added around 240+. There's also the new animated Pixel Art scenes, the new splash screens, and the revamped menu and selection screen. As I got into the groove, I just added stuff that would "improve it". I don't know if it does but I just had to.
Originally, this update was focused more on Aanya's story, but I got sucked into revamping the main plot that I didn't know where to put her story yet. So, her finished renders didn't make the cut and there was a lot of it. I rendered those with my old GTX 1060 and it took hours for one scene. Cutting it out was hard but it's not just for that reason, I'm also planning to redo some of Aanya's rooms and I recently started converting my old Genesis 3 DAZ character models into the newer Genesis 9. Which didn't turn out that great. Got some morph and bone issues, especially around the neck area. The textures also need some tweaking. If Genesis 9 doesn't work out, I might stick back to Genesis 8.1. That's why this update lacks a new set of Playbucks because of that but I plan to add them in the next update. For now, this update's sole focus is fleshing out the main story moving forward.
Speaking of updates, I don't intend to do another big update drops that takes MONTHS until I "perfected" it. Instead, I'm opting for monthly builds, sharing what I've achieved in that month rather than hoarding it. So if I finish a new area or rework some UI elements, just small updates basically, I'll release it exclusively to my Patreon for a while and if there's been significant story elements finished, a big public update following after. This will come in handy as the next update will require A LOT of newer areas. Not just "real life" spots but also virtual reality stuff like its own world map, villages, dungeons, and big medieval cities. I'm also planning to implement more scenes with Fiona and Prii at the house and finally make a schedule of interactions with them. Some GUI improvements are on the horizon too. I also made a lot of stuff that didn't get it in time for this December release, including a Triple Triad game when I was relearning Python but that's still barebones. But overall, with the free time I got now, I'm planning to finish the game, finally.
Reincarnotica for PC
Reincarnotica for Mac
Reincarnotica for Linux
Anyway, I'm sorry to those who I left hanging for a bit. Life sometimes tosses an enormous responsibility on your way and you just gotta man up and carry that load. Thanks for your patience and here's to more exciting stuff. I'll probably be back after the holidays.
Cheers,
Polyrotix
tl;dr - final thesis work, got GF pregnant, running away & going dark on socials, shitty job, having a kid
