This was posted June 2nd:
Hi, people. This is the final development update before the release of chapter 2. Thanks to everyone who sticked around, especially my day ones. Anyway, this update will include a few things. I'm going to talk about the progress of the game, and later discuss some concerns on the future development. Hopefully we can go through this swiftly.
Progress
Following the previous update, I've completely the major coding far the game and all that's left now is music and sound effects. Oh man, I love music and SFX, but actually coding them in is such a chore. But it's not entirely a bad thing. Inserting music and sound from top to bottom of the game also means I have to read it all over again, which gives me another opportunity to go through the script and eliminate any writing errors. After that, I'll do some play test and perhaps get a few friends to do that for me as well. And that should be it.
About Chapter 2 and future chapters
In one of my development update, I mentioned the things I want to make an approach on in chapter 2, and one of them is the phone system. Unfortunately, I'm not going to implement this function in chapter 2. The truth is I don't have much more patience to delay the chapter anymore, and I think if I get a start on the phone system, it'll take me a while to figure it all out. My knowledge in coding is entry level, and researching this topic may take me another few weeks. Then, I'll start nit-picking on tiny little details because it'll never be good enough. Since it's not as important, I'll push it back to the next chapter. I think there are a few more things I won't be implementing in chapter 2, I just can't think of them right now. It's probably not important...
Speaking of next chapter, let's talk about the development time. Chapter 2 took me almost a year to make. I don't have much to say about this other than that procrastination and uni hit hard. To those who didn't know, I am a full time student. Much like other developers, I have a limited time to work on the game, and whenever I have the time, I procrastinate. Chapter 2 is a peculiar case though, because there are a lot of things involved during this period of time. One year for a chapter is absurd, and I don't plan on sustaining this style of development. I'm going to need more planning to actually develop an efficient, sustainable and affordable workflow. Most importantly, I'm too easily distracted. Maybe it's time to get back on meds again.
Another concern is that sometimes I'm biting off more than I could chew. I write out the story, put them in scenes, and realised, this shit is too long. Now, a big amount of content is what everyone wants, but of course, you don't want to wait a year for a chapter. And here's the funny thing- I don't really know how long is too long because I'm factoring in how long it'll take me to render out all the images. Let's say I have 3 months to work with; 1,000 renders would be easy to achieve with at least 100 renders per week. With another month, I can even go 1,500-2,000, given that I actually lock in. If I can make 3,000 renders in 4 months, I wouldn't hesitate to put out bigger updates. The truth is, I can't. So, it really boils down to output/time. I need to account for the time needed to create each chapter and determine the feasibility. Sometimes, I get a little ambitious and write a long ass chapter which I wouldn't be able to make in time. At least for this time, I want to have a structured release schedule. Chapter 3 and beyond, surely. (Ignore chapter 2)
Acknowledgement
Thank you everyone who supports my game and I really want to repay you with more quality content. We're not doing so bad for a linear VN
, I think. To my patrons, I still owe you 3 wallpapers. After chapter 2 releases, I'll make a poll and see which character you'd like a wallpaper from. I'll have more time to make special renders, then. Thanks for sticking with me for almost a year. Maybe I should do something special on the one year anniversary. Anyway, can't thank you all enough. I'll see you next time.
