August Progress Update
Quick and dirty: Renders, anims, and sound done for roughly half the script.
Had a family emergency in the middle of the month that sapped my productivity for a few days, but all's good now, thankfully.
Got the remaining two animations back for the big "quality-time" scene, and sent another two off on commission. Had to send those to a new animator as I only had the old one for a limited time before they moved on from HS2 work. There are two remaining animations that I'll take a stab at myself. I don't particularly enjoy animating, but unless the game makes enough that I can hire on steady, reliable work, it's best if I can care of a few anims here and there.
The script is up a few hundred lines (8300-8400 total range) from where it was last update. The first half of the work I've done is probably going to take less time than the upcoming second half. The big QT scene is complete, but the two smaller ones are still to do, as is the work to create the new characters introduced at the ball and preparing everyone's styles (outfits, hair, etc). I'd like to release quicker, smaller updates to the tune of 3-4 per year, so if the script continues to grow I may split the ball into its own update. The new dev process of rendering/animating/scoring as I go will allow me to spin out an update pretty quickly if I reach a point partway through where I'd like to put together a release.
This update will introduce "mini-scenes", basically small scenes of intimacy with the LIs with no animations and limited dialogue. A bunch of twenty-somethings, and one still-young elf, cohabitating and, potentially, pursuing romantic relationships would obviously lead to a whole lot of intimate moments. Ignoring that would seem to do a disservice to the 'reality' of the world and characters, but trying to make full scenes for all those would bog down the pace of the story and take up a whole lot of time and resources. So, these smaller scenes with a bit of dialogue and a couple dozen renders are what I've decided on to depict those moments. I may wind up putting dialogue/text in for the whole scene while keeping the overall limited scope, since it seems most folks have responded very positively to the writing. Major moments/developments will always get the full scene treatment. Not sure yet if I'll include the mini-scenes in the Events memory section, but I'm leaning towards yes and just marking them as mini.
The third preview for Chapter Two will be up for Practitioner tiers and above once I've picked out the renders and typed it up.
Thanks for the support, stay safe, and take care of yourselves!
