VN Ren'Py To Be a King [Ch.11] [ITRoy]

[YRS™]

My fav women in this game..

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Same choice ☺☺

 

[Den187]

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The title of this post, if it had one, would be one word: "Maintenance." This week I got a new NAS, and I moved all my assets over to that. That took a bit to get things moved over, and performance is slightly lower than before (given all those stupid small Daz files that need to load with each scene). But it isn't too bad, and it is nice to, once again, have a central storage location for everything (and yes, I have an offsite backup for the NAS, and I'm working on a system for a local backup too).

In addition to that, I sorted a ton of my own internal notes and procedures, did fresh Windows installs on ALL my systems, and took a bit of additional time to relax. The reason for the fresh Windows installs were due to some issues I had been having. Doubtful it is hardware issues, and a ton of cruft built up over time, so here's to hoping it is Windows being its usual bitchy self. Hopefully a fresh start helps to keep these issues to a minimum.

Other than that, I've been continuing to do some more advanced learning and 3D techniques for the future. That is most certainly taking me outside of Daz, though there is no switch to announce or anything. Not even sure anything will come during To Be A King, as I'd have to know I could maintain my speed of render prep. Enjoy a look at an early experiment with Daz-to-Blender (not using the god awful Daz to Blender plugin). Still a lot of work needed to get this where I want it from a quality standpoint, but for a basic export with some tweaks, it worked well. My thanks to Puggy and

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for their Blender help, suggestions, and answering my dumbass questions.

To Be A King's final story is driving me a bit nuts, but the final issues are getting resolved. I know the extra time is worth it, but damn do I miss being able to crank out scene scripts. And yes, I have resisted the urgings of Valentina to make it only about her to end the game. :valdepressed:

I completed the custom renders for those patrons for the month, and they were really fun to do. Retextured half the environment for the customs, but the lighting fell into place well. Always a surprise when that happens. And damn did Flora win that poll overwhelmingly for this month's special render. I'll start work on that soon.

Day job has been crazy the last few weeks. Just when I thought projects were slowing down there…The extra work did enable me to get the new NAS though, so maybe I shouldn't complain too much.

On a personal note, this coming Tuesday we are having our dog put to sleep. He's made it nearly 14 years, but the last few months have been rough for him. Not sure what that will do to my creative desire, so next week's dev update may be very short.

That's all from me for now. If you'd like to see experiments and special renders, check out

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. I post that stuff over there so you aren't getting pinged from me

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for these things. Have a great weekend!

 

[NukaCola]

My fav women is the three princesses. END

 

[cxx]

My fav women in this game..

ran out of blondes?

 

[Qmil679]

ran out of blondes?

Not really. I pick all the best.

 

[Sorrow85]

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What a week. It was indeed rough after we put our dog to sleep on Tuesday. I was surprised at how much worse it was in the days before, when we knew it was coming. As good a job as we did in hiding his old things away for now, there are still constant reminders since my routine is drastically different now.

Needless to say, worry, anxiety, and depression are not helpful for creative work. I haven't touched anything 3D or script wise since Sunday morning, and my limited work last Friday and Saturday were more to try and stay busy and distracted (it did not work). I am feeling better day-by-day, so I hope to be back at things here soon, even in a more limited capacity for just a bit.

For those worried about me, as well as those who reached out, I do appreciate it. We have been getting together with friends and also getting out of the house this week. Nothing else to do now except wait for time to heal the wounds. We do plan to get another dog, and I'm resisting the urge to go to a shelter now and do that. With holiday travel out-of-state, and the need for healing too, it wouldn't be good to rush into anything.

I'll be skipping next week's dev update, unless I somehow make some massive progress, due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States on Thursday and Friday. Look to hear from me again on December 3. Have a great weekend, everyone!

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[TimMathew]

So

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What a week. It was indeed rough after we put our dog to sleep on Tuesday. I was surprised at how much worse it was in the days before, when we knew it was coming. As good a job as we did in hiding his old things away for now, there are still constant reminders since my routine is drastically different now.

Needless to say, worry, anxiety, and depression are not helpful for creative work. I haven't touched anything 3D or script wise since Sunday morning, and my limited work last Friday and Saturday were more to try and stay busy and distracted (it did not work). I am feeling better day-by-day, so I hope to be back at things here soon, even in a more limited capacity for just a bit.

For those worried about me, as well as those who reached out, I do appreciate it. We have been getting together with friends and also getting out of the house this week. Nothing else to do now except wait for time to heal the wounds. We do plan to get another dog, and I'm resisting the urge to go to a shelter now and do that. With holiday travel out-of-state, and the need for healing too, it wouldn't be good to rush into anything.

I'll be skipping next week's dev update, unless I somehow make some massive progress, due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States on Thursday and Friday. Look to hear from me again on December 3. Have a great weekend, everyone!

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So sorry about your dog take all the time you need

 

[RPDL]

Torrent: (

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) ❤

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- get torrents a few minutes early! (rpdl#6652)

 

[MysterMani]

Apparently in chapter 5's tavern event, the variable eliana_lover is never set (due the line that should set it misspelling it)

There's instances of eliana_lover in other files, I am assuming it's misspelled here.
Here's a corrected rpy file for that, just extract in .\game directory.
If you are downloading the .rpy file, it goes in .\game\chapters\chapter5\script directory.

 

[Den187]

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I feel I need to mention this, as there seems to be some confusion: To Be A King is very much still in development. It is not being put on hold for me to learn Blender, develop the next game, etc. I hate that the next release is taking so long to get everything ready, but it is purely a combination of a busy life away from development, some major story issues to work out, and those burnout symptoms. I believe the story is worked out well now for this next release, and I'm going to try and stop second guessing myself on all these decisions I'm making on it. On that note, let's talk about 2022.

One of the things that I realized while evaluating my plans for 2022 is just what a massive time investment I've made in To Be A King. It has been consuming nearly all my free time, and even some of my work day. While one could say that is the norm in visual novel development, it isn't something I'm willing to do in 2022. 45-60 hours a week is just too much for this "hobby." I think the high end of that range is too many hours in any job (except for very short periods), and, as I try to remind myself, this is still very much a hobby. With my day job not going away anytime soon, and my desire to get together with friends and have a life outside of VNs, I'm adjusting my schedule appropriately in 2022.

As of now, I plan to invest about 20-25 hours a week in development. Customs, special renders, and the Q&As will not come out of this time as those add just a few extra hours each month. Th 20-25 hours per week do have to cover the story, renders, code, etc. This means that, with the large releases that are To Be A King chapters, I expect my output to be about 2 releases a year. If I'm speedier than that, awesome stuff.

As for YouTube, I'm going to give that about an hour or so a week, with longer tutorials planned a bit more infrequently. No more twice a week videos, unless I happen to do something shorter, but I hope to delve into more complex things like advanced dforce. The podcast is definitely going to be just when I have something to say (though there is a new episode coming before Christmas).

To Be A King's Chapter 7 story has been through so many changes that I've had to upgrade my methods of keeping track of story elements, what different characters know, and where paths diverge. I've been back and forth on many things with it, including some final LI adjustments. Had a bit of a breakthrough when I realized there were so many ways I could finish out this story. As long as it is believable, I have to make some decisions and move forward. I haven't locked in the complete ending now, but I feel better about my choices for this chapter. If nothing else, I'll learn what not to do for the next game.

Thank you for reading this far. Our MC faces some challenges in the next chapter. I'm continuing with the more light-hearted harem tone of the game, but that doesn't mean that we don't have obstacles. You know, beyond keeping Valentina happy. Have a great weekend, and I'll see my $10 & up patrons tomorrow for our special Q&A.

 

[cxx]

well as long as it doesn't end up on hold (aka abandoned) i/we can wait.

 

[Sorrow85]

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Well, it was…a week. I started feeling sick last Thursday, and that got worse over the weekend. No idea what it was, but I felt like crap for about 5 days. On Wednesday, I started to feel a bit better. Yesterday was better still. I still accomplished work, but it was definitely slower and with more frequent breaks. How I wish that was the end of the bad news. On Tuesday, I found out my identity was stolen. Unfortunately, it was not anyone claiming they were IT Roy. Most of Tuesday and part of Wednesday were spent dealing with that. So far, I appear to be lucky that it was caught very early. But now I get to be extra vigilant for several months. I'm sending Valentina after these guys, if I ever find out who they are.

Despite all that, I made significant writing progress this week. As per usual, I added in a couple more scenes, but those are not too large. As I mentioned last week, I'm finally just moving the story in a certain direction. Given the many twists and turns writing has taken for this release, I'll announce here when it is done. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up again. We are now at the stage where certain characters are taking more prominence in the story, and that should be very fun.

With the holidays here soon, I'll be traveling to see family. There will be several days I'll be away, but I do have my laptop to take with me. Not sure how much rendering it can get done since I'll be around family, but I can at least work on the story and code. If the story for Chapter 7 is finished by then, I'll spend some time on Chapter 8's story. My more "normal" schedule will resume in early 2022.

That's it from me. Enjoy another pinup style render I did a couple of weeks ago now. I've got customs to finish up before I go out of town, along with the story. Have a fantastic weekend!

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[Den187]

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Still a bit more work to note where I need renders before render work begins, but the script for Chapter 7 is finally done. Close to 60,000 words. Woof.

 

[Xabder]

View attachment 1540375

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Still a bit more work to note where I need renders before render work begins, but the script for Chapter 7 is finally done. Close to 60,000 words. Woof.

update in february if we are lucky

 

[NG Creative]

I hate Marius, but what he said when he asked to marry Princess Astrid, was the only reason to forgive him.

Prince Marius "I will not marry her. Find someone else."

King "I have no other sons!"

pm "Then have General NG Creative marry her. You like him enough. She probably would have more in common with him anyway."

 

[Den187]

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A bit over halfway done with the script review/final edits, and have about 1/3 of the render marks in. In case you missed it, I do have to add 2-3 smaller scenes to improve the story's flow.

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for patrons to vote on as for who they want to get those scenes (ends at 6PM Eastern tonight). That is the short version. The longer version is that the story for Chapter 7 onward has had numerous rewrites and changes. I am not going to get into specifics, as almost none of it was anything I have talked about. But let's talk about why it took almost two months to go from over 80% of the script done to 100%. Turns out it is not because I'm a slow writer.

Around mid-October, I was wrapping up the story for Chapter 7. That took longer than I wanted, especially since I deleted and rewrote several scenes since Chapter 6's release, but it was close to being finished. But I didn't like it. I am confident I'll grow to hate the story I've made for Chapter 7, but hopefully that is months or years later, when I am a much better writer. My reaction after reading through the overall plot I had planned and tweaked for Chapter 7 was that it was just blah. Was it the worst I've ever done? No, but too much of it felt like I was trying to fit artificial quotas for certain content and it just seemed so obvious and rote. There was nothing to really propel the story, other than relationship progress and moving a few key storylines along.

However, thanks to some burnout symptoms, a busier than normal day job, and just needing time to sit down and really think it through, it wasn't anything I could correct right away. It needed reworking, but every time I tried to just adjust some smaller things, it still felt off. Until…I woke up one morning in mid-November around 4AM and realized what I needed to do. I was worried about your reactions if I emphasized certain parts of the story and characters and de-emphasized others. I still worry a bit about that, but things clicked. I finally had a framework for an interesting story with twists and turns, as well provide an opportunity for real character growth. Most importantly it provided some very different ways to resolve some big things. I wrote thoughts down for about an hour, went back to sleep, and then worked on the rough outline for Chapter 7 all day. Since then, the next chapter has received adjustments, had scenes deleted, and many more scenes added. But these were all to fill out the story, improve flow, and answer questions that came up as I wrote other scenes.

I have either removed, massively rewritten, or entirely added about 65 scenes for Chapter 7. I think that only 5 of the scenes I planned for Chapter 7 originally actually made it in with few changes. If you look back to the new progress graphic I released this past weekend, you'll see that there are nowhere near 65 scenes in Chapter 7. That is how much work I put in that no one will ever see. And that is definitely a good thing. At one point, I was a bit worried I was going to pull a George R.R. Martin - I'd never be able to deliver anything thanks to constant rewrites.

I look at the story for Chapter 7, and I finally like it. I don't even know how the hell it is going to end anymore, but I've done my best to avoid any problematic plot elements that force me into something. The story is interesting, and I want to see where it goes. I hope you all do also, once you get to play it in a few months. I am not going to pull any "Red Wedding" theatrics with the story, but it is going to get a bit dark. We already went to some of these areas, though briefly, with things like Valentina's backstory. But there is much more to explore, and let me assure you I've cut a LOT of dark stuff I thought about including. Chapter 7 of To Be A King is definitively Roy: dark and full of conflict one minute and inappropriate humor and sniping between characters the next. Oh and boobs (not saying I have those, but I always have to include them). Before I wish you a merry weekend, let me tell you that whatever you are thinking happens, you are probably wrong (winking emoji).

Have a great final weekend before Christmas, everyone! I'll be skipping dev updates for the next two weeks, but I'll be back in 2022 with a new dev update. While I am taking some extra time to relax this holiday season, I will be finding my way to work on To Be A King's next installment(s). Thankfully story work and coding is the perfect thing to do on a laptop while you try to avoid family.

 

[cxx]

marius is prolly gay.

 

[paopsst]

Can u guy, show me aelinia sex scene pls

 

[Sorrow85]

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Had hope to get a few more of these done, but I came down sick with something (not COVID). Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll be back in the new year with more dev updates and renders.

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[cxx]

where are the blondes?