4.50 star(s) 54 Votes

Moiraine™

Member
Jul 14, 2021
101
1,424


Greetings, my glorious patrons! Welcome to AUGUST -- the best and grandest of all months!

I've been hard at work on the next version of Unraveling August, and I figured we're due for a status update.

I'll begin by saying a lot of the dev time on this version update has gone into making sure the plot of this thing actually makes sense, as well as various backend projects--namely the gallery and text messaging system shipping with 0.3.

I'll admit I'm learning Ren'Py and Python as I go, so it took me probably longer than necessary to get them up and running, and as of this moment the gallery is mostly (but not quite) complete. That being said, the text messaging system was the big one, and I'm pretty proud of what I've managed to come up with. I feel text messages systems are often underutilized or even underdeveloped in many AVNs, so I wanted to come up with something I could use repeatedly and without breaking the flow of the game. I feel I've managed to hit that goal, and I can only hope you'll agree.

The idea was inspired by the BADIK interlude system, so it may look slightly similar at first glance to anyone who's played that, but I assure you the bones are 99.9% custom. (And frankly, far less of a spaghetti-code monster, which makes perfect sense considering I don't believe theirs was ever intended to be used long-term.)

Warning: Mild 0.3 Spoilers in Videos
You can preview the system briefly below via a snippet of a scene coming in 0.3, as well as a glimpse at a simple background animation I created for said scene.





As for the rest of the update, we're somewhere north of:
13,000+ words
600+ images

I don't know exactly how much longer this update is going to cook, but I predict release isn't too incredibly far away. I'll likely announce a release date in the next couple of weeks, barring any catastrophes such as the sudden and inevitable return of the dinosaurs.

Thanks for reading, supporting, and sticking with me!


 

BTungsteno

Active Member
Jul 10, 2019
622
1,322
Obligatory: "Can't wait for the August update!" joke

The preview look pretty nice and that pink hair girl smells like trouble and funny moments , the gallery also looks easy to navigate and that's good, kinda hate when devs add a weird and fast moving animation when navigating the gallery of a game.
 

JustPeekin

Member
Mar 21, 2020
498
1,843
Latest from Patreon.


Status Update 8/31/2023

TLDR: Jumped the gun mentioning release, still working on it, big sorry.

(Sam upon being told the update still wasn't out.)

I put this post off as long as I could, clinging to the hope I'd actually meet my own self-imposed deadline. Then I looked at the date. Oops.

Seriously, where the hell did this month go? I swear I posted my last status update yesterday. I blinked and missed a week or two thanks to nation-wide shortages preventing me from getting my normal medications. At some point during that, I became an uncle, thought my computer was dying on me (still not sure on that front, considering it shut down randomly five minutes ago while I was trying to load Studio), fought an obnoxious case of writer's block, and I don't even know what else.

Despite all that, I've been busy working on the game when I can. I'd say 0.3 is up to around 20k words now, from the 13k I mentioned last update. I've been beating myself up a lot for not getting that number up higher, but I know I'm making a logical mistake by comparing it to my word counts from when I was just writing fiction. With all the added dev time of making a game, it's probably about par for the course, honestly. Thanks to all the kind folks supporting me, I'm slowly learning to accept I'm not some kind of word pumping machine. I don't like it, and look forward to the day I can replace my pitiful fleshy parts with superior cyborg parts.

Anyway, sorry it's been a quiet month. I'll do another wallpaper soon, but I'm also always open to suggestions on other ways I can reward supporters other than the obvious finishing of the game. I've been of the mind if I have time to work on extra stuff, I should just be working on that instead. Dunno if other people feel the same way, but that's usually how my thought process goes.

Augustus Esotericus out.
 

m4pII

Well-Known Member
Jun 22, 2019
1,181
3,103
I hope at least in the upcoming update there will be normal dialogues without jokes.

At first it was funny, but realizing that all the conversations in the game were one big "punch line", I just had to skip the dialogues.
 
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Hordragg

Lesser-Known Mesmer
Game Compressor
Donor
Apr 2, 2019
2,932
10,529
At first it was funny, but realizing that all the conversations in the game were one big "punch line", I just had to skip the dialogues.
I'd say save for Casper's fabulous hair and Lua's dangerously mesmerizing eyes, you're basically missing all of the best parts. But you do you. Godspeed!
 

FatYoda

Member
Sep 12, 2017
314
339
we're like 3 weeks overdue and past the last update here....i'm not saying hurry or rush...take your time and get it right, but an update would be nice. :)

Edit: by update i mean let us know whats going on...waiting sucks, but waiting with no idea why or for how long is sooo much worse.
 

Moiraine™

Member
Jul 14, 2021
101
1,424



Release schedule:
  • September 27 - 07:00 PM - Sovereign of Secrets, August Luminary
  • September 29 - 07:00 PM - Arcane Adept
  • October 6 - 07:00 PM - Scholar
  • October 13 - 07:00 PM - Regal Initiate
  • October 20 - 07:00 PM - Supporter
  • October 22 -07:00 PM - Public
Dates and times are using .
Changelog:
+765 Images
+20,000ish Words
+A bunch of animations (think I have this down now, so more to come)
Developus Noticus:
As you know, this update has been in development for a bit. I could give you a lot of reasons for the delay, but if we’re being honest, I think I just got nervous about how many eyes were on this thing. I became a little paranoid about making the best possible game I could, which ended up causing me to agonize over the direction the story was headed in for way too many hours. I made scenes, edited them, rewrote them, then cut them more times than I can even count. Truth be told, I expected this update to be larger than it is, but I had to make the decision to cut it somewhere or risk stewing in development hell until the end of time.

Overall, while I’m disappointed in myself for not releasing a whole-ass novel with this update, I’m fairly satisfied with the content of 0.3 itself, and I really hope that shines through when you're playing.
 

OhGodNotAgain

Well-Known Member
Aug 11, 2023
1,067
2,449
Holy fuck I thought this was going to be a slice of life story but shit man Its way more than that. The mcs night out on the last update was just one mystery after another. I really need to know what happens next this is great.
I love how the mc isn't your typical bumbling drooling idiot. He knows how to take care of himself in intense situations and he doesn't seem too afraid of anything. I chuckled several times at his sarcastic jokes.
 
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AugustEsoterica

Newbie
Game Developer
Mar 31, 2023
23
496
Copied from a Patreon post I made about the save issue:

Sorry, I've had another report of that, but I honestly couldn't tell you why. I made extra sure not to change the script in a way that would break saves this time, and my test saves from 0.2 are loading on my end. Only thing I can think of is that I updated Ren'Py for the fixes to video playback (pretty much the only reason I could start including 4k video), which may have changed something under the hood I'm not aware of. If that is the case, there's unfortunately very little I can do about it now. My apologies.
 

goulet1995

Well-Known Member
Sep 30, 2021
1,348
2,650
Copied from a Patreon post I made about the save issue:

Sorry, I've had another report of that, but I honestly couldn't tell you why. I made extra sure not to change the script in a way that would break saves this time, and my test saves from 0.2 are loading on my end. Only thing I can think of is that I updated Ren'Py for the fixes to video playback (pretty much the only reason I could start including 4k video), which may have changed something under the hood I'm not aware of. If that is the case, there's unfortunately very little I can do about it now. My apologies.
could be people trying to use an outdated version of the walkthrough mod i know that has fucked up a few saves of mine in the past
 

Gluteus999

New Member
Jul 8, 2023
4
1
I don't have any mods. I got a rollback error from a vanilla 0.2 save, but it wasn't a big deal. The old content was short enough so was able to skip through it quickly.
 
4.50 star(s) 54 Votes