Hi everyone! Welcome to a slightly early November Devlog!

The big news is that I have released the Episode 2 beta to testers on Patreon. The episode will be in beta for a while before heading into Patreon early access as there are still some needed assets for the episode as well. (CGs and some bg variations primarily).

But let's jump into the details!

So what have I completed since last update:

Summary:

(All these updates are in reference only to the content in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4)

• Coded the flowcharts
  • Both building them
  • And making them unlock
• Created Episode 1 recaps
• Created new glossary articles
• Coded all BG changes
• Coded all music and SFX cues
• Coded all sprite expressions
• Made minor fixes to some Episode 1 CGs
• Fixed a bug that was causing the game to crash when going into Wil's CG gallery (I think. This one is hard for me to verify because I can't recreate the error)
• Created 8 out 14 CGs for Episode 2
• Fixed a minor bug in the music room
• Released the Beta of Episode 2 on Patreon
• Worked on the patreon guide
• Worked on the patreon art book
• Worked on the bonus scene for Episode 2

Beta Release

As mentioned, I released the beta version of Episode 2 (containing chapters 3 and 4)  to Black Tea Patrons on the 22nd. It will probably stay in beta for a bit as I finish up the remaining assets (mostly art related) before moving into early access.

I still have about 6 CGs to complete and a lot of minor art related things like BG variations to complete and put into the game.

I also need to finish up and code a bonus scene for this episode. Not every chapter (or episode) will get bonus scenes but I do have one in the works for this episode at least.

Just one this time - a group scene - instead of six individual scenes.

Episode 2 is about 68000 words which will bring the total word count of released content up to 150,000 words.

It's another pretty chunky episode even though it's technically the smallest episode.

Art

So I'm not completely sure how many CGs for Episode 2 were complete when I released Episode 1. I know it was at least one CG because I've had Kav's intro CG done for a really long time now. I think I had at least one other CG done. So I'm not completely sure how many CGs I've completed in the last month.

Regardless I now have 8 out of the 14 complete and a 9th one started.

My goal (at least for now) is to have CGs for the LIs in every chapter. This may change if I don't find good moments to illustrate in a given chapter (unlikely for now but I can see this becoming an issue in chapters 11 and 12).

If I continue with two chapter updates (also up in the air still), that means 12 CGs per episode going forward.

But there are 14 CGs in Episode 2 because, of course, Kav is down by 2 CGs since he doesn't appear until Chapter 3. I really don't want him to come up short on content so I am catching him up.

That means he has a lot more content than the others at first because I'm trying to catch him up. He has more CGs now because otherwise he'd have fewer overall. His scenes are also a bit longer than the others for a while because when he comes into the game his route is down by about 8000 words. That 8000 words gets made up over the next few chapters.

Anyway. 

Every LI gets one CG that has both him and Wil in it and those are basically the ones that I have to do now. CGs that show Wil are, of course, more time consuming due to the character customisation.

This is also my first time really getting a full picture of just how much more work those CGs are going to be. These CGS are different to the ones in GS which required no redrawing and only a ton of recolouring.

These require very little recolouring but a lot more redrawing. We'll see how it goes.

Coding and Other

Of course I've done a lot of coding this month too. A lot of it is the sort of "simple but tedious" type of thing.

Each of these two chapter episodes is nearly the length of (or actually the full length of) an entire route in Gilded Shadows. That means a lot of expressions to code in.

And on top of that, there are a lot of group scenes in this game. A lot. In fact the "common route" content is made up almost entirely of group scenes. So the expressions are particularly tedious.

If there is a reason that I decided to break down and do single chapter episodes after this - it will be primarily due to the sprite expressions. They are so freaking tedious and the chapters are just so long that I may need to break it up a bit more going forward.

This episode nearly killed me when it came to those sprite expressions. And that remains an issue for the rest of the game. The group scenes diminish for a few chapters but come back with a vengeance for the final chapters. So yeah. That's going to be an adventure. A terrible one.

We'll see what happens.

Upcoming Month

I will mostly be focused on finishing up CGs and doing corrections for the beta in the upcoming month. 

I have a few other things to work on too - the art book, the premium guide, the BG variations but my focus will be the CGs and corrections.

I do not have an exact ETA for episode 2 going public. It will remain in beta for a while then go to Patreon early access for a month or so. 

That realistically puts the public release of Episode 2 at early next year some time.