Hi everyone! Time for this month's wrap up and devlog. 

I can't believe May is over already. That's a bit bonkers. I completely blanked on it being the end of the month and time for the update until I saw another developer post their end-of-month update. I've been really focused on getting Chapter 6 ready for beta and have had some real life stuff going on and suddenly it's June.

I blinked and it's June. Whoa. （⊙ｏ⊙）

Anyway, let's jump into the update.

Summary:

• Finished expressions coding
• Finished all bonus scenes (for chapter 5)
• (Including drafting, revising, and coding)

• Added SFX to the chapter
• Finished up the flowchart
• Added new glossary and translation articles
• Finished adding two new side character sprites
• Made a couple of sprite additions for some main characters
• Added in a couple of new BGs/BG variations
• Worked on character trailers
• Started rolling out the beta of Chapter 6 to some backers

Art

So this month I didn't do any major art since there are no CGs in chapter 6 but I did have to draw two new sprites who appear in this chapter briefly. Technically one of those sprites was already partially complete. I really had to make some fixes and code his expressions. And the other sprite was the one that needed the most work.

I also added a couple of new variations for existing sprites including putting Noel's reading glasses officially in the game. Although he doesn't actually wear them in Chapter 6. But I did retroactively add them to previous chapters where the MC catches him reading. And Yren got a new outfit for reasons.

And I had to create a couple of minor BG variations as well. Nothing major - sometimes when the ship goes to a new place or encounters a new thing, I'll have to create a new bridge variation where the viewport there has something different visible outside.

I also continued to work on the character trailers that I've been releasing here and there. And finally have finished Yren's though I still haven't had time to post it yet.

That's technically art...

Coding and Other

For coding this month I focused on getting all the sprite expressions finished for the remaining characters. Once that was done I moved to finishing up the flowchart for this chapter and then after writing the bonus scenes, of course, I had to code those as well.

The flowchart this time around wasn't too bad. There was this section though.

Any time the connectors have these unusual shapes due to weird branching, it can get a little tricky to make them visually look the way I want them to. So building this section was a little tricky but not as bad as the insanity of Chapter 5.

I also had to code in the SFX - there weren't that many new ones needed as this is a pretty chill chapter where everyone is just hanging out on the ship for the entire episode.

I also had to code in a few other minor things - the glossary, etc. I did find a bug in the glossary from the accessibility updates and was able to get that fixed as well. So it was mostly just walking sounds or doors opening.

I can't remember if I had mentioned previously that I added in new glossary articles for every character and location the player encounters in the game. These articles are largely set up for the purposes of including descriptive text of those people and places for players who need visual descriptions. Originally, I added a visual notification and a sound notification for when a new glossary article is available. The visual notification is actually just there so that the self voicing, when enabled, has something to read.

But I realised that the little "bloop" notification sound was kind of overwhelming at the beginning of the game because you do meet a ton of new people and see a ton of new locations all at once. There is now a toggle for this in settings.

It's toggled off by default but if you want the sound notification on, you can turn it on there. So that was something else I added this month.

The flowchart was probably the biggest chunk of new coding I had to work on though.

Beta 

I have started rolling out the beta version of the chapter to patrons in small bites. So not all the Black Tea patrons have access to it yet but I will be rolling that out over the next couple of days.

As usual, beta will last a week or two - until testers have had time to thoroughly go through everything, at which point this episode will move into early access on Patreon.

I was able to get this episode to beta faster than usual because it was shorter and more self contained. And didn't have CGs - it is the first chapter without them.

The next chapter, however, is huge. And it will have CGs and new sprites. And so I expect it may actually take a bit longer to release than previous chapters. 

Chapter 7 isn't the longest chapter in the game (that's Chapter 10) but it is the second longest.

It's going to be a journey for sure.

Writing

This month I finished up drafting and editing all the bonus scenes. These scenes slot in between Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 chronologically. So they are about the love interest's POV regarding the events of chapter 5. It's not a scene-by-scene replay of Chapter 5 but is focused on their thoughts about the surface assignment after the fact.

All in all it's about 10,000 words of content in the bonus scenes.

Which means that Chapter 6 + Bonus Scenes comes out to be about 43,000 words for the update, which is not a bad amount.

The total word count for the game at this point is 654,000 words including all the bonus scene content.

The released content up to the end of Chapter 6, however, is a total of 277,000 content, including the bonus scenes. This means that with Chapter 6, we will be 42% of the way through the project.

Now, these numbers will change if and when I release more bonus scenes but even with the bonus scenes, the numbers are pretty close. So rounding down, yeah, the game is close to about 40% released which is really cool......

But there's still a lot of story to go. LoL

Upcoming Month

As usual I will be making beta corrections but I'll also be getting a head start on Chapter 7 content - anything that does not require putting new assets into the build.

I won't be adding anything I will need to exclude in the Chapter 6 build. But I can work on things like sprite staging and sprite expressions even before Chapter 6 fully releases.

Chapter 7 is also self-contained to the ship but there's a lot more going on than is going on in Chapter 6.

Ch 6 is very much a 'calm before the storm' chapter where the storm clouds are gathering on the horizon but haven't arrived yet. I've said that's a "chill" chapter and it is because nothing terribly exciting happens. It's very focused on set-up for the events of Chapter 7 and Chapter 8.

But I think it definitely ends on a note that says...SOMETHING is about to happen.

But yeah that is it for this month. By my next update, Chapter 6 will probably be released or else release will be imminent. It really depends how long beta has to last.

Either way, I will see you then!