June Progress Update (Patreon)

End of the month already, wow.

Played with the video encodings to make them easier for Ren'Py to decode, which reduced the issue with hitches/jumps on first loop after changing videos in an animation expression change or Scrying view change.  Issue seems to stem from a disconnect between the time Ren'Py uses to track the current playing time and the value it uses to determine when to play the video again on loop.  I figure I'll put together a little project isolating the problem and submit it to the devs in the hope they'll be able to address it in an upcoming version.

Added a couple more sound effects and songs before the release.  Also added some dialogue and renders to the first chapter if the player did not respond to Cerys's confession.  After events in part one of chapter two, it felt like the impact of that decision on Cer needed to be made clear, so I added some things through the end of the first chapter and into the second.  Fair warning, none of it is happy.

Compressed the images a bit more in order to package up an Android release.  Still a few style issues to address, but all in all there were no major issues.  The big thing moving forward will be adjusting to a new method of putting the release together to get around the size limit on apks.  Increasing image compression might still work for the second part of chapter two, but I think that'd probably be the last release where that's feasible.  I'll likely look into alternate methods once the content of part two is complete and ready for testing.

Release went pretty well, no major issues were encountered.  I tweaked some images and dialogue along the way based on reports, feedback, and suggestions.  Anything I couldn't get to I made note of for the next release.  Quite happy with how everything turned out and am looking forward to getting to work on the latter half of the chapter, which I'll talk about more in a separate post, similar to the one I made after the Chapter One release.

Finally, I've been making some additions/improvements to the Discord and Itch page along the way, so they're a bit more fleshed out.  I'll be adding some more emojis/stickers to Discord before spinning up development for part two.

As usual, thanks for the support and stay safe!