Progress Report #128 - Great news! (Patreon)

Hey lads!

I've been dealing with kidney stones again (they returned after 3 months) over the last few days, and I also needed a break after releasing v36. But I'm back now and already working on fixes for v36a and features for v37.

I have some great news! I managed to get a partial refund on some of my meds (they cost a lot!), so I can save a bit more money each month. It's not great, but not terrible either. Also, all your yearly pledges and bonus tips were a huge help, so my financial situation isn't critical anymore, at least. Thank you all for your support!

So, in return for your support and trust in me, and to show that your money isn't going toward my private jumbo jet, but toward my living expenses and into this project:

Firstly, I'm introducing the three-quarter front character view. This feature will be huge and game-changing, but it will require a lot of time and "a bit" of funding before it's fully released. So, I'll release it in small parts for Extended versions as an optional feature, so testing this buggy and unfinished stuff won't be forced upon you. Initially, you'll get to test it without any clothes or character customization options, and with some very basic animations. As for the timeline, I have no clue. I've already added partial support for new angles, but making it work properly, learning how to animate and use it, doing it for both genders, adding clothes & facial expressions, experimenting with it (new body types?), optimizing it (yes, I'm looking at you, Android), and so on, will take a lot of time... and money. But of course, I'll keep you updated on all the progress I make on it.

Secondly, I bought Spine 2D and I'm going to create new animations with it. But there's a small problem - I can't use it to create animations for the side view, as it would break all existing animations. So, only new front & back views will be created with Spine, while the side view will remain with my old animation tool. It will take some time for me to learn Spine and then integrate it into my project, but I believe it will be worth the wait once I'm done. Don't worry, I'm not going to dedicate all of my work time to Spine, so you'll still get to see monthly updates, but they might be a bit smaller, I guess. Well, I'll see how it goes.

And something you definitely won't like, because I like to kill all the fun in my posts - my wife got mad at me because of my constant crunch in March/April, so I'm kind of prohibited from staying up late working. So, from now on, expect small delays and a lack of precise release dates (yeah, as if they were ever precise to begin with, lol). My wife will give birth in August, and lately, she gets easily triggered by every minor thing... Sigh. Don't worry, it won't slow down too much from now on, just a bit.

The first three days of May are considered holidays in Poland, and people usually spend them grilling sausages outside. I wanted to do the same, so I might be a bit absent during that time. I'll probably release v36a this weekend, though.

The Steam store page still isn't up, but it's about 95% done, so maybe next week? For the Steam release, you'll still have to wait until late Summer probably.

Cheers!