Development update 74 (Patreon)

Hey guys,

We are making good progress with version 0.18 although we are still in the early stages. Last time I said my plan was to start off the version 18 development cycle by writing the Chapter 2 ending. I figured that everything else should fall into place easily from there. I have made a decent start on the script for that and I have a few scenes set up in draft in the image software. As I anticipated though it’s quite hard going. Getting the chapter ending right is absolutely crucial as it will set the tone for the entire rest of the game. So, I need to keep in mind everything that’s happened already plus everything that I intend to happen across Chapter 3. It’s definitely proving challenging, but I’ve had a very long time to be thinking about this part of the game and I have plenty of notes and snippets of dialogue already written going back years. It’s all finally coming together now though and I think everyone will be pleased with the direction the game will be taking; with a much greater focus on the girls' sexual education. The headmaster will also be beginning to question his ultimate goals at the school and some of the alternate endings will start to appear on the horizon.

It’s very easy when writing long complicated scripts to get bogged down over details and start losing momentum. So, in order to break things up a little and to keep myself motivated, I’ve also been spending some time recently finishing off old scenes I started during previous updates. This also helps me to spread out the animating/rendering work more evenly across the update cycle. First on my list of things to finish off were a bunch of mini-scenes of Miss Potts and Debbie punishing random students around the school as part of the staff training storyline. It’s nice coming back to scenes after putting them to the side for a long period of time. That way I can tangibly see the progress I’ve made improving our art and animations over time. I’ve only made a couple animations so far for version 0.18 but they are all looking absolutely fantastic, even if I do say so myself.

Right after a big update is the best time to make major code changes as it gives us the maximum time to find bugs before the next release. With that in mind my team has been hard at work fixing some legacy issues that go all the way back to the game's humble origins, hopefully making the game a little more stable and reducing the potential for bugs in future updates. A special thank you to Kthunda for his work replacing the code for all the games' many animation loops, fixing several annoying issues with potentially corrupted saves and infinite loop errors. 

So, version 0.18 is off to a good start but we’re still in the early stages where I am mostly thinking, writing and doing bits and pieces with the graphics software. I also have the beginnings of an idea for our next poll slowly taking shape in my head, I’ll keep you posted on how that’s coming along as well.

Altos