4.10 Dev Log (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

The long-awaited Dev Log is finally here. It's been two months since the last update, my apologies and let's just jump right in.

Current Progress

941 renders

7,100+ lines of code

3 sex scenes

Rendering is around 60% done. Everything related to the campus in the first half is fully wrapped up. That covers classes, gym sessions, social hangouts, parties, and some romantic pursuits. The flow is a lot less linear this time around — you can tackle most story beats in whatever order you want, and a lot of choices branch out further than before. (That's why 60% of the episode already has 7,100 lines of code, considering both previous chapters approximately 10,000 each.) Eventually, you fuck up big time — piss off the wrong woman — and your happy sex-addicted school life comes to an end. You're pushed (or forced) out into the real world and right back into the chaos of Up-rise.

And that’s what I'm working on now: the casino. Technically you're there on business, but that doesn't mean you can't have a good time. I originally planned to build a proper Texas Hold'em minigame — figured it'd be easy with AI helping me with the code. Turns out, "code that doesn't crash" and "game that's actually fun" are two very different things. After two days of testing, I scrapped the fully randomized version and went with a few hand-crafted scenarios instead. Simple, stable, and honestly more appropriate — this is meant to be a side attraction, not the main event. Barring any surprises, I should have this whole section wrapped up within the next week.

After that, the main remaining scenes are the Mansion and the Cathedral. The Mansion is massive. Just getting inside has two completely different routes, each leading to different characters and events. You'll need to go through both to see everything. I'll go into detail on that in the next Dev Log. The Cathedral is the Ep2 finale, so once I get there, we're basically at the finish line.

On the video side, the three sex scenes currently finished are made up of a dozen or so short video clips each. With a handful of other videos, the total video count is already 50+, which is more than the Prologue and Ep1 combined. Some of them are technically just simple animated images, like the cover of this Dev Log, but they do add a lot more life compared to a static image. That said, I've heard some are experiencing stuttering on mobile, which is likely because I'm using VP9 encoding and it's pretty demanding. I'll put out a mobile-optimized build at some point down the road.

The Music Room I mentioned before is fully functional now. It's a standalone section and isn't accessible at any time during regular gameplay, since that would break the music system. However, in certain scenes, like the party, there's a special interface that lets you browse every track added to the game so far and change the music on the fly. You know, like the guy who hijacks the aux cord at the party. Fair warning: Brian will judge your taste.

I've also added a navigation system to the larger free-roam sections, along with a dedicated way to meet up with Eisheth. She'll now give you real-time commentary and reactions based on where you are in the story — more of a presence, and more like Johnny Silverhand. I also had plans to do a full UI overhaul for the whole game, but realistically there's just no time for that right now. It'll have to wait.

To sum up: yes, development is running significantly behind schedule, and I won't sugarcoat that. But I'm pushing as hard as I can and trying not to let it drag on any longer than it has to. I'm not comfortable giving a solid completion estimate just yet, but hopefully by the next Dev Log things will be a lot clearer.

Thank you so much for your patience and support!

-JBRRRRRRRRRRRR