Public Dev-log #17 (Patreon)

Hey folks,

It's not Monday, which means my 33-week streak is officially ruined! Curses!

I'll talk a little more about that in a moment, but first, let me just take a second to say...

Chapter 6 NTS/NTRS is out!!

A whole lot of work went into this update! There's approximately 30,500 words, 11 new scenes in the gallery, and 8 scenes featuring animations!

And you know what? I'm going to give us a little pat on the back here because I think we've earned it!

This was easily one of our most ambitious updates yet. Between the branching content, new locations, multiple characters sharing scenes, new outfits, and all the art and animations that came with them, we really pushed ourselves to deliver something special.

I'm incredibly proud of what Crème and I have accomplished with this chapter, especially considering we're still a tiny team finding our feet. Seeing how far the game has come in less than a year is genuinely exciting, and I really hope you all enjoy what we've put together!

You can get the latest update right here!

Now, onto why this dev-log is late.

This was the first update where I had Crème actively helping with art generation. I got very excited about this prospect, so much so that when I started writing, I just didn't stop!

Couple that with wanting to attempt some pretty ambitious scenes featuring multiple characters, several new locations, and... oh, two different outfit options for our leading lady!

It was a crazy amount of work.

What I also hadn't fully considered was the time I'd need to spend helping Crème get up to speed. I've been doing this for the best part of a year now, getting better and better with each update, but Crème was starting from scratch. Naturally, that meant some of those early days weren't quite as productive as I'd anticipated.

That's not a reflection on Crème, who's picked things up incredibly quickly and has already made a massive contribution to the game. It was simply something I hadn't properly accounted for when planning the release.

In hindsight, I probably should have delayed this month's release by a week, giving myself the extra time I needed and avoiding putting us both under so much unnecessary stress and pressure.

I got very caught up in hitting the deadline I'd set because I didn't want to disappoint you guys. I've always prided myself on being consistent with releases, and the thought of breaking that consistency really bothered me.

Unfortunately, that resulted in both of us working through the night to get the update out, right up until we had to leave the house to travel. It wasn't particularly pleasant, and ultimately, it resulted in me releasing a version of the game with more bugs than I would have liked.

I'm still relatively new to making games, so every update is a learning experience, and oh boy, was this one a big one!

Looking back, giving myself that extra week would have made far more sense. We wouldn't have overworked ourselves, and you guys would have received a better, more polished version of the game.

Going forward, I'm going to be a bit more realistic about the time we need. I'd much rather give you a polished update a week later than rush something out just to hit an arbitrary deadline. Consistency is important to me, but so is making sure we're delivering the best game we possibly can.

That said, I don't want the last few paragraphs to overshadow what we've achieved here. We took on a huge amount of work, tried things we'd never attempted before, and managed to pull together an update I'm genuinely proud of.

It wasn't a perfect release, but I think the chapter itself represents another big step forward for the game, and that's something worth celebrating!

I am happy to say that all the reported bugs have now been fixed so chapter 6 can be enjoyed as fully intended! Woohoo!

There are also a couple of tweaks I'd still like to make to Chapter 6, which I'll hopefully have completed by the Fan-tier release. Nothing major, just a little extra art and a few animations I didn't quite get around to making.

Anyway, thank you all for your patience, encouragement, and continued support. It's genuinely incredible to have so many people following along with this little game of ours.

We're learning, we're improving, and with Crème now properly getting stuck into development, I'm more excited than ever about what we can accomplish together.

Here's to Chapter 6, and to everything still to come!

Much love,

~ Creamy