Devlog #7: After the Long Wait (Patreon)

HEY FARMERS!

Before I start this, I want to take a second again to just try to voice how grateful I am to everyone who's taken interest in this project, and who's supporting it even through these long periods of no updates.

Your generosity and support, seriously, is why this game exists. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Gorge Valley wouldn't be possible without all of you. You're the reason I can make it. You're the reason this project started, and you're the reason it'll continue to grow.

Without you, we wouldn't have the farm.

And to all the new folks, sorry for not sending out welcome messages! I usually try to message everyone individually, but I've been trying to put 100% effort into the game lately to get it in your hands ASAP.

To everyone who's just looking for an update on when to expect the newest build... the deadline is officially [APRIL 10TH]. So you can expect to be able to play the Unstable Build no later than that! And, of course, as usual, following builds will proceed shortly after.

But for everyone interested in a proper dev-log... strap in!

What's Been Taking so Long?

So, I kinda touched upon this with the last dev-log, but obviously, this build has taken WAY longer than the others, and has been far more work.

Aside from the major corruption/crash that caused a lot of progress to be lost, overall there's just been a lot of behind-the-scenes work to do.

A lot of people have had plenty of bugs and crashes piling up due to bad programming practices and systems that I implemented fairly poorly. I've been trying to re-make a lot of these from scratch. On top of that, the sheer amount of artwork, animations, and sprites that have been redone are in the hundreds now. I wanted to completely give the game's portrait art and animations a fresh coat of paint so that the style feels crisp, coherent, and pleasant.

A Proper Introduction

While there isn't any new mini-games or major new activities like the last couple updates, this is the first build focused around fleshing out the "feel" of the game.

There's now a rather lengthy intro cutscene (Don't worry, completely skippable) that introduces you to the story, the characters, and even a brief run-down of the controls.

It'll introduce you properly to Izzy the imp, S'apphire, and Mocha, as well as give you a better idea as to why you find yourself in Gorge Valley in the first place!

And, of course, as many of you have seen, there's two routes for this intro. A good one, and a bad one. I'll let you decide which is which!

But beware, Gorge Valley is a dangerous place. There's a reason they don't often get visitors.

Sky might be a bit out of her element...

Cows!!

One of the most sprite-demanding and work-intensive parts of the update, but TOTALLY worth it. I've been adding all of the animations, portraits, etc. for the "full-cow" transformation mode! These forms will be available for all the girls, as well as Sky herself!

You can get this outcome by giving a Bovinity Potion to a girl who's already undergone the cow transformation!

On that same note, there's also been a new potion added: the De-Bovinity Potion, which will counter-act the effects of a second potion, or can return Sky back to normal!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I'll be able to add Sky's fat sizes to this update. It will likely either come with a small update to this build later on, or the following build.

This is because I really want to make the deadline that I've placed on this, so I've had to cut some of the things I wanted to include in this build just to avoid scope creep from preventing me from ever releasing this update.

You all have waited long enough, and I just want to get it in your hands.

So the focus is on implementing the newest Dryad, finishing the portrait and cow sprites, and adding Brie's introduction! If I can get all of that finished, then I can worry about stuff like Sky's bigger sizes later.

That's all for now, y'all! Again, thank you so much for all the patience and support. There's nothing I can do to show my gratitude properly. Thank you, all of you.

I hope you're all ready to get back to the farm soon.

Until next time, Farmers!