Devlog #6: Steady Pace (Patreon)

HEY FARMERS!

I just wanna start off by giving everyone a massive thanks for the patience and the support. I'm only able to sink so much time into this project due to the insane generosity of all of you guys. So thank you all for making that possible.

As for how things have been coming along, I've been wanting to put another one of these devlogs together for a while now just to keep you all posted on what's going on. Especially since how much work needs to go into this build.

While it's relatively light on new gameplay features, the story and art overhaul that's being put into this one is a pretty massive undertaking, so I just wanna give everyone as many looks into the process as I can!

That being said, let's start off with something exciting...

Brie the Barn Mouse!

A lot of you have been wondering how the barn's gonna hold more girls than the main three so far, and here's your solution! Her name is Brie!

She's a bit flighty, but she's a handy carpenter who should be able to expand the place to store lots more bovine beauties over time! In exchange, she'll happily accept some cheese for her efforts. You'll be able to make cheese from the milk you've collected, so time to start stockpiling!

Of course, the portraits!

And here's the real meat and potatoes. Since I can't show off too much of the story cutscenes being added, I can at least show a bit of light-spoiler dialogue just to show off how the portraits have been implemented.

Here's how it looks! Obviously the emotions change with each appropriate message just like the prior ones. But these ones have accompanying animations, like blinking and talking. And later on, I intend to add an animation for burps that will occasionally cut in whenever the character burps while you have the dialogue window open.

That said, with how long the portraits are taking, I think the plan is to finish them in waves. When the build launches, it'll include all of Sky's portraits, as well as the thinner version of every other character. Then, I'll roll out patches for that build that add the additional sizes for every other character one at a time.

(Mocha sneak-peek!)

I think that'll be the best way to prevent this update from coming literal MONTHS from now. Instead, I'd like to have it ready within the next two weeks, if possible. That's not a set-in-stone release date, but that's the goal! I wanna try to sprint the last leg of this race so that you all aren't left waiting any longer!

And for anyone wondering why the portraits take so long, here's the list of files for just Sky's. Each of these is a unique animated sprite, with either small variations (like slightly different expressions) or large variations (entire redraws for bigger sizes, full-cow transformation, etc).

Yeah... there's a few of them... hah...

But that said, I'm really happy with how they're turning out, so the work is well-worth it. Hopefully they'll be worth the wait for you all!

Until next time, Farmers!