Spook’s Progress Posting #28 – Enemy at the Gate (Patreon)

Goodest of mornin’s wild folk! It’s the end of another week, and therefor time for another check in to tell y’all where we stand when it comes to our next meal! For those hungry for all things Noe and Co, buckle in and let’s chomp on some tasty news. For this last week gone by:

Goal: Finish off the remaining Scene 2, 28 CGs in total, Post-Production and as much Text Prep as could be fit it.

Accomplished: 42 new CGs posed and rendered, completing Scene 2, and a big jaunt into the final scene, as well as 42 CGs Post-Pro’d, also completing Scene 2.

Last week’s best week ever just got bested, as 42 is the new highest score in a week! Woo! That’s 2/3 art weeks of the year not only as 30+, but 40+, which we never saw last year despite the good times then. The downside is that by the time I finished the Pro-Production work (6+ hours’ worth), it was already 9:30AM on Saturday, so there was no time to get elbows into the texts or the engine again this week… You’ve got to call it sometime, right? In any case, let’s get a look at our progress as a visual.

Making leaps and bounds forward, always great to see. It’s looking like we’ll hit the full 100% for CGs and Rendering by the time we’re back for next week’s progress report, or if not at least be 95+% and closing in tight. The Texts and Engine bars are lagging behind, sure, they usually do since they are at the end of the workflow, but it’s not to worry. Scenes 1 and 2 are both all ready for their texts to be turned to game files and then tested before being called release ready, and between that and the engine work left and playtesting, it should only be a week’s work to cover that as well. Which means… We’re still looking good for a release window of Feb 17th-21st.

Alrighty! That’s enough numbers, now for some sights to see…!

[From This Point On, Beware of Potential SPOILERS]

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I’m through Scene 2 of the release now, so let’s talk about that! Now that the Public Teaser is up and pleasing, I can tell y’all that this version is 154 CGs long (biggest ever version once again!) and that 2 of the 3 scenes are Beck’s, as voted by you. I decided to give him 2 of the 3 so that he could stay on the board for the current Content Poll (vote now!) without going to far out in front of the other arcs. I gave the 3rd scene to Frankie as she was the best fit for it, and also because I fucked up the first poll and left her option off the official vote options, whoops!

The second Beck scene coming is one I’ve been looking forward to. I wrote it come years back and it’s one I remember the most vividly of my backlog. It’s not something that’s a crazy twist like suddenly taking NTR on a wacky space trip or anything, but it’s also something that’s new to the game and not something I see a lot of other games trying. Heh, I guess now I might have a guess as to why.

When I wrote it, I wasn’t expecting that I’d be the one to make the art for it someday. So far it’s been the hardest scene for me to make. I’ll not spoil things, but there’s a lot of tight camera angles, lighting conditions to consider and change along the way, and generally a few tough shots to pose along the way… Even more so than Kriem’s bathroom stall brawl from the early version I did! Part of me feels I’m being overly critical of myself when I look back on the spicy CGs, that as I challenge myself with these harder scenes and grow my skills some that I naturally improve my self-critiquing. In any case, I’m curious to find out how you fans react/enjoy the scene once you get to play through it in full. I still dare say it’s pretty hot!

So here’s a first look, much closer to the start than the finish, but still… You know there’s going to be war when you find an enemy at the gate…!

… Or, well, the back door, but that didn’t quite sound right. Heh.

And yes, that is a new car Beck is sitting on. For what he’s got planned, he didn’t want to put his own sweet ride at risk, and he’s right not to. Muhahaha!

Misc News

Possibly the biggest Misc News of them all: We announced a news game this week! Yes, Unshi’s coming back to give you beWildernauts even more sexy things to love and lust over. So far we’ve only given out the short game’s working title, “My Novel Summer”, but that’s just for now.

Speaking with Unshi, we’ve decided the next tease in this line will come in March, so hold on tight. Unshi is Pro-Producing stuff already, but with NTR coming up on the first version of the year, we want to get that out soon and smoothly before anything else. As mentioned above, we’ll see Noe back for the first serving in about 3 weeks, then I want to get through the rest up, rollover and version Pre-Pro before I go helping to put together our first focused Novel teaser. Sound’s like a smart plan, right?

So, expect to hear more about MNS after the Brave release for NTR’s v0.27. After that, I’ll keep y’all up to date with smaller developments in this section of the Progress Report as I hear the gossip, while the larger news will of course get posts of it’s own as it happens.

The Week Ahead

And now to look at the future to finish out! It shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear my plans revolve around aiming to finish off the remaining art for the version. There are 31 CGs (plus any impromptu inserts) to do to reach the finish-line, which is certainly achievable in 1 work week. The twist: Monday is St. Brigit’s Day, our second national saint here in Ireland after St. Patrick, and also a national holiday. That means next week is a shorter one. It may end up being a choice between finishing the art or getting text work down by the end of the week, we’ll have to see when we get there. It may be that an audible gets called come Friday.

So that was the week that was #28! Another awesome week to put in the back pocket, and an extended weekend to charge up for the big push to our first dish of the year! Off I go! Until next we tease…

Be ready for war and beWilder!