Dev Update #15 (Patreon)

More good progress, which always feels nice. It helps that I had a nice long weekend to get some things done on the game, but also just relax a bit. It's easy to just grind this stuff out, high on the feeling of accomplishing things on the to do list. But creative work needs relaxation and space to think too.

Environments are fully finished with their new HDRIs (though, as always, some of those caused some small issues I had to fix). I've got the new characters modeled, and the script got another look. At this point, I just need to finish up adding some code, and then renders can start. That means that renders should be starting any day now. Chapter 6 is going to be massive, so expect some previews here regularly now as work continues on this massive release. A few thousand renders don't happen overnight, no matter how much I wish they did. I did total up the word count for Chapter 6. Some of this is code, but it came out to 99,300 words. It's so large that, while I didn't find a good break point initially, I may break this release up after all.

"Any idea on a release date, Roy?" I can hear you asking. Nope. I have an internal goal that has already been pushed back twice due to everything extra I had to do. It all depends on how smoothly things go with renders, as well as if my day job picks back up. I *think* I've got everything fairly well setup, but, inevitably, there will be things I missed that either require redos or just take extra time to figure out and fix. Just the nature of doing this solo with such a massive project. Originally I thought this would be a faster turnaround, but I really challenged myself with a lot of new environments this go around. Whoops.

I will have a poll these next couple of weeks for my $10+ patrons. We just finished one for the design of a character you'll meet in Chapter 6, but there are some other things I'll be putting to a vote. Be sure to vote in that, if you're eligible. I'll see you all next week, hopefully with a preview render (assuming I haven't done a scene that is too spoilery).