[Reward/Recap] light at the end, premature testing (Patreon)

that time of month again. first, the uzhe's for patrons who pledged in the month of april:

• all y'all new folks have been added on the credit list. new or otherwise, if you want to be listed under a certain name, or no name at all, just let me know
• supporter stuff has been gone over but there were a couple emails i couldn't match so if you know your forum account is erroneously not Supporter'd please Do Me An Inform
• messages have been sent for new trainer name
• any higher tier folks wanna call in a bit y'all just dial me up. call me on that cellphone, late night when you uh, want to... idk... however that song goes.

also like just in the first place i really need to reiterate, thanks to all of you so much for still being here. we are coming to the end of E19's main story but postgame is such a slog... i know this is kind of a desert where i don't have a tonne for you guys to see, do, test, etc but that makes it all the more important that you are here to carry us down this long, final stretch

y'all make my life, don't you ever forget it

so, the usual recap:

• first and foremost the big momma this month has been finishing both the story and the eventing of victory road.....  y'all helped decide the encounters in full, and they are great and it is all done and i am free, that is the last dungeon to make for the main story and that is weird. actually looking back on it, that wasn't even two weeks ago... it feels like it was longer than that. but like, wow.
  looking back at victory road, i'm pretty happy with how it's come out. i am a little concerned about how the instability of rpg maker (and essentials) is going to hold up when it comes to some of the more active/fast-paced puzzles that exist in VR. there are a couple things that i know could cause issues based on really unfortunate or random timing but i may need a larger test session to understand those... and what to do about them? gosh. but other than that, there is very little that i think i wasn't able to do to my plans for it.
• since then, as y'all who've read the recent posts know (but then again i guess this post isn't for those who read every post...), we moved on to mapping the elite 4 rooms! as far as the elite 4 section goes, mapping is the bulk of the work here since most of the eventing is just moving the player on through. story is not insignificant but also, it's like four conversations in total so whatever.
  as far as being happy with outcomes goes, i am very pleased with how each of the three currently finished rooms has come out. spriting it all is a bit tedious, but it is going to be worth it. y'all can see an example of that in yesterday's post, if you haven't already (mind spoilers)(we'll go no bars btw)... and i'm really pleased so many people have commented how they like it! however, i have to say, this isn't even my full power !! once we get into mapping for starlight, and i can go back to parallax mapping and per-map lighting/shadow effects, i am going to have a Lot of fun. 
• we've also continued on with animations this month. there's exactly 90 left remaining to be done (and counting z-moves.) Smeargle posted this on the forum recently, but here's an example of one recently finished move, Ice Hammer:
• finally, but as we're looking ahead to post game (and the one gabillion legendary events..............................) we'll be having a short test session to make sure the main story part of E19 is all set.  that test session unfortunately will only be among the dev team, but to get sort of a head start on it cass has already started going through the existing part of 19 as a test.
  so far, it's been about four hours' play, i believe, and we haven't even breached victory road. as for how it's going, there have been a few fatal issues, but nothing that couldn't be quickly fixed. however, it's very clear i will need to make the gym 'puzzle' easier. i already have taken some steps to doing so, but i suspect more will be necessary because ouch. we'll keep going though.
  the reason we are having this mid-development test session for the end of the main story is so that the end will at least be a little tested should we suddenly have to "accidentally leak it" due to any unwanted outside attention. it's just a bit of security.

... but in all, that's about where things are at. i am hesitant to say this.... please don't consider it a promise or expectation! but the main story will probably be done by next month. one hopes. things may change quite a bit then-- we'll see!

as i said before, thank you all so, so, so much for sticking around for it.