Progress in July (Patreon)

It has been an exciting month. Or at least for me it was exciting from a creative point of view. On the one hand, this is the second month that I'm no longer working as a journalist, and it simply amazes me how much creative energy I have left without this responsibility, and the lack of constant article writing, news searches, testing, interviews and other duties. I'm really making better progress now than at any time since I started this whole visual novel thing. And while it can be mentally exhausting, it's nowhere near as mentally exhausting to write, for example, ten articles and 70-100 news a month.

One of the benefits of this was that I finally managed to think through the Rise of the Crime Lord Chapter 10 in depth and find solutions to the things I wasn't happy with. So I've changed a few things, mainly concerning the plot development.

Firstly, Rick and Cora's relationship is given a much bigger role in the chapter if they both travel to the island. Originally, Rick was going to have fun with Beth and Cora with Jake at the beginning of the chapter, and I also planned a Rick-Cora-Claire Bowmen threesome, and Rick could have slept with Claire separately in the second half of the chapter. Well, they're out of the story. The only way Rick can be alone with Beth is if neither of them travels to the island and Beth is Cora's lover. Also, Rick and Cora will have many more scenes together on the island. In summary, one of the end goals of the chapter is to strengthen Rick and Cora's relationship and, if all the decisions are in place, the possibility of an open marriage between them at the end of the chapter may arise.

Above, I mentioned Claire Bowmen, who I've shown you before. Well, she's out of the story. At least I deleted her from this chapter, the character herself may appear in other roles, but she will not appear here.  I was never happy with her, I reworked the character several times, but she didn't fit the bill. Not that background, not that look. So she was replaced by a new character, Hoshiko Mabhena. She's an actress too, but she's more reserved than Claire, she's better suited to Cora as a future friend, and the sentences I intended for Claire sound better coming from her.

Also, if Rick hadn't gone on the trip with Cora, then Chapter 10 would have ended with him either taking Jake's boat out with one of the women (Kendra, Ashley, Miri and Rachel would have been possibilities) or going to Sam's. Well, the boat part will come later, either in Chapter 11 or 12. And Rick is going to Sam anyway, it's no longer an option. I made this decision in part because Rick and Sam's relationship does not develop at the speed the story requires. On the other hand, I have to cut back on the choices, because the story is already too overblown. This slows down the making of chapter 10, and there will be some important decisions in that one too, so I'm going to cut out the ones that don't have a major impact on the story or would happen later anyway regardless of the choice, just in a slightly different way. Also, a "spy" sub-plot was cut out, which although I thought was very interesting, it didn't go anywhere - although I may put it back somewhere else in the future, but for now I'm done with it.

On top of all this, I have also completely transformed the location of Argay's holiday home, the island. The original location was very barren and did not represent the idyll I wanted to achieve. So it has been replaced by a new island, which is now much greener. And I replaced one of the two buildings because the original building was too compact, with little interaction. Although it has lost the asymmetric effect, I can now enjoy much more freedom as a creator.

As for Distant Horizon. As I indicated in my previous progress summary post, there will be no new update in August. V0.6 will be available in September. I don't know the exact date yet, but now it is set for the second half of September. In July, all my attention was on Rise, which I wanted to tidy up and make more progress with. I thought about Distant sometimes, but mainly I was just trying to define what I wanted to achieve in the next 5 updates. I've got the ideas, and this week, while I'm finishing up a section of Rise, I'll be working on that as well. Then comes the production process. I'll say up front that v0.6 will be short, perhaps the shortest of the Distant updates so far. Not because I'm neglecting it, simply because the story I want to tell in this one doesn't require me to overdo it.

So, Distant Horizon v0.6 in September and Rise of the Crime Lord Chapter 10 as soon as it's ready.

In the meantime, I would like to thank everyone, but especially my patrons, for their patience and support. I know I'm not the fastest developer, but believe me, I'm doing my best to be as fast as possible. But I still don't want to be in a hurry at the expense of quality, and I won't release something I'm not happy with.

Well, until the next post, take care of yourself and your loved ones, and as always, feel free to contact me here or on Discord.