Month end progress report (Patreon)

This month has flown by and the end of the year is almost here. And a new chapter is nowhere to be found. Well, at the beginning of the year I didn't think it would be like this. I was very optimistic about 2023, thinking that I could produce three chapters. Now I'm at the point where I'll be happy if only part of one chapter is finished. :( And this time I'm really only held back by the complexity of the chapter, the intricacy of the writing, the different rendering of each scene and, of course, the coding.

The writing is exciting, especially because I have to put myself in different situations and think about what certain characters think, say or do in these situations. So it could be that in Chapter 10, a past decision could lead to a completely different dialogue. The best example of this is when Rick will tell Cora that he's going over to Sam's when they get home. If Cora knows Sam because she used to help Abby (Sam's niece and Malcolm's girlfriend, who Rick may kill at one point in Chapter 7), then they are talking about Sam's situation. If Cora never met Sam, and Rick killed Abby, then they are talking about her death, because Cora didn't know that her husband killed a relative of a colleague. And if Abby and Malcolm are alive, they chat about Rick's hero complex.

Rendering can sometimes be tedious, especially when I have to do the same scene 5 or 6 times with different characters or settings. That's when I don't post a new picture here either, because I don't see much point in showing the same thing 5-6 times with minimal variations. But coding is also exciting and tricky. On the one hand, putting all the threads into place is not an easy task, and on the other hand, there is often a logical order to be established, which can lead to errors that are interesting to find and eliminate. I discovered one yesterday. In "Cora travels alone", Rick didn't go over to Jake's, but he did appear in the farewell scene for a picture and said goodbye to Jake. :)

So much for the fairy tale part. Now I'll tell you the actual situation.  I'll start with Distant Horizon, which will not be updated this month. In fact, there may not be any new updates at all this year, depending on how I progress with Rise of the Crime Lord. As I've written several times before, this is a secondary project, mainly to take my mind off Rise sometimes. Telling the same story for years as a storyteller is difficult, and I started to notice the burnout. That's why I needed a new universe to explore, new characters to "befriend", new fates to control. It's a good thing too, because I'm much more enthusiastic about Rise than I was at the beginning of the year. So Distant has done its job for now.

Of course, this does not mean that I am abandoning the Distant project, I have no intention of doing so. Rather, I'll just put it on indefinite hiatus. Maybe for a month, maybe for six months. But I'll continue with it anyway. However, I apologise to those who are waiting for the continuation of this game. I don't want to let them down, but I want to focus on Rise for now, plus I need some time to work out the story for the next Distant updates. As a side project and a distraction, I don't have everything in my head as much as I did with Rise, I'm figuring out a lot of things as I write the update, so Distant remains exciting for me. So, anyway, I'm sorry, but there will be no new Distant Horizon update for an indefinite period of time.

As for Chapter 10 of Rise of the Crime Lord, I'm making good progress here. This month 279 images have been completed, and as I write these lines, the 280th is being rendered. When it's done, I'll show you what it was at the end of this post. I should add that this includes "deleted" images that I didn't use (either the renderer was wrong or I found a better setting), and also cases where I rendered the foreground and background separately and then Photoshopped them together. The final result is 216 images that will be visible in the game. Chapter 10, by the way, now consists of more than 1000 images.

More good news is that the "Rick-Cora travels" thread now runs flawlessly from start to finish. Hopefully I'll have the pictures and animations done in November, and translate it in the meantime, so I might finally be able to show you something from this friggin' chapter in December. It's important to note that this isn't the only one of Chapter 10 that's been done, there are plenty of pictures for the other threads, just this one thread that I've been absolutely focused on lately. In addition, a lot of the images from here can be used in other threads involving Cora, and I can also use more settings for other images by just changing the characters.

In addition to this, a codex will be added to the game with Chapter 10. I've been planning this for a long time, and after chatting to a fan of Rise on Discord, I decided it was time to put it in. Because, as has been pointed out, the long hiatus means that many of the characters are forgotten, so it can't hurt to have something to put everyone back in their place. And, if that's not enough, in November I will also make the extended version of Chapter 9 Part 2 free.

And the 280th picture was taken, which became this:

(Interesting fact: while writing this post, I managed to render six pictures. :) )

That's it, folks! I will continue to work with great enthusiasm and perseverance. I remain sorry that you have to wait so long, but I will do my best to make it worth your while. Thank you for your kind words, your honest criticism and thank you very much to my patrons for their support. And I'm still available on Discord or here, if you contact me about anything, I'll answer. Or follow me on Twitter and Instagram, where you can find more pictures from Chapter 10.