Hey everyone!
Time for a new dev update. The first one since Chapter 6 was released!
First off, about that new chapter: based on the feedback I’ve received, it’s been pretty well received! I’m not exactly sure what made the difference this time around. Maybe it was:
the pacing, slower at first with a big acceleration toward the end,
the 60FPS animations, which turned out quite nicely,
the sound design,
or the story itself, now ramping up in intensity as we near the end of this first book.
Honestly, I think it’s probably a mix of all of that.
Also, thanks to the summer sale bundles and the launch bundle with Mythos (huge congrats to them. And if you haven’t played it yet, I strongly recommend checking out the ongoing bundle to grab this little gem at a discount), sales have been holding up pretty well. That gives me a bit more breathing room for the next few months.
Overall, I’m super happy! Though I won’t lie, the pressure is real for the next chapter!
Speaking of which (smooth transition, right?), the next chapter is already underway. The rough draft is almost finished. Of course, I’ll be tweaking things, polishing lines, adding stuff as I go through the rendering process, but the core is there and gives me a solid base to work from.
Part of this chapter will focus on a few characters that, based on your feedback, might not be the most popular ones, but I hope this will be a chance for you to get to know them a bit better too.
As for the story, it’s continuing to move toward its conclusion. I can even go ahead and share the working title for the next chapter (unless I change my mind, which I don’t think I will, because it fits too well): Chasing the Storm. Feel free to come up with your own theories about it (and share them here or on Discord)!
At this point, I can’t really give you any progress numbers just yet. But just so you know, there are currently 2,600 lines of raw dialogue already written, without counting the lewd scenes (well, the naughty parts of those scenes). I rarely write those in advance because they’re so tightly tied to the visual work. Just for comparison, at this same stage of development, Chapter 6 had about 2,400 lines. So, this one might be a bit longer... but we’ll see!
I'll leave you with a little visual here. Since there’s no background, it’s clearly not for the actual game, just a test I was doing. But hey, I love turtles. They’re just too cute! 😄
