Hey everyone,
Sorry, no sexy Christmas render this year. It’s not because you haven’t been good (though I’m in no position to judge that!), it’s simply because I’m spending all my available time directly working on the game.
Actually, it’s even more than that. Even if I had the time to set up a special scene, I wouldn’t have the time to render it. I’ve started working on the “lewd” animations and, as of now, there are already more than 5,000 frames set up… At around 2 minutes per frame, I’ll let you do the math on how many hours of pure render time that represents… (Okay fine, I’ll tell you: that’s about 166 hours of straight rendering.) And of course, there are also still images that need to be rendered, which take anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour each depending on the setup. On top of that, I’m also trying to spare the second PC as much as possible, since it’s more of a backup machine in case the main one dies. So yeah… there’s a lot of work going on. But that’s a good thing!
On a more personal note, I haven’t really talked about it much, but the last couple of weeks have been pretty rough for me. I’ve had some health issues, including a gout flare-up. I need to go back to the doctor so we can work through that again. On top of that, my wife had a whole series of heart-related exams and, while there’s nothing immediately serious, she now has to be monitored and take medication every day. Heart problems are a real weak spot in her family (it’s what killed her father, among other things), so it’s still worrying and, as you can imagine, stressful for me as well. (Yes, Celeste’s story in the game is not entirely made up either, as you may have guessed.) So there you go: nothing catastrophic, but a lot of “small” things that dragged down morale, motivation, and often managed to break my focus.
On the positive side, I’ve found a very good approach for one of the central plots of books 2 and 3. Up until now, I had the general idea and I knew where it was going, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to explain it in detail or how to properly weave it into the plots already in place. That’s now done, and it’s going to significantly deepen a whole section of the story that you’ve only been able to catch glimpses of so far (depending on your choices in the game). I’m talking, of course, about those I currently call the “Celestials” for lack of a better name (and no, they’re not there, as some people think, to speak for me or talk directly to the player. They are part of the story, speaking to the main character).
As for the game itself, following several player requests, I tried to look into a Brazilian and Portuguese translation, and honestly I barely dare tell you how that went… I ended up dealing with someone who managed to gain my trust but who, to be blunt, just delivered a bad translation (almost certainly machine-translated) and lied to me pretty much the whole time. And after talking with other devs, it seems I’m definitely not the first person this "translator" has tried to scam or even threaten (yes, it went that far in my case). I hope you can understand why I’m so reluctant to offer translations, especially before the game is finished. Imagine I ship a bad translation… or worse, I can’t deliver any translation at all because the translator decides to drop everything? No way. If you buy the game with a translation included, I believe you deserve good-quality content that’s guaranteed through to the end of Early Access. That said, just know that I did try again, and I may now have another lead for this translation. However, it’s possible I won’t make it publicly available at first, and instead keep it on the side to be sure I can deliver it properly when I decide the time is right. ;)
One last point: the winter sales are starting soon, so if you don’t have the game yet, feel free to check it out, as well as the current bundles.
Enough talk; here are the numbers for this report:
Script: 2,700 lines finished (I’m not listing writing stats again since the chapter’s writing is basically done)
Animations: 9 animations (~80 seconds total, 5,000 frames)
Renders: 635 renders