From Grogu:
I know we haven't been very communicative since our last devlog, and I thought it's time to talk about some things.
This year, for reasons I’ll get into later on, I had a pretty slow start. I'd developed a pretty decent rhythm of rendering by the time of the announcement (which is why we went with the ‘Summer’ window, giving ourselves September 20th as the latest release date), yet I kept encountering too many issues I hadn't predicted.
I mentioned before that the best way I’ve found to speed up the process is to leave my PC rendering batches of renders overnight. The thing is, whenever I do this, I cannot watch what's happening and there's been some batches that kept coming out with strange issues, like wrong hair color, shirts that didn't conform the characters’s body (you wouldn’t believe the amount of renders I’ve had to redo due to this) and many others that have been nothing short of frustrating.
Now, going back, the main reason my pace has been irregular is because of changes at my workplace. I thought this year would be chiller than the last and planned accordingly, but I was recently moved to a different position with other responsibilities involving travel and supervising people, which has left me with less time for SoP than I’d like to have. This is not an excuse, it's my way of telling you that I'm putting in the work when I'm at home — there’s just been less of that time for me.
All that being said, we’re still aiming to release the game in the release window we’ve shared, and if we felt we needed to delay the release, we’ll let you know as soon as we make that decision - and it will probably be because of me. Gizmo has done an amazing job on pthis chapter and despite the negative feelings that come with all these hiccups, I am truly excited for you all to experience this chapter and want to put it out as soon as possible.
I am not the best at expressing myself but I want you all to know that I’m doing my best to make this happen in a way that makes sense to me and that I’m really thankful to all of you for your patience and for sticking with us.
For those of you who like numbers, this chapter has already surpassed the 2000 render mark - that’s more than we’ve ever done before. With this one being the pre-final chapter, there's also a larger cast of characters than in either of the previous chapters, four separate adult scenes, one commissioned song with lyrics, an alpaca… I could go on, but I’ll let our characters do the talking as out of context as possible.
PS: Do feel free to leave some Ask Gizmo/Ask Grogu questions in the comments, we actually loved doing those and it’s a fun little way to share more of ourselves and SoP.