Hey all!
One of the things I think I could've improved on with the development cycle of my first game, Veins Like Tapeworms, was making sure less people were kept in the dark about how it was going. To be honest, I'm not too great at posting regularly on social media and reaching out to people to play my game — I'm good at chucking bite-sized updates out into the void (first on Twitter and then BlueSky), but long-form stuff is just something I'm not familiar with. So, with that said, I'd like to get into the flow of things with monthly progress updates! I figured it'd look nice to have something come out on ACoMI's Steam page every now and then, so it doesn't wrongfully look like the game is abandoned or anything.
Let’s talk about ACoMI, and the things I’ve been doing with it since getting the Steam page up!
Finished putting the first half of Act 2’s script in the engine! I’m not done with adding in sound effects, extra animations, etc. to pretty things up, but for what it’s worth the most grueling of the slogwork is over with. There’s over 12,000 words worth of Act 2 content right now; mind you, most of this is branches and variations thanks to the choices you can make to get new traits/lines you experience based on what traits you have, but all of Act 1 is 13,000~ words. Act 1, together with Act 2, is 25,000~ words.
Fully implemented the introductory branch for Wisteria’s Heavenly Knight in Act 1. That includes the sound effects, choices, art; everything!
I think I’ve finished 7~ CGs, not counting variants and other poses. (If you do count them, that number is closer to…I’d say 20?) I’ll probably do a running count next month, but right now I’m pretty tired and forgot what I have and haven’t finished post-trailer.
Laid down the groundwork for 4 different Traits you can gain in Act 2, not counting Major Traits. You probably won’t be able to gain any of them in the first half of Act 2, but that’s currently up for debate.
Fun fact - did you know the demo of Veins Like Tapeworms is 13,000 words in itself? That’s 2 chapters, one ending, and one Bonus scene! That means ACoMI’s demo has almost twice the amount of content as VLT’s demo! Sorry if it takes a little longer for me to get it up and running; there’s so much for me to do. (I love doing it, though, and it’s thanks to you all that I’m able to pursue game development as a passion!)
Thanks a bunch for sticking around! This is a semi-new thing for me, and I hope I can keep the motivation to do these longer posts of what I’ve been working on. The demo should hopefully come soon. I’m aiming for a late-March or early-April release, but I’m not going to put anything in stone until I have everything in the engine. Trust me, VLT taught me that the hard way.
See you soon!
Trinket