Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2025-02-21

It's the 1am the next day Friday Rambles.

Very special thank you to the new Patrons who are signed up this week. Very cool of you! Welcome!

Gamedev Stuff

But, of course, it's all Overtime Update all the time.

Big milestone. I finished all remaining ending CGs and BGs, meaning the update is complete from a story and art perspective. These took a longer time than usual, because they're full screen assets that needed a lot more work, but I'm very pleased with them. A good way to wrap up development, I think. There was also supposed to be a "Bonus Gallery", but I've decided that that's not gonna be ready for this update. I'll finish it when I'm working on the Switch release, because I'll actually need to make an in-game achievement system then.

... Was what I wrote yesterday, but then I decided today to just make the thing.

Well, it's a start. The list can be scrolled with a mouse wheel or with a controller or keyboard or whatever else. Clicking on a list item will display an image and description associated with the achievement or ending (in the blank window not yet implemented), and possibly hints or extra lore. I've also moved the Guest Art gallery here too, which can be selected in the (currently very barebones) top menu bar, which is not yet functional. It'll all look pretty good once it's done. Believe in the me, who believes in me.

I used the unlockables db system I wrote a couple months ago, and finally added a way to grab Steam achievements and populate the db with achievements the player has already gotten. It will also keep track of achievements/unlocks gotten after Overtime as well, and update Steam if there are any local achievements unlocked that Steam doesn't know about, like due to an internet issue or something, idk.

So, all that remains is localization and QA/playtesting. The progress for each language ranges from "Currently Playtesting" to "Maybe delivering translation in the next few days". So, I'll be busy next week drawing localized assets, fixing issues found by playtesters, and possibly begging for progress updates, as well as finishing the Bonus Gallery while I wait for things to happen. Depending on how this all goes, we may or may not be done in time for the Steam Visual Novel Fest, which I was desperately hoping for back in early December when I finished the script for localization, but I've also come to terms with the fact that I might be late. Oh well. It might be better to do a little marketing push independent of a big Steam event, anyway. But I also need to eat.

My localization playtesters have thankfully found many bugs that have slipped through the cracks, so it should be a fairly solid and stable update on launch. Per one playtester "It's absolute cinema" and "loved the ending" so I'm happy that so far the feedback has been good, and I'm pretty excited to get this out already.

The End

Okay, well, this next week is gonna be me finishing up the Overtime Update. Realistically it's not gonna be done in time for the Visual Novel Fest, because I still haven't been able to start playtesting half of the languages yet, but that gives me time to polish various other parts of the game. Thanks for your support, as always! See you next week.