Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-07-05

It's the Friday Rambles. It's a big ol holiday weekend here in the States. Although... I'm still working. Anime Expo is happening too, but I haven't gone in two years... It's too big a commitment! But I will go again some day.

Life stuff:

Went to the zoo. Saw a bunch of animals. It was fun and educational. Jogged the normal amount. Went to the doctor's for an annual checkup. Did family stuff. Ate food. Drank coffee. Freewheelin' and dealin' the gamedev life.

Merch stuff:

The Skye 2.0 plushie campaign is happening on Monday, July 8, which is in like, 2 days. I did 0 prep for marketing it, so that's cool. Looks like I'll have a busy weekend. Really pulling a Penny here.

[editor's note: i drew this in like 10 minutes after i wrote this part of the rambles, so now I've done 0.5 preps for marketing it]

Above: Look at how happy she is not selling plushies. next part will be her falling thru the portal and then it will just be the same comic as before. ha ha ha. la la la.)

Gamedev stuff:

I wrote (literally) thousands more words. The game (update(?)) is really coming together. I playtested the game a bit from start to where the ending would be, and it took more than an hour, so I think that means it's like, adding at least 50% more stuff. Of course, it will increase as I add the endings and fill out the stubs, and then decrease again depending on how ruthless I am with the revisions. And the playtime will also depend on how invested you get in the optional stories or minigames. If I didn't promise that it'd be a free update I wouldn't feel bad charging like 5 bucks for it. At least everyone who plays the free update is morally and legally obligated to buy Game 2 whenever that's done.

I also drew 5 new CGs, and updated a bunch of character sprites. It's been a while since I drew this much. I have a lot more drawing to go, though.

Chance Thrash made a new song for a new bunch of scenes I'm adding. It rules, as per usual.

Interestingly I'm finding new ways to add scenes written for previous versions of the bonus chapter, and using all the unused sprites I made. Looks like all that work over the past year wasn't wasted after all!

That being said, it's really something how much effort is required to make an hour's worth of game. Yeesh. Will anyone even care about any of this stuff I'm putting in? (Actually yes, it turns out many people do, and that's why I love everyone who plays my game and I thank you all for appreciating all my effort)

(Above: People appreciating the effort, I think...)

I think I'm pretty close to finishing. My goal is still finishing by end of July, so I can ship it off to translators. I should probably talk to them about schedules. I'll do that next week.

Anyway I'll post some new screenshots completely out of context, way at the end of the post, so don't go there if you don't want to see spoilers.

Etc:

While I was in the middle of writing a bunch of words, my entire neighborhood lost power. A few hours later, once the power was back I checked my words in a panic hoping that I was good at compulsively ctrl-S-ing, remembering the last time I lost hours of work. But yeah, luckily, I had saved. But that reminded me that I'd need a good UPS so my computer wouldn't just die whenever the power went out randomly, and something tells me that'll happen a lot this summer. So that's another business expense. Thank you to my patrons, for sponsoring my battery backup power solution. Anyway I tested it and it works. Wow! Very cool.

More etc:

Sukeban Games (kiririn and I follow each other on twitter, so we're basically best friends) announced their new game, .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND which looks really cool. And Good Smile Company announced a new Jill Stingray figure, which also looks really cool. I bring this up because it reminded me that my mission in life is to continue to make games until a Skye Nendoroid happens, and I shan't rest till this is reality.

The end! 

Thanks for your support, as always! I will see you next week! My mood then will probably be very good or very bad dependent on how well the Skye plushie sold. Ha ha ha! La la la! Okay, bye!

Screenshots! Spoilers, probably!