Weekly Update - Nov 8th

Hello All,

I hope everyone that's found the time to download and play the Best Friends chapter 4 has enjoyed it. As I've said many times before feel free to reach out to me with any feedback you would like to share. If you find any bugs, spelling mistakes, typos or just weirdness, point them out to me and I'll try to fix them for the next update.

Speaking of next updates, I'm going to push out a small patch to add a couple of animations to a scene pretty near the end of the "Michael" path. I think that scene could use a little more oompf to it. One of these renders is complete, the other I'll try to get done over the weekend too. I am also fixing an animation in the "Emma" path, I did see an issue before I pushed out the update but I had to prioritise other rendering. I didn't think it broke the immersion too much so thought I would fix it up at a later date.

So expect a little patch update in the next few days.

What's next? Well I've tended to work on a process where I push out a update to Best Friends then I flip to push out 30 or so slides of Great Hire. I may change that up this time for a couple of reasons: I am already well ahead in terms of scripting for chapter 5 of Best Friends, I have around 7 scenes fully scripted. Also if I can move a little faster I will be able to tie in Christmas in the storyline to the Christmas in real life, which I think will be pretty cool.

This does not mean I am abandoning Great Hire though, it is still important to the whole world I am trying to build here. I still very much love Claire and to prove it I've attached this picture of her in a leather clad outfit on the beach (I have ZERO idea how I would ever use this render in any storyline so don't expect it to see it anywhere else :)).

Chapter 5 - This chapter will focus on the rest of Semester 1, it will follow the pair through to and including Christmas Break. I have the full outline script complete and like I said earlier I'm already making significant progress on the detailed scripting. There may be more choice related options in this chapter. It's a issue I have been toying with. On one hand I want to put more control into you, the player's hands but on the other hand I want to stay true to the story I am trying to tell. Don't expect wild branching story lines, as a solo dev, I simply don't have the time to create those, but I do see potential for choices that will shape elements of the experience for you as we move forward.

Other stuff: With Chapter 4 complete, I now have the chance to do something I have wanted to do for a while now which is to make Chapter 3 free to all. I've completed the work needed to build a compressed .webp image version of the game with all the fixes I put in, in the version Patreons got. Sometime today I will update the itch site, with that version of C3 taking down the pay wall for it that is currently there. I always saw the first 3 chapters, the period before the characters got to University, as the demo of the game, so this aligns with that. From a revenue perspective, Itch wasn't a big stream for me, it's more of a promotional platform I feel. At a later date I may put C4 on there as a paid update but that's going to be sometime in the future, if I do it at all.

OK I think I'm done rambling, have a great weekend everyone.