Dev Log #95 - Absences, side story development, and more!

Hi all! Welcome back to another dev log! There's quite a bit to bite into, so let's get into it!

Absences
As 2024 is wrapping up, I do have two periods of absences that I want to share and be transparent about!

The first absence will be between 18th November and 29th November. This absence is mainly due to me being required to serve my annual mandatory military service, for which I have about 5-6 years left of it recurring before I'm free.

The second absence will be in the second half of December when I will be visiting my significant other's home country for two weeks (dates not confirmed yet).

Last year when I had these two absences, I made the decision to bring my work with me and while it did help me be productive despite being away from home, I believe it had the side effect of causing some degree of added stress and frustration.

With that said, this year, I will leave the work at home and take these two absences as momentary points of rest before I come back to resume development with a well-rested mindset!

What's the development plan for these two absences?
October's side story/Halloween content will be released soon and November's side story (vote coming soon!) will be released together with the Christmas content before mid-December!

These two content updates will round out 2024 and the development of these content updates will be in parallel with Episode 3's development!

Development update
Over the past week, I've finished the side story content and have it all inside the render queue as I'm writing the story for it as well. While I did initially plan for it to be smaller than previous side stories, I think I kinda went overboard with it and it is shaping up to be similar in scale to Suyin's side story!

Episode 3's development is still ongoing and I'm mainly focused on the story planning which I aim to complete by the end of October as mentioned!

Most of the rendering focus last week was on the side story content. Of course, since the side story is already done, I'm looking to get back to Episode 3 rendering as soon as possible!

In other news, the custom renders for October will be slightly delayed and I will be looking to post them before the 9th of November!

---------------------------------------- EPISODE 3 WEEKLY BREAKDOWN --------------------------
Story: 80% done. Detailed scene planning is ongoing, tying it together with the story planning, and has just begun. Up 15% from last week!

Renders: 4% done. The focus of renders was on the side story that has been completed within the past week. 95 new renders were added this week for Episode 3, total now stands at 392 renders. No change from last week.

Dialogue: 5% done. No change from last week.

Game Playability: 0% done. No change from last week.

--------------------------------------------- END OF BREAKDOWN --------------------------------------

Phew, a little word-heavy this week but that's all for now! I will be going back to development and I will be looking to share more once everything is ship-shape!

Stay safe and healthy!