Dev Log #75 - Onto the next!

Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well and has been enjoying the new content in Episode 2: Enhanced!

I will be posting a new Developer Diary that will detail the inner process of Episode 2: Enhanced's development progress, along with its challenges and learning outcomes, so do look out for that in the coming days!

Development update
I've been taking small sporadic breaks for the last week as I re-orient myself from launch preparation (i.e. uploading builds, fixing bugs and updating all the social outlets) to full-steam-ahead development!

Episode 3 is well underway with a few hundred renders already prepared, with an opening that pulls you straight back into the action!

Early Preview build of Episode 3
Switching gears, I have been considering a much earlier Early Preview build of Episode 3, which will probably be in 2 months when I have a good amount of content ready within the episode. Note that this Early Preview's goal isn't to gate anyone from seeing new content, it is intended to test and resolve potential issues that are likely to occur in scenes that are slowly increasing in complexity.

There are many other reasons for this consideration of mine:
1. Episode 3 will be the first update to "chunk" content
As most of you would have probably seen, the game right now is huge with the full game being nearly 9GB of mostly images. These images are both in 4K as well as in the ".webp" format, meaning they are objectively the smallest size they can possibly be. While the compressed version exists, I still want to make the 4K full-game option reasonable in size for everybody.

This is why from Episode 3 onwards, it will be considered a new "chunk" of content, or in simpler terms, the next part of content (I'm just sticking with "chunk" because using "part" sounds confusing).

-- What is a chunk?
Consider the Prologue, Episode 1 and Episode 2 (Enhanced included), this is what I would call the first "chunk" of content. This chunk refers to mainly the image data (which takes up the most space). For Episode 3, the release will launch with just the chunk containing Episode 3's image data, meaning it will be a much faster download for the newest chunk of content!

-- What about the first chunk?
It will still be available for download in a separate link! After you download this from a separate link, all you have to do is plop this into your "game" folder and you're all set to play! The game will still work since it will still contain the script data from the Prologue to E2E (the script data is tiny compared to the image data).

When more side stories are added, they will likely get their own "chunk" of content as well (i.e. twins story + any future additions).

Overall, this is a new system that would require some level of testing before general consumption as I need to be ensured that this system doesn't cause some weird save file issues or potentially break something entirely (chances are low but I much rather them be zero)!

2. A milestone to work towards
Having a goal for an Early Preview allows me to plan my work accordingly. Episode 3 is no small episode and while the preview build will not contain the full story or the full set of scenes, it will still include a reasonable amount of new gameplay as well as more and more unique scenes depending on player choice, all of which should be completed promptly.

3. Reduce bugs
This goes hand-in-hand with the point above!

With many scenes come the myriad of possibilities for bugs to pop up, these can be logic errors, dialogue errors, gameplay errors. One thing I found out the hard way during Episode 2's initial release last December is that sifting through twenty thousand lines of the episode's code (excluding the free-roams) is a complete nightmare if I wanted to fix a bug in XXX scene. I would rather have these bugs stamped out hard and fast and then look forward to creating more scenes without the worry that something may go wrong in the scene I just finished.

-- Is there a fixed plan as of now?
Nope! This plan is in its infancy and may change over the coming weeks, my main focus is still to work on and develop the latest episode. Once I feel this first build is ready, I will communicate more about my plan of action on how I will roll it out!

In closing...
The development of Episode 3 will be in full swing starting this weekend, with Cara taking the helm once again as the main character as she will pick up from where you left her in Episode 2!

When I set out to make Cara in Creekmaw, I had the goal to always go one step higher with every release regarding scene craziness and coupling this with the proper scene build-up and context. While Episode 2: Enhanced was a different beast in terms of development mindset, I'm glad the scenes came out to be unique and different from what was shown in any previous updates and I will continue to do the same in Episode 3!

To all of you guys and gals, whether you have supported me from the get-go or if you just started supporting Cara in Creekmaw; know that I'm forever grateful for your support and it is the reason I will keep on doing what I do best: which is continuing to build on and develop Cara in Creekmaw into the game it deserves to be!

I'll see everyone next week! Stay safe and healthy!