Dev Log #49 - The multi-scene

Hey all! As the second last week of September comes to a rapid close, it was a jam-packed week of development and although things are progressing slightly slower than I expected, I plan to be at the halfway point of development before the end of September, before finishing the second half in October.

What's taking so long?
Currently, I'm in the three-quarter mark (i.e. 75%) of developing what I will call a "multi-scene", which had the choices shown a few weeks prior. What is a multi-scene? It's just a weird way of me describing a branching choice that has a full-fledged scene attached to each choice!

This means that at some point near the beginning of the episode, you will choose between calling three different characters (the image from the dev log two weeks ago) and this choice will result in three unique, complete, and fleshed-out scenes.

'Unique, complete, and fleshed-out'? What does that mean? Without going into details, each of these three scenes have an important choice attached to them along with varying degrees of naughtiness (each scene has its own build-up, followed by the steamy scene itself and the post-conversation scene). One scene in particular has three unique variations of the steamy scene itself, which depends on what you choose to see!

Suffice it to say, this was an ambitious attempt to really hammer home the "choices matter" concept of Cara in Creekmaw, instead of just showing a handful of renders for choosing "A over B" or "B over A" which previous releases have done. The choice made here will have an impact on the planned "big" scene that happens at the three-quarter mark of the episode and in every subsequent scene thereafter.

Of course, this undertaking takes a good amount of effort and planning but I think it is worth it and it will not be something I will cite or refer to if I'm ever behind on time, since I'm certain this multi-scene will tickle the fancy of many of you and also enable higher replayability value of the new episode! A win-win, especially with how it is coming together

What's after all this work on the scene?
After this multi-scene, I will tone it down for the next few (in-game) days of the new episode, keeping to a more linear pace similar to parts of the Prologue, where new problems will be thrown at Cara and I will also use this to build on existing and new characters introduced earlier in the episode. This will also ensure that the episode's release will be on track.

This tone-down does mean fewer H-scenes sprinkled here and there, but at this point, I'm all for properly setting up a H-scene to have more impact and steaminess than just throwing one in for the heck of it which would not feel rewarding to watch without context or character build-up!

------------------------------------------- PROGRESS BREAKDOWN -------------------------------
Story: 95% done. A few scenes on Day 1 are moved to Day 2 since Day 1 was looking very stacked.

Renders: 30% done. Nearly 300 new renders just for the multi-scene itself, with about 100 more to go before finishing up and moving to Day 2. Up 5% from last week. The total render count sits at 1005 renders.

Dialogue: 35% done. Multi-scene dialogue adds about 1200 lines of dialogue. A few scenes from Day 2 have their dialogue written as well. Up 10% from last week.

Gameplay: 25% done. No change.
------------------------------------------- END OF BREAKDOWN ----------------------------------

With so many renders to go around this week, I figured I could give a litttttle sneak peek of what to expect in the multi-scene.

Stay safe and healthy and I'll see everyone for the next one!