Dev Journal: Hot and Bothered

I was shocked when I checked and found that it's been a month since my last dev journal, so I'd like to apologize for that! The work has been simultaneously so absorbing and so frustrating that it's messed with my sense of time to some extent, I think. I honestly didn't expect this project to challenge me nearly as much as it has, but I'm still moving forward.

In just about every aspect of the project, things are coming together day by day, but I have to admit, I've run into so many problems and setbacks it's been really hard to keep up momentum lately.

The bulk of the recording is done, though I've found that once it came to the more erotic content it actually got a lot more difficult, and I could only really handle shorter sessions at a time. I have to hide in a little sort of pillow fort to record in properly, and it gets hot quickly when I'm really throwing myself into it, and all the panting and gasping can leave me dizzy. I've tried to get a little in every day, though, while working on everything else, and I've chipped away at most of the hot and heavy stuff.

A week ago, I threw myself into recording a big climax sequence, and I was pretty happy with how it came out, though it literally left me soaked in sweat and needing a shower after. Except... it turned out I'd messed up something with my settings that day, and that whole session was unusable.

That was pretty crushing, and it's been a lot of little things like that, making mistakes or discovering something I hadn't accounted for that sets me back and forces me to redo things just when I thought I was moving forward. At this point I might be tempted to see the project in a more adversarial way, or even as "cursed" or something, but I don't have patience for such things. There's still too much work to do to let my self-doubt stop me.

It took a lot of iterations, but I think I've finally found a way to edit up the audio to really come through clean, loud, and rich. There was a lot of "is everything I recorded worthless?" concern there when I was really struggling with all that, I thought I might have to accept having super quiet audio or audio stripped of all the bass I think makes it worth listening to, but I'm pretty happy with how it's sounding at this point.

Going through line by line to pick out the best takes, note those that need redoing, and clean up all the details for the best sound has been very slow going so far, but I'm hoping that the more I practice with it, the better I'll get at getting it all done quickly and easily. It's forcing me to alternate between a few different critical modes pretty rapidly handling all the steps involved, but I finally have my first assets ready to actually go in the game, and it's exciting to start making that list grow properly.

I touched on it in the public journal, but I finally got a proper content storage system set up. The full text content for v0.01 is loaded in, and the engine is almost ready for basic game operation. Overall, the code side of things is probably past 50%. I've been putting together visual assets recently, so it feels like we're getting close.

To be honest, looking at how much work this has turned into and how much is still left, it definitely looks like I should have aimed for a smaller release for v0.01. Something like Matchmaker v0.01, where it was just a teaser of the basics, ugly but playable, so I could really flesh it out and get a decent amount of content (i.e. a proper sex scene) in the next. But I knew folks were unhappy with how the first release, for all its buildup, cut off just before the sex, and I wanted to include enough folks would be satisfied and have a positive first time with the game. That, and I wanted to write and record sex stuff while I could still tweak the setup stages in case anything came up, like if the characters needed to change somehow.

But if I had aimed for a less ambitious first release and just focused on mechanics and basics for v0.01, it would probably be done by now. As it is, it turns out that even if I'm only voicing the one character, it's a tremendous amount of work well beyond the writing side of things to record, edit, and incorporate all of it into the game, and what I'd hoped would be "a hefty first version" has turned into a bit of a monster.

At this point, I'm probably going to put aside anything that's not directly needed to get the basic content I've already written to the point it's playable, with sound. A lot of niceties may be placeholder'd if they give any trouble at all, just to get this content out the door ASAP. I'm really unhappy with how long it's taken at this point when it's supposed to be more a sort of go-nowhere side project just to learn a few new things. Well, I'm certainly learning, but at this point it's taking too much time away from other projects.

In a way, now I think of it, maybe this is exactly when I should be dipping into work on PWO again. That's what I'd said going into this-- that I'd try mixing in some work on PWO, since that was part of what this prototyping period was meant to test, but it's never occurred to me in the moment when things are slowing down with P Voice. Maybe working on Ol' Reliable PWO and getting some cool new feature up and running would be just what I'd need to regain that sense of momentum and come at P Voice with a fresh head and a new angle?

I'm not sure. I'll have to fight past habit and give it a try. I'm hesitant to let P Voice take a day longer than it has to to finish, but if it means more "game" made in general, and breaks me out of this grind, maybe it would be for the best.

In happier news, I think we're reaching the point it's about time I start taking input for supporters' custom content. I'm not sure if the game will be ready before the end of the month, but I can hope, and some of this stuff will take more work to implement than usual anyway. So if you're a Game-Changer or higher, keep an eye out for updates on that front soon!

I think that covers the news for the moment. Thanks for reading, and thank you for your support!

I know it's been tough for everyone lately with everything going on in the world, and it's hardest to hold out hope when things finally seemed to be getting better, only to get worse again. I hope you're taking care of yourself, and that you're not putting yourself in a bad way just to help me. I do appreciate everyone putting in what they can to keep me afloat even in times like this. I really want to give you something you can enjoy for it, soon.

Stay safe, and healthy.