[Status Report #4] Sicae - Episode 7

Hey, everyone!

Honestly, with everything that's gone down recently, I didn't think I'd even have the headspace to write this status report—let alone want to. But hey, here we are.

So, what's been happening since that announcement? Not a whole lot, to be real. I took one night to let myself grieve. The next morning, I rolled out of bed, sighed deeply, and got back to it. "Back to work" might be a stretch—I mostly spent time setting up the backup stuff you all recommended. Got Backblaze, check. Snagged an external HDD, check. A NAS setup is in the plan, but that's for future me to stress over. For now, this setup will do just fine.

I've always been the type to bounce back quickly from a hard hit. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise. And seriously, I'm just thankful it wasn't my Honey Select 2 that went down with the ship. If I'd lost my character cards? Game over. No way I could recreate those from scratch—not with all the sliders, bone tweaks, and fine-tuning that went into them. Just thinking about it makes my eye twitch.

So yeah, the mindset now is to start fresh—with less baggage but more fire. And just to clear things up, I don't need to rebuild everything I lost just to move forward. Porting assets and mods to HS2 just takes a Unity install and tracking down my old tools. There were a ton, but I remember them all. Already reinstalled them, too. Didn't even take that long.

Now, onto the part where I get real—I wanna apologize if I caused any panic or unnecessary drama. If I made anyone worry, I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart. Yeah, we lost a bit of time, but all things considered, we dodged a major bullet.

📊 Progress & Current Numbers

• Lines of code: 4283

• Renders: 529

• Animations: 1

• Music & SFX: 40

The real news

Once I wrapped up the backup hustle, I dove headfirst into the dialogues. No hesitation. No mercy. I've finally reached the climax of the update, and I'd say I'm about 90% done (just the climax). But I may have seriously misjudged how massive this update would be.

Usually, I set a rough quota based on the roadmap. But this episode has blown past that line, and I'm not even done with the dialogue yet. After the climax, I still need to tackle the falling action and resolution. 😅

Not that I'm complaining. Bigger updates just mean more goodness for you guys, right?

So, how big is this one shaping up to be?

Honestly, it's looking like it might match the size of our biggest update so far—MBML's latest drop. But as always, I'm not gonna promise what I can't 100% deliver. What I can say is: this update's gonna be chunky—and a fine way to wrap up the first series.

Since the last preview plus status post, renders and animations haven't budged. All my focus has been on dialogue, and I'll keep riding that train until it hits the finish line. My goal is to wrap up the dialogue by the end of the month. If I manage that, we're eyeing a pre-June release—sometime around May if everything goes well.

Now, the climax and the last bits of rising action are no joke. They're some of the most intense parts of the whole thing, and for the first time, I'm considering reaching out to a dev friend for full support. That's how heavy this part is. But don't worry—we're gonna push through, and the update will drop. Eventually, I'll get to chill a bit from action-heavy moments in MBML, so there's light at the end of the tunnel.

What can you expect from the upcoming update?

This one's a mix of stuff. You've got a little drama, a bit of laughs, lots of twists, and the usual darkness. But one thing in particular is: it's gonna start poking at the characters' (and maybe your own, if you're a self-inserter 👀) morality and sense of righteousness. This is the exact tone I want Sicae to lean into, and it's only getting started. The characters are finally starting to show their true colors, and you know how evil and animal I can be when writing them. It's gonna get deeper. It's gonna get darker. If you like a story where the world slowly corrupts the characters—a total 180 compared to MBML, this is it. We're at the starting line.

And hey—no cliffhangers this time. *sniffs* *rubs nose*

This will be the last official status report for this update, and when that time comes, the real grind starts. I'll still drop one last preview post before we go into beta, so keep your eyes peeled.

As always, take care, stay safe, and have an awesome day.

—NiiChan