Lateness, Translations, Architecture, and Transitions.

Sorry about being a day late in updating - as you probably know, I live in Portland, Maine.  While I love the city, they do a very poor job of maintaining sidewalks.  If you don't own a car, there is a solid month where you will either have to walk on the roads, or risk your neck on sidewalks half-covered with a slick form of ice that is both invisible, and incredibly dangerous.

I've not owned a car in almost 25 years, and long story short: I slipped on one of those patches, and fell squarely on my back, severely bruising my trapezius muscle - nothing too serious, but enough to render me stationary for most of a day.  I believe I should be back to work, tomorrow.

Of course, work continues on the dogs.

And if you remember - A few updates ago, I showed the Spanish Version of the first Peace Island Trailer.  This was part of our plan to release a trailer for the three most-spoken languages in gaming, which, in descending order, are:

1: English
2: Chinese
3: Spanish

I KNEW translation to Chinese would be a tough nut to crack, but I apparently underestimated just HOW tough.  Rather than telling the whole story, let me relate it to you in generic webcomic form:

This was quite an education in linguistics, to say the least.  I still want to release a trailer in Chinese, but I'm just gonna have to put that on the back burner.

We are on - target to finish the bake of the second-largest sector by the end of February.  This ticks one more thing off of the list of stuff required for the "Final Alpha" release.  The last thing is the re-design of the "Maison De La Paix" hotel, which will require adjustments to their back garden, as well - all easily done.

We'll have to also be up-front with ya'll: this week was not one of our more productive weeks.

Our point-man in the refactoring process lost his father to COVID. My father passed away in 2015, and having been through that, I cannot entertain the idea of asking him to return to work, until he is ready.  

That does not mean that work has stopped, however.   A new person has joined us to finish the character controller, and we are cautiously hopeful that he can also assist and accelerate the refactoring process within the next week or two.  

Apologies for the lack of new screenshots, this update- will make up for this, on Friday - we DID get the Ambient Occlusion working again!

Thanks again for your support, patience, and confidence - it means the world to us!