Progress Report!

Sorry things have been a little quiet as of late!

I've been chipping away at the next chunk of the introduction remake, with the third chapter of day 1 being a wonderful sequence where Diego and Adrian walk home together while catching up on all the happenings in the two years since they last spoke. There are a ton more small moments that help set up events later in the story, be that events in routes, or events that will be a part of the remade intro. There's a ton of great banter, several accusations of homosexuality, and, something I want to draw particular attention to in this report: a choice whose options make the "right" choice challenging to discern. 

You may have noticed a dialogue choice with Axel in 1x2R as well. It's been a while since we've done those! But they're not just for flavor, at least, we hope not! You see, what we're hoping to do with this new introduction is replace the route selection with an organic plot divergence based on the choices you make during the opening. Of course, we plan to make an easier route selection system available as well. Still, the hope is that the new intro will organically lead to the most appropriate route based on your interactions and affinity with each of the characters.

Anyway, this new sequence is coming together about as well as the last one did. It's a breath of fresh air to sit down to write and have these wonderful interactions full of humor, character development and exposition just flow so effortlessly. With the content at the end of Tai's route, I was writing to check off boxes, writing to close off plot points and advance the story toward its conclusion. I was writing towards an objective and trying not to waste time with superfluous detail along the way (keyword being trying) whereas here, I'm indulging in all these great character interactions - after all, this is the intro! The entire point is getting to know these characters! Rather than pushing forward and trying to remain concise, I'm letting these things flourish into what I think has easily been some of the best character interactions we've had in Sileo ever!

This is to say Diego and Adrian are on fire here, dancing effortlessly between playful banter, important exposition and so many wonderful character moments. It's been tough lately, and I've beaten myself up a fair bit with regard to my struggles with the content at the end of Tai's route, so it's almost like a refreshing vacation to work on something that I'm not only having a total blast with but something that I know with complete confidence I'm knocking out of the park. 

I'm calling it here for tonight but will continue working on it in the days to come. It shouldn't take me too much longer to wrap up 1x3R, and that just leaves 1x4R to close off the first day of the new intro. Ideally, I'd love to ship those two together, especially considering CurryCatz and me put all that work into that fun little 'keyhole' animation and we still haven't gotten to the point in the plot where we get to use it! I'm thinking wrapping up Day 1 will remain my top priority right this moment, and once I've done that, we'll aim to ship 19x6 at least as our next release. 19x7 and 19x8 shouldn't be quite so tough to write and CurryCatz is working ahead to ensure all the artwork we'll need for 19x8 is ready ahead of time (do I smell something spicy?!). After that, we'll quite literally be on the home stretch! And once we finally wrap things up on that route... it might just be time to finally debut one of the new ones! I have big things planned, just you wait!