This week, I've played and polished the episode and worked through my to-do lists based on those playthroughs. I had a list of 10 different playthroughs that I wanted to do, and I've gotten through half of them. The remaining five are a mix of variations of branches I've already played, and I aim to play those next week.
After that, I will have to reflect some more on what else I need to play and test.
A couple of days ago, I completed the scene gallery for episode 12 for the first time, and I'm still encountering scenes I haven't seen in the game before.
I'll likely do an analysis by checking the code to see what content I haven't seen yet, and tailor save files to play those scenes.
The animation rendering has sadly slowed down. The animations that render have mostly been close-up shots, and when hair and textures are rendered close to the camera, this tends to increase the render time per frame.
The current estimate is that the render queue will take 9-11 more days to complete, based on this week's pace. And considering the queue is running low, there might soon be PCs idling if left without work. That puts the completion estimate in early week 29.
While playing, I've noticed a handful of animations I wish to re-render to fix glitches. I will re-render those only after PCs start idling, and the start of the beta testing doesn't hinge on their completion.
Next week, aside from playing and polishing, I will also carry out paranoid tests of the save transfer between S3 and S4.
The cluck I posted earlier this week was the last cluck I could show from this episode without spoiling it.
I'll post a preview of Isabella's Special Render set this weekend. I'm also planning what to show as the final preview for this development cycle.
Have a nice weekend
Dr PinkCake