YO FOLKS! Sorry for the silence! I had a cali trip, then was watching my friend's dogs for a week, and now I'm back! But then I was busy doing work lolo So here's what we've been up to!
Let's start with a word from Vixel!
1/27 update:
Hey floofs! Last week I worked on our bugfix backlog for Itch.io! All the major bugs are fixed now (as well as a bunch of dialogue typos), and we'll get those updates posted soon.
I also did some project housekeeping and cleanup/polish of my Act 4 environments work from the last few weeks. With the environments prepped, next up for Act 4 development will be quest and dialogue setup.
This week, I'll be working on new Adventure content for the next Patreon build!
Have a lovely week! <3
-Vixel
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On my end:
The Forest of Love
This next update will be a prologue to THE FISH. The long awaited fish. This prologue is a requirement and kinda easing the introduction of the fish as characters in the world, and eventually, will lead into "fishing" and what not! It's been fun making these things so that they integrate and will eventually be a big ole' orchestra of cool shit.
This update in particular has a humurous little dialogue shenanigans, fish sex scene, and a new Gossip for all the critters regarding the fish of the forest!
I wrote it all out, just gotta double check it, then add the portraits and any special text animation stuff. But it's lookin all good, and should be fun :>
I also made a design that I'll talk about further down this post.
Horsin' Around
Sprout was recently moving to a new state, and has begun to settle down. So he's getting back into the swing of things! We got a new "interactible look at" system set up so we can have weird hit-boxes and not just your basic sphere/cube/capsule! Now the horses can follow you if you are behind them to the left or right!
I think next up we wanna tackle a camera move when we interact with the horse. We want little animations of expressions when they talk, so we wanna make sure they are staged OK so we can see everything! But that's gonna require a system of its own, hijacking the camera when appropriate, "testing" the possible locations, and choosing which might be the best for the scene, then releasing the camera when the dialogue is done. We also need the characters to face each other when talking, at least the bun.
It's a whole thing haha.
SEX TOYS?
I just got the next sample of the 2nd toy! AND GOOD NEWS, It's ready! So I'll be pulling the trigger on geting the molds made. If all goes well, these 2nd toys should be shipping out before the end of the year! We'll see! More on this later.
In addition, I needed new packaging for this toy. Scarlett is bigger than mabel, and I also wanted something that could be re-useable, and be a good storage for a toy. SO I'll be going for cloth draw string bags! I don't know how much production will be, but I think it'll be worth pursuing. But I wanted a fun design for it, so I whipped this up yesterday.
I thought this would be a cute ass design for a bag! Design inspired by Sugar Bunny Shop! Their work is amazing.
Anywho, this will go on a cloth bag, so it should be pretty cute :> I like the idea of doing this sorta development/consideration of the critter's jobs. I figured Maverick and Penny would have their own thing as well. Might be fun to make merch of these!
Disney and Drawing Stuff!
During the Cali trip, one of the days we went to Disneyland! It's smaller than I remembered xD But it was still fun. Something about staying SUPER LATE (like, till they kick you out) that's like, really awesome about Disney. That vibe is so gooood.
Anywho, while we were there, my friend and I were gooning over a design at one of the rides. They made the log ride re-skinned from the Song of the South, to Tiana's Bog Adventure or something. (Princess and the frog)
But with the re-skin came NEW CRITTER DESIGNS. Critters in a band, and one in particular is this SUPA CUTE OPOSSUM! Her name is Beau.
I managed to get this pic on the ride. AFTER we got fuckin' HELLA drenched mind you xD This made it worth it.
Anywho she inspired some doodles of course
Noice
Oh, and I also did my taxes/finances for last year. Fuckin Yikes. xD Such a kick in the nuts to hit so many major milestones on like, 3 different projects, to make more money, to then have to pay like, 6x the amount in taxes/health insurance. (I definitely don't have 6x more in my bank) CuhRIINGE bro.
I figured out some shit I can do with a 401k to help lower some of those costs, but this year's gonna be... interesting. Lots of projects are coming up that are gonna be QUITE expensive, and things are gonna be tighter in general with the more expensive quarterly taxes and monthly health insurance. But we'll see.
Freelancing, you wanna stay between 20-35k taxable income in a year. It's a golden spot. Usually you are making more but writing a ton off. And you don't pay a ton in taxes or health insurance. You don't POCKET a lot, and you can't do any big purchases like a house or car, but you can absolutely go ham in investing in your own endeavors.
BUUUT, once you're reporting 50-70k you're in absolute pain. I landed around 60k last year, (after expenses), but that would put me at roughly 22k for taxes/health insurance xD What's even the point bro lmao.
Biggest thing I learned is Federal Poverty Limit should ABSOLUTELY BE GOING UP, but it's not, because our systems are rigged and it's all broke as fuck. Thanks government.
Anyways like I said I can do a bit of gaming the system with investing in a 401k. So this basically blew the wind out of my sales for several days, but at least I've got a plan for this year. I was very worried that the projects (2nd toy, the cloth bags, other possible toy thing) were going to be in jeopardy. But, there were a few other things I learned I can kinda game. It's all KINDA risky, but it makes stuff possible at least. Nothing too crazy, just not doing equal quarterly tax payments, and backloading the year basically.
Aaaaaaaanyways xD Taxes sucked, but an important thing to figure out ahead of time.
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OK, that's about it for the past couple weeks! Hope y'all have been well!