Por(n)tals [0.4] - Devlog #4

Hello there! 👋

It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the fourth devlog already. Ahhh, time surely flies fast. Damn... time, slow down, please. I'm getting older, I beg you!

Ahem! Let’s start by summarizing what I’ve done over the past month. Luckily for me, you can’t lynch or crucify me, because I actually accomplished the plan I announced in the previous devlog. Well... okay, you can insult me once, because I’m missing one tiny thing - but only because it turned out to be much bigger than I expected.

Anyway, I’ve finished the third segment of the party, which means the whole scene is now fully rendered. In total it consists of over 1800 renders, so in comparison to other scenes in game, it’s fucking huge. I’m glad to finally have that behind me. I also made two full lewd scenes, the first containing 9 animations, and the second one only 4, because it's more of a side content.

In the meantime I started coding everything... and that’s what I didn't manage to finish. Last time I said the code would get close to 4000 lines, but that was a big underestimation. Right now it's nearly 5000, and that’s only 1/3 of the party coded. But it's not a big problem, a few extra days and it'll be done.

Okay, so what’s next? For the last few months I’ve been exhausting you with nothing but party scene, but it’s finally time to move on. We’re returning to the standard linear visual novel experience, and after some short preparation, our group will travel to the next world. This time, however, not "just to have fun", but for a very specific reason. What reason? You’ll find out in the game. And what’s the theme of the new world? Magic!

So, what’s the plan for next month? Well… there is no plan. I’ll be more busy in December, so I don’t know how much I’ll actually manage to do. The first reason is, of course, Christmas. I’m going to visit my parents, so for a few days (not sure how many yet) I won’t be available. The second reason is the start of the new league in my beloved PoE2. I actually took time off work, and plan to spend a couple of days eating junk food, drinking energy drinks and nerding out until I burn out. Perfection.

Outside of these two periods I’ll be working as usual. I’d like to at least begin the magic world and finish coding the whole party. Making some progress on the script would be good as well. We’ll see how it goes.

Current progress

Script - untouched, still at 65%.

Renders - currently over 2500.

Code - exactly 4,896 lines. After coding the entire party, it should exceed 7,000, which is more than I expected.

Now, last time I promised to estimate release date. It''s still hard to say, but judging by my pace and how much is left, I’d say 0.4 should debut in March. I’ll do my best to make that happen, but there’s still a lot to do. I'm sorry that you have to wait so long. It frustrates me too. I'm starting to think I'll never make such a huge update again, and reduce the scope a bit for the next ones. But that's just me bitching, we'll see how it'll be.

And that’s probably everything I had to tell you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support, thank you for following the game, and thank you for your patience. I love you guys! ❤️❤️❤️

OneHend