Hey guys!
State of development:
Not too long ago, I mentioned how I still had to start connecting things together.
I am now getting to that phase where everything is getting there, bit by bit.
The prologue is now mostly playable, the chain of events works. I think the topics of dialogue are in a good place.
What I did this week:
• Additional Lab background variant for late-afternoon:
Since the Prologue starts late in the afternoon, I decided to put the bright and well lighted lab background in storage for a Chapter 2. The new "sunset" variant (as I refer to it in code) is a bit darker with the ceiling lights turned on.
The previous "mid-day" version of that background is still there, though. I plan to use it in Chapter 2.
I also added a quick animation of the centrifuge doing its thing of mixing vials of serum. This comes into play during the dialogue with Johan.
• Character textboxes:
Surnames:
Every character now have their surnames displayed. No reason why that has to be a secret information mentioned only in some Patreon post...
Patterns:
I've added a discreet pattern to each textbox to represent each character (Johan's textbox shows a discreet pattern of files and folders, Alex's has science tools, Elise's has ring-formulas, etc). Why? Because I wanted to see if it would look better. Was it worth it? Ultimately no, I don't think so. Was it time-consuming to make? Thankfully, no, maybe 1 to 2 hours tops? Eh.
Font-colors:
Elena's font color is now the same color as her eyes and hair. I initially went with purple for her when I was working on the initial release because purple is one of my two favorite colors, but now that the scope of Dating Elena is expanding, and I'm adding a character with purple eyes (Morgane Moreau), it makes less sense. Soon, I may have to change the whole color-scheme of the game's UI to reflect that change, too. Thankfully, it can be done fast.
Laura, Morgane and Elise now have their own defined textboxes, colors and fonts.
• Overall progress:
The dialogue segments for Johan and Laura are mostly complete (safe for a couple of tweaks which will require me to proof-read myself and test how formatting looks in-game). The intervention of Elise works fine. The chain of events of the prologue is mostly in place.
What I still have to do:
• Background musics:
Although I've generated a couple of them, I still have preparations on Audacity to do before I can integrate them in the game.
• Additional sprites:
I have 2 sprites that I want to make for Johan, those won't be animated so they should be easy to make. First one will be used for him putting/removing vials from the lab's centrifuge with his back turned.
Second one will be him looking outside of the labs to make sure Elise isn't listening in.
• Alex's apartment door background:
It may seem like a useless thing to make, but it will be relevant in Chapter 2.
• Inspection segments:
I want to add optional Inspection segments to up to 4 backgrounds, for the sake of world-building and character-depth, so that if you want it, you can find out more about some characters and what's going on.
• Rewriting of Elena's dialogue:
I've dipped my feet into those waters, but I haven't done a deep dive just yet. Thankfully, in the maze that is my mind palace, I know where I'm going with it and I've thought a lot about it, so it should go fast once I get into it.
• The NSFW animated sprites:
The other points above could be done in one to two weeks.
But the NSFW animated sprites, now, that is the really hard part that I still have to do. The thing that I don't think I'll be able to deal with those at super speed. This will definitely take me time. Animated sprites require a ton of work and preparation.
Show us the good stuff:
I know it's not much, but since I'm trying to work on as many aspect of the update per week as possible (writing, UI updates, coding, sprites, music) while dealing with my other IRL responsibilities, I can't make much more per week, and I want to apologize for that.
I've just finalized this sprite today, 1 hour before my usual time to publish my Weekly post. ^^'
That should tell you how packed my weeks are.
I miss my wife, Tails. I miss her a lot.
I'll be back... next Sunday! Cheers!