Alright, folks... so fresh off the heels of v16 and the end of Chapter 7, I've already began to eye the horizon and what lies ahead.
First off, I know I'd talked to a lot of you after v16 and I know that I've said thank you, but I just want to again take the time to thank everyone for the response to v16. I know it took forever and it's probably the most exhausted I've ever been after an update. That being said, I didn't realize how much the community would actually like this one. I thought there were some fun moments and stuff but people have reacted to this one in a way I didn't really see coming. Honestly: it helped. I always thank people for taking the time to reach out or post reactions to things but the positive vibes this time around just hit a bit harder and it's helping me bounce right into the next one.
So for readers of the original, Chapter 8 is a fucking ride. From here all the way to the end, we can expect the chapters to increase in length so trying to figure out a way to really attack the length and scope of these last 3 chapters is going to take some adjustment-- especially after how much I misjudged the workload for v16.
Outline
So far, I've quickly gone through Chapter 8 and I've already whipped up a lengthy outline of everything that happens. This usually gives me a bird's eye view of the work and is normally how I figure out how to break things up. As it stands right now, I'm thinking that i'll break Chapter 8 into three separate updates. Breaking it down gets you content quicker, gives me a chance to check things off the list, and let's me reset between scene changes. That also typically motivates me to spend more time on each scene or environment to freshen things up like what we saw in the last couple updates.
New Environments
Chapter 8 will feature three new environments and I've already started dusting those environments off. For those who played the original, you already know what these environments are but the goal here is going to be comparable to the shopping trip workload. Looking at these old environments, they're super plain so I really wanna spice them up a bit and I had some early ideas already that I've been testing. We'll see those as we go but suffice to say our world is going to get bigger and we'll be getting to see some other parts of the story that we've talked a lot about, but have never seen.
That being said, I'm open to changing the current attack plan if needed. Remember, i dont plan a lot in advance and I sorta let the story tell itself so we'll see how things feel when I get into it but so far, the new environments are progressing. I'll keep you posted as I get into things and start working on them.
Writing
The other thing that's taken time has been the writing. While I was certainly improving in the later chapters of the story, but going back and rereading this stuff now makes it look pretty muddy. I ran into this problem with the last 2 updates for Chapter 7. For some reason, I just remembered them being written a lot better than they were. The quick look at Chapter 8 looks like the same issue so the goal here is to bring the level of writing on par with what we saw change from the original Chapter 7 to the Revamp Chapter 7. That did take a lot longer than I thought it would but I also know that a lot of you were really happy with the outcome so I'll again ask for patience but try and keep you in the loop
That's all for today. Just wanted to check in and ease minds that Chapter 8 is full steam ahead and you can expect to see teasers and stuff shortly when I get some stuff ready to show off.
I also know that many of you have talked about the recent legal changes with websites like itch.io, Steam, as well as legal changes in the UK. I'm going to compose a post regarding all the world political drama that's impacting creators but I've been waiting because I didn't have anything nice to say. So stay tuned for that and how you can help.