Good evening, everyone! I’m back, and I’m happy to share my latest updates on the game’s development.
First, I’d like to apologize for skipping last weekend’s update. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling very well, but today I’ve created a little gift for you - an image filled with beauty and light. You can find a full low-resolution preview at the top of the page, and you can download the image in full 4K resolution at the bottom. And, by the way, this image also serves as a teaser for tomorrow’s post.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been working on various aspects of the game. First and foremost, I’ve been working on the appearance of the next batch of characters, bringing their looks up to new quality standards. There aren’t many changes, but they highlight and improve the existing designs. I’ve also changed the hairstyles for two characters to ones that are more appropriate and better suited to their personalities. You’ll see them as soon as I’m satisfied with how they look.
I wrote the dialogue for an event featuring breakfast with all the girls in the family and a few other things. There won’t be much action, but it will bring back the vibe of the first part of the game for fans. And it will better reveal the characters’ personalities for players experiencing the game for the first time.
Next, I finished working on the inventory in Dan’s room; the entire system is now ready and plays very smoothly. To do this, I created 48 images and wrote just over 200 lines of code in the game engine. I still have some work left to do on recurring events in that same room involving a secret character. To do this, I’m currently working on a visual interface for managing repeatable events, which will let you choose what you want to do.
I’ve wanted to do something with the graphic presets for image processing for a long time. My previous presets, which you saw in the game, made the story images too cold in color. This week, I finished developing new presets for every time of day in the game for outdoor images, as well as two graphic presets for indoor images - day and night. It took me quite a while to create them, returning to this work from time to time, and finally, I managed to make something beautiful. By the way, the image above was processed with the new morning preset; notice how much light there is in it - it feels like the sun is shining not just in the image!
Also last week, I created a very important technical tool to make my work easier. It’s a script that allows me to dynamically change the animation duration by automatically recalculating the keyframes based on the new duration. It’s a script for the editor I use to create animations. Why do I need this? When I create a new animation, I’m essentially guessing the timing needed to execute a specific movement. Because of this, my animations often have incorrect timing, which looks like unnaturally slow or too-fast movement - making it look strange.
This script will let me adjust the animation’s timing without having to redo the whole thing if I didn’t guess the right timing. And I’ve had to redo the entire animation because of this more than once. So this is a tool that’s absolutely essential for my work, and now I have it!
Thank you for your support and interest in my game! I’ll continue to share my progress and updates with you.
Stay tuned!