Happy early St. Patrick's Day from Stone Fox Studios!
We're coming in hot for the holiday with another dev update and a look at what lies ahead.
One note: I'll be on holiday someplace warm and sunny after next week, but I'll leave Kentyrr with plenty of artwork to keep him busy in my absence.
As of today, the individual render count is closing in on 2000, with a huge variety in scenes and settings. While this exceeds every Chasing Sunsets chapter by several hundred, there are hundreds more renders left to do, but the number of new areas to create them in will shrink vastly, accelerating their delivery significantly.
What a lot of people don't realize is that every scene that takes place in a unique location or requires character "extras" carries a significant additional artwork burden on the artist. This is one of the reasons so many VNs take place in relatively static locations where many scenes can be built in a spot that is reused often. That's not laziness, it's practicality... And for all of the efficiencies we've baked into Firebreak, so far reusable sets are NOT one of them.
Character intros are complete, and we're working on the sunset scenes of the first chapter. Bianca, Tara, and Lisa's introductions are built organically into the storyline, so while there remains a little work to be done there, it won't require as much exposition to accomplish.
The first chapter will end with the MC at a crossroads, with a hopeful look at the challenge ahead and hopefully with an ally or two to help him get started.
In the meantime, I continue to work on sound design, music selection, and framework features.
Our delivery timeline hasn't changed: We're still shooting for late spring/early summer, and so far, nothing seems to be putting that target at risk!
In the next few months, we should have a beta ready for our testers. While we've shared the story outline with two of our testers, and the feedback was enthusiastic, it's not the same as actually experiencing the story. Creators are always anxious to see how well they translated their vision into a shareable medium.
The release plan will be similar to Chasing Sunsets: Initial chapters will be only available to Patrons on various subscription platforms: Patreon, Subscribestar, and Itch. Once a critical mass of content is reached (ideally 50% of the game) we will look to push onto Steam and GOG.
In any case, we know waiting is difficult, particularly when you don't even know if the story will resonate with you. We are doing our best to ensure any such worries are unfounded as we put the ribbon on our introductory chapter.
We'll keep you updated here every other week or so, and I'll open up the comments below to general Q&A that either myself, Kentyrr, or our CM will do our best to respond to. Keep in mind that we won't post spoilers, but we'll be as open as possible about anything that's fair game!
Stoya