—-Honey Status Report:—-
I’m breaking radio silence to update you on what’s been going on lately, namely: lots!
– I’ve reworked the match logic for the earlier fights, meaning greatly expanded AI functionality and (hopefully) greater stability, but that also means a few new bugs have crept in that I must now find and squash.
– I’ve also redesigned many of the main processes behind the visual novel segment. It means better memory optimization, shorter loading times, and a bit more margin for me to cram in additional images without breaking the memory banks! Again, as it’s a pretty major change, some new bugs have crept in, and while I’ve taken care of a great deal of them, very special and rare cases may occur than I’ll need to track down and fix (we still haven’t managed to see all the possible text/event cases in all of our test playthroughs!)
– redone the title screen functionality to accomodate for “new game +” type content. Oh yeah! There’s going to be some of that.
– I’ve expanded the contents of Honey’s Room quite a lot. Possible dialog now ranges in the couple hundreds! I’m not going to list all of the changes, as I’d like some to be surprises, but you may want to keep your eyes open as the game progresses!
– I’m in the process of writing the missing dialog for events (LOTS of these still), and rewriting/adding dialog to some of the most egregious cases of repeated speech (namely, the parent interactions). Due to the nature of randomness, I can’t completely erase the repetition factor, but I’m hopeful it’ll eventually feels dynamic enough.
– the first trailer is almost done, working on sound/music now!
What’s next, then? We’re getting to where it’s now shorter to do a “what’s missing” list, so here’s an approximate of what’s coming:
– October: script writing/event dialog, to get as much ready as possible for the end of october closed-testing demo. Working double-time to get it ready in time!
– November/December: the one vs. many segments. Earlier prototypes have proven unconvincing, so I’m scrapping everything and starting over on that aspect. Redesigned them on paper as well, as I’ll be using a base much closer to the match fights now, rather than a completely different thing meant to replicate the feel. Should hopefully make it easier to build, but that’ll still require a lot of time, and a lot of asset making, ie. enemy animations!
-Early to mid 2016:
– there are a few special matches left to work on. They’ll require additional animation (less than any of the three main matches, though), and logic (though I’ll be able to reuse most of the match logic from the other fights if the october testing shows they’re resilient enough). I’m planning for a match/month, but we’ll see how that goes.
– rest of the script/event filling. Couple hundred of those left.
– shell functionality: menus, gamepad support, etc.
– extras! depending on how early/late in the year I’ll be at that point, I have quite a list of extras planned. I’d hate to consider adding it as DLC later, even for free, as I’d like the game to be the most “complete package” it can be on release (not going to expand on that here for now, but release model/pricing is something that’s being thoroughly examined as well).
– possibly some other trailers. I’ve got the groundwork covered for those, I’ll just need to see if the time investment will make sense!
…and that’s about it! So in short: still a lot to do, but the “to-do” list is getting shorter with every passing day.
I’m also going to show less and less as time goes on, as I’ll be working on stuff I’d like to keep as surprises. I’d also like to avoid tiring you before the game is actually done! There’ll still be updates when I have exciting and not-too-spoilery elements to show, though 😀
And that’s in for now! If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate. And if you suffer from a lack of updates in the future, feel free to ask so I can share what’ll be the latest at any given point!