Remaster Progress Update: Arc 5.15 is done!

It's me again with another progress update! I had a little bit of a lull when I was in China because it ended up being harder to work there than I had thought (I didn't have a lot of privacy and also didn't have a desk... making it really hard to work for very long on my laptop). So I ended up focusing mostly on promo-type stuff instead and also got started on writing the After Stories.

Speaking of, the game now has over 1,650 wishlists!! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° I'm incredibly happy! My dream is to get to 2,000 before the game launches in the summer, and I think it might actually be doable, especially given Next Fest is next month.

Oh yeah Next Fest! OW will be participating!! I'll be launching a demo for it that covers Arc 1 of the game. I really hope that people will play it, especially as the more plays it gets during Next Fest, the better it will do in the festival (and then it will get more visibility). I'll be including an exclusive artwork at the end of the demo that'll only be available in the demo (and the demo will only be live until the game launches), so please give it a try when it launches!! You'll also get a chance to see everything else I've been cooking up, as there's plenty more that's been done even since the previous alpha version.

But now back to the meat of this post, of course, progress update! I've now finished up through... Arc 5.15! Lol what in the world does that mean, Carrot??? What is 5.15?????????? Well, that's a result of my having no idea what to name it originally when I released it LOL But basically it is the middle third of Arc 5. Back when I was still working on the OG game, I ended up dividing Arc 5 into 3 parts because it got so gosh darn long. The first third went up through Gidget, the second through Orlam, and the last, the finale and end. So Arc 5.15 is from after Gidget's part to the end of Orlam's part!

This was honestly the quickest part yet, I have to say. Similarly to Arc 5.1, I had a lot less I had to do art-wise. For the Iggy sprite, for instance, I only had a few variations -- a blanket for the rabbit burrow scenes, and a bloody version of his bandage:

The blanket looks really cute... ;---;

Also by this point, I don't need to make a lot of new expressions for him anymore. I still did create a few... maybe... 5 or 6? I can't remember. He has 837 different variations now, which is a little bit ridiculous. Every day I regret the fact that I didn't know how to do layered images when I first made this game, because that would have saved me a lot of time and grief LOL But I push through.

There wasn't much I had to do for other sprites either. I did give some new eye positions to both Genzou and Gidget on a few of their sprites (part of what I do while polishing the code and script is see where it would be better for them to be looking in other directions during scenes, since I didn't do this at all originally -- so I often end up needing to create new sprites for them with their eyes in different directions). I also had to update a few of Genzou's "held back" sprites. They're the same sprites I use for Arc 2, but there's a few variations that are only present in Arc 5, and I didn't update those back when I did Arc 2, so I had to do those now hahaha:

SOB SOB SOB SOB SOB

Oh, yeah, and also, I tweaked the size of Jerry's sprite just slightly. Basically making him a bit bigger and taller now, so he looks more accurate height-wise compared to the other sprites:

He's still not entirely accurate but given he's seven feet tall, I think this was the best I could do without making his head half off the screen LOL At least now he looks adequately taller than everyone.

I did a lot more with the lighting this time around. Almost every scene in this part takes place either at night or within a somewhat dark area (like the burrow), so I ended up adding a darker tint to almost every sprite and almost all the CGs, too. I think it helps a lot as it just feels more immersive.

CG-wise, I actually... didn't have a ton I had to do at all! Which was rather a relief, to be honest. Because at this point in production, I've redrawn sooooo many CGs that I'm just... glad to be mostly finished with having to redo them, I have to admit. There wasn't even a whole lot of weird-face-syndrome in this part given how near to the end of production it was. I think there were only a few I needed to tweak. In fact, I'd say the majority of what I ended up needing to do was just fix Genzou's hair, because his is now the only one that's still consistently inconsistent with how I draw it now. Ofc, this is also the part that has a huge long cutscene with a tons of shots of him that all needed to be updated as a result... (°◡° ;;;) But... the fix doesn't actually take too long to implement, so it wasn't as a big a deal as some of the hair fixes on characters in previous arcs lol.

In this CG for instance, I tweaked all of their eyes a bit and then fixed Genzou's hair (which ended up being pretty par for the course for most of the CGs in this part).

I'm tired, guys. I really am tired. I'm ready to be done with this remaster, I'll tell you that!! LOL Hence why I'm glad the end parts have meant a lot less to actually have to do.

That being said, this part had.... a LOT of action sequences. Which meant a LOT of small little script polishes and tweaks. And a LOT of work implementing the Iggy sprite. So that's honestly where the bulk of the time spent on this part went. The tomato ambush and the castle assault scenes were probably the biggest and most time-consuming. There's just a lot you have to do and a lot of little nit-picky details and a lot of replaying the same parts again and again and again testing and tweaking. Same as the first time I scripted all of this, I suppose. But overall, I said this on my socials, but, I just really think the Iggy sprite adds so much. Not only in dialogue scenes, but also in the action scenes. He makes the emotional scenes hit harder and the chaotic scenes even more chaotic hahaha. I just really like how everything looks and feels with the sprite added.

So yeah... anyway! I'm just really really happy with how everything has turned out overall. The game just feels 100x more polished. More immersive. More cohesive. More consistent. More everything! And I'm really really excited that I'm so close to being able to share it with everyone soon!!

OH YEAH THAT'S NOT ALL I'VE FINISHED.

I also fully completed the first After Story!! ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶

The After Stories will be unlockable after you complete each character's respective epilogue. And I can now with my whole heart say they will just be self-indulgent cute little pieces that if you like the character, then hopefully you will like them a lot. They're not meant to be huge game-changing things, they're just little short stories to enjoy to get a peak into the characters' lives after the events of the game based on the epilogue you got.

They will also be presented differently than the main game -- they will be in NVL format rather than ADV. So, basically, a bit more like a novel than a movie. The design will be something like this:

This is obviously Genzou's, but it will be similar for the other two, just different silhouettes and color schemes!

They will still have music and the occasional SFX, just like when I work in ADV, but they're just a bit more minimalistic than ADV. I think this format really suits what they are though, just sweet little treats to enjoy after the main game. And they will have some CGS, too! Each one will have two CGs (+ a final small ending pic). The first one ended up being about 5,500 words, so I'm aiming for close to that with the others, as well, so that they're all at least around the same length. I'm currently writing Orlam's as we speak.

I may have cried slightly while scripting Genzou's, if that tells you anything.

So yeah, I think that's it for this update, then! What do I have left to do?

• Scripting polish + Iggy sprite for the finale

• Finish writing and scripting the other two After Stories

• CGs for the other two After Stories

• Finish the Steam Achievements + draw the icons for them

• Finish the scripting tweaks to make the game look better while skipping

• Final QA, of course!!

....and that's it, I think??? Really getting close now! Hence my building excitement (and anxiety LOL)

Thank you so much for all of your support so far! We're in the home stretch now! I can't wait to share the game with everyone in its best form yet!!