It's the "Put the voodoo doll down...." update.

Hello!

A post? From me? On a Monday? Indeed! For there is much to update about and we're still on a good news roll so, let's begin.

Chapter One to Three

Since my last post there has been a lot of progress. I was going to say across all three remaining chapters but it would be fairer to say, across all five. The testing for Three has been having a very deep dive. Very. 

Following the unfortunate* file handling incident for Two, the testers have been pulling the first three chapters apart to find everything and anything that they can. This is more than helpful especially as earlier reported bugs, as far as my memory is concerned, had all been fixed. But of course due to the "incident" they might well now not be - and indeed from the deep dive reported haven't been. So, my apologies. They were all fixed of course - and will be again. But onwards!

Bugs aside, I'm really pleased with Three. And, although the VR lewd has been kept reasonably simple, it still looks several miles better than before. So much so that...I've engaged a voice actress for it. Well, the little silly scene at the end of Strip Ping Pong I felt worked much better with sound. Brought it to life a bit I thought. So the animation for Three is with her and I'll let her work her VA magic on it.

The Opinion Piece!

Now before I talk more about Four and Five, I just want to stay with the VA concept for a moment. I appreciate that some players aren't that keen on the idea namely for two reasons. Either it's not done very well and makes the scene worse or, and far more importantly to the player, the voice they hear may well differ from the canon voice they have in their head.  On the first point, I can assure you that the actress is very talented and so I want to focus on the second. Now some of you might think this isn't terribly important, but for some of you I know this is really big deal and I can understand why.

Canon, even if just the players and not the writers, is important. Bloody important. You can mess around with a lot of things in the story - but never, ever, canon. Why? Well if the writer messes around with canon, they're destroying the universe.  Destroying, in fact, the story. They're basically saying to the audience that the rules they've set down don't matter, they're not important. Anything can happen. And once you've gone down that step, then if the rules aren't important then, well nothing in the story is really. It's also, and this is where I finally might make a point worth reading, an insult to the audience. The audience is invested in the world, the characters and, of course, both of those are built on the rules of the universe. The canon.

The writer and the audience are, I feel, in a symbiotic relationship when it comes to canon. The writer needs the audience as much as the audience needs the writer and the writer must never, and I mean never, just throw the rules out. You can, of course, have any rules you want at the start - but you must stay consistent to them. Now when it comes to how the characters sound, as you'd expect I have canon voices for them. But since they've never been shared with you, other than in the accented text when they speak, they're not canon. They can't be. The player has never actually heard them and so the rules haven't been set. And into that void the player may well have their own voices that they hear when they read the words. So the canon voice for the character has been set by each individual player.

So when it comes to VA work I have to tread very, very carefully. The player has filled the void left by the writer and that canon has to be treated respectfully. So my plans for VA are that you'll never hear the principle characters** speak. Side characters and minor NPC's yes. I've free reign there I feel. But the mains? No. Oh, we'll have appropriate VA lewd noises of course, but there's sufficient sea room there that my views on how they'd sound during those scenes can't be a million miles away from yours. But no dialogue.

After all, if my canon (and it isn't!) was that Sarah was from Newcastle. It would be a bit of shock to suddenly hear her speak like this I would imagine.

There are, potentially, three exceptions to this. Trisha and McGruder have, I think, pretty established accents. Trisha's Georgia accent wouldn't be a massive shock to anyone and would fit with the players canon. As to McGruder, I'd imagine hearing her speak would actually be more of a welcome relief than having to read her words ;)

The third exception would have to be optional. After all the above, I'm not going to enforce a canon voice on you now am I? It would need a player controlled switch as it involves Chris. ***

There's one module of hers that would massively benefit from being VA'd. You know the one I mean... But, it would be pricey and it would take a bit of time. So, it's not going to happen for the re-release of Three to Five. Mainly as I want these chapters out as soon as possible but also, well, it needs a chunk of cash. If we do do this, then it would be retrofitted to Chapter Six (by that I mean, the modules in Two to Six would have that switch in place when Six dropped). But back to progress!

Chapter Four

Four is fairly whizzing along. I've been focussed on buffing the lewds since my last post and, holy hell...I don't know whether to be pleased that I've got so much better or to die of shame at what I put out previously. It honestly was the best I could do at the time but...they weren't that good were they? The princess lewd was rather terrible in fact. Sorry. Still, looking much better and once I'm happy with the final cut, they'll be whizzing off for VA work as well.

Chapter Five

Five has also progressed. There's been a bit of chopping and changing since I amended my plans for Six to speed up completion. Oddly though, I think the chapter works better. The original felt a bit...forced. Not massively, but the revisions make it feel more of a natural pace. There were a few noticeable gaps however. Removing content, even if only scenes, did leave some space to fill but I'm happy that I've resolved that over the past couple of weeks. The "Supah Sekret Project" I'd been working on was also finally completed and has even been tested and it can now go into Chapter Five. Originally, it was going to be in Six but it helps fill those gaps. I've been cagey on this as I honestly didn't know a) whether it was possible to do in Renpy and b) if I had the chops to do it. Turns out the answer to b) was yes. Still not sure about a)! What is it? Well, I'd rather you find out when you play the chapter. But it's 20,000 lines of coding goodness so make of that what you will...

Release dates

Three just needs some bug fixing and the VA'd lewd dropping in when the actress is happy with it, so nothing much to do there really other than being bloody careful and not dropping the ball on corrections. End of the month still seems likely to me but if I need another week to get it right, I'll take it. It's not exactly as though I'm delaying the release to screw another months patreon charge out of you now is it? :)

Four still seems pretty solid for November too. Each lewd buff is taking me about a week to produce but given that I can just let these run on one (or two!) of the machines whilst working the new GUI in on one of the others, I'm shockingly relaxed about a deadline for a change. 

Five is where I'm less sure. It's big with a lot of content  and there is still some testing to do, especially where I've been making changes. But that's not actually what's giving me pause for thought. What's vexing me at the moment is I think I can get it out for the end of December (which would be a lovely way to end the year) but I'm not 100 per cent certain. Why is this such an issue? Well, it revolves around when I turn my patreon back on. I would hate, absolutely hate, to think the end of December is a "go" and turn the patreon back on for December charging, only to then slip into January. After all these months of saying that charging will be off until the Five is released to then fluff it at the last gasp? I don't want to do that. Equally, I don't want Five done and dusted and then just be sitting on it for a few weeks until January charging rolls around...It's a condundrum. But given December is an expensive month and also my testers might want to do trivial things like spend time with their families instead of playtesting Heavy Five, my gut is telling me to go for January even though the progress tracker is screaming December. I honestly can't make my mind up at this stage. I think I'll have to see how November pans out.

And I think that's about it....oh, the headline for the post? I was in another car crash at the weekend. Nothing hurt this time, I'm totally fine - and no, it wasn't my fault. Minding my own business in slow traffic and the next thing I know, this chap just smacks right into me and totally destroys my backside. With him coming into me so quickly, the road was covered in his junk. More so when, after all that, I had to help pull him off.**** Anyhow, whoever has the voodoo doll of me, give it a rest, eh?  I'm never going to quit so find some other bugger to annoy.

Charging, of course, remains off until Five is released.

Stay, or be, lucky

Notty

* i.e. utterly bloody stupid

** Y'know, I originally typed "actors and actresses" there. Weird, huh?

*** Chris and switch in the same sentence? Not something I expected ever to write...

**** My God, you've got a dirty mind! I was referring to our respective crumple zones.