It's the "Shiny shoes" update...

Hi, hi :)

Nothing wildly exciting to show or report as I've been mainly script writing and running animation frames since my last update.

That said the script is largely there now, although no doubt it will get tweaked as the renders come out for it. On my writing generally, as you'd expect with a game like this, the whole story/game is ofc plotted out to the end. It would have to be. Something like H5 I can't make up on the hoof and, sadly, is why the opportunity for me to give Patron's discretion or votes on content is so limited. But, although the story is plotted and scenes are somewhat fixed, the actual scenes for the game I write as I make each chapter.

This is really the fun part for me and, as I get more into the characters heads the more I write them, allows me to know better how they'd react and what they'd say. So, for example, one of Fem MC's scenes with Annie in Chapter Two was plotted out as "Awkward drunk scene" with me having the branches and consequences marked out and a flurry of notes - which then became the "Witches" scene in the production version. I swear half the time the characters tell me what to say and I'm really just their typist...

The tweaking as the renders come out is often due to me either finessing the script when I see it again, or making slight continuity amendments in respect of other finished scenes or even sometimes realising, as the renders are being put together, that a certain set of images would look good and amending the script to fit the images. This latter aspect is what happened with Trisha and the black male MC when they met in Chapter Two. Although the plot and most of the script didn't change it was tweaked to allow me to do that little group shot of the three of them looking at the MC at the end with a variety of expressions. A render that makes me smile whenever I see it, if I'm honest.

As well as the script work I've now got most of the animation renders made including those needed for the bonus mini-game. Which given I've popped out over 3,000 renders for them isn't too bad on a single machine.

There's been a few little sidebar pieces of work done too to keep me fresh or to lock down a few things. Although H5 isn't primarily a combat game, it can come up and given there is a variety of firearms available in game I wanted that tied down as final.

So next is quality checks and putting the animations together. Ensuring there is no clipping and that the frame rate is appropriate to make them work smoothly. Once that is out of the way it's just flat out rendering the scenes.

The only other big aspects of the game still to be done is the coding in respect of some of the mechanics. Although I code as I write for the main script, I'm talking here about things such as the diagnostic tool which are non-script dependant but have to merge seamlessly with it. But I'll turn my attention to that once I've got so far on the renders and image production.

And that's about it for now bar some sneaky things behind the paywall.

Take care, laters.