Weekly update no 12: With guest host Doctor Ian Malcolm

Hi Hi,

We're close but there are a number of things to resolve before I can release it, I'm afraid.

First the good news. In terms of graphical quality and output - it's huge. You've already seen by some of the previews that the quality leap from one and two is quite significant. What you haven't really seen is a render count.  Chapters one and two were about 500 renders each. Chapter Three, if I include all the animation frames I've made is closer to a 1,000...There is also a ton of content choices and I'm perhaps more happy with the actual script for this one than the previous two. The version of H5 that you will play will start to get very different from those that others are playing as your gaming choices hit home.

This is both a good and a bad thing. Putting aside perhaps my inclination to get carried this month as I had a fresh render hamster to play with, obviously it's good as you get more/better content. But it's meaning I've more to check of course. However, I do have some problems to resolve as follows:

Animations and graphics

The animations need a little post work but the biggest problem I'm having is in respect to the size of them. Previously where I've had animations in H5, it was an easy case of adding in the individual frames with a slight delay of 0.2 seconds and off we went. I can still do this of course, but with some 500 frames the file size would leap by some 300-400 Mb (yes, I know...I should have thought of this earlier - and you're right.) 

Yeah...Cheers, Ian. I know... 

Anyhoo, I've asked around and have some solutions that I can try which will condense these by converting them into an actual video as opposed to a series of stills. I just need to get the balance between the graphical quality and the file size right which will be trial and error on the various software options advised to me. 

Amanda Walker and her wandering eyes...

I don't know why but on a number of her renders what, on preview, looks fine, on the full render her eyes tend to drift off from where she should be looking. It could just be a slight flaw in the model set up but it's annoying and distracting. It always seems as though she's more interested in what's going on behind you... Since I'm not picking this up on preview - and since this isn't a problem that's going to go away, I'm going to change her eye set up for a different one and spot render her images. Not a big deal to resolve but it does need fixing as it will be a constant problem.

RPS

A minor one thankfully, in that I've let a few people play test this and the comments are generally the same in that, yep it works smoothly enough but Becca could do with some more facial variety during game play. They're right. She could. Easy peasy to resolve and just means a few more renders.

Bugs

Thankfully not that many in terms of general play but I do have three quite significant ones to resolve.

• Named saved files. I've added in the code and it works fine so going forward you can name your saved files. This will be of benefit to us all I'm sure (I know it will be for me when testing!). The bug revolves around trying to ensure that existing saved files work properly which currently it seems to be messing up. Not sure why but I'll resolve it.

• Sarah and VR. She's gone from being utterly hopeless at her new game to being a killer dervish with a sword. In this months chapter there is a combat min-game, whereby if you do well (and in theory you should be able to) let's just say she has some clothing problems... Except, she seems to have been practicing when I haven't been looking, and has become somewhat unbeatable. I'm not sure why but suspect it might be something somewhere else in the code that is impacting on the random choices as it worked well enough earlier. I'll either hunt it down or, pardon the pun, strip it out for something simpler instead.

• Pregnancy....ah, have I not mentioned this before? You see when a man and a woman...oh. You know that bit. Good. ;) So yeppers, I have an impregnation mechanic. Now, like all of my content you can avoid this. If you don't fancy the risk of getting your bed partner of choice preggers then obviously there are things you can do to ensure this doesn't happen either in your actions during sex or contraception etc. Equally, if you rather like your Lt making lots of little Lt's...then you can. Or at least try. Each girl has their own pregnancy stat - now it's not entirely reflective of RL being on average around a 1 in 5 chance (unless you've being playing around in Marcus' lab - in which case it could go up..)- and there is a rather natty animation that goes with this too should it happen. The problem is that it's happening all the time. It's similar to Sarah's bug in that what should have an element of randomness is becoming more of a certain deal. I mean, I know Trisha looks quite fertile but my Lt banged her eight times and -every- time she got up the duff. 

Not every time, Ian. Not every time.

• This one I'm loath to strip out if I'm honest as not only is there a lot of render time behind the graphical results of making future little Lt's but it's also one of the core plot lines for certain paths. It could be just that Sarah and Trisha are rubbing up against each other (now, there's an image!) and by solving one I solve the other. Certainly it seems as though for both there is something making the randomness...not random.

So where does that leave us?

Still not -that- helpful, Ian.

Although he does have a point. 

So what next?

I've a few days left in this month yet but it is important to me that if you are giving me your hard earned cash you get something for it each month. That is the deal as far as I'm concerned.

I know, in theory being a patron doesn't actually mean that. You're supporting my development of this game which, in theory, means that there is "no deal" in respect to content delivery. But, frankly I think that's bollocks or at the very least unfair and certainly not what I promised.

So, I'm going to plough on trying to resolve these issues in time to get this chapter out this month, and if I can't? I'll refund March's subscriptions. It's not your fault I've overreached in terms of producing content - and I don't think any of us would be happy if I cut down the chapter or compromise it just to make a delivery date.

Laters!