Progress report on 1.8

First of all, despite all my efforts to finish the draft "nicely" before the end of the month and brag about it before you - it didn't happen. But the end is very close, there are literally 3 scenes left. The current draft is 876 pages long. With high confidence, I can predict that the final draft of 1.8 will be in the range of 925-950 pages. And fully ready in the next 4-5 days. For comparison, the biggest update before this was 350 pages. Yep.

What's next?

After the draft will follow the finalization of the "tails" of some still missing arts and general preparation of the draft for integration into the game, for which I allocate another 2-3 days.

The draft will then be directly integrated into the game. And may God help me with that... I haven't worked with such volume yet. In my experience, however, writing the draft is the most time-consuming and labor-intensive part of the work, and it is almost complete. Everything else takes noticeably less time. Although, I still won't make it by the end of February. The draft is too big this time, 900 instead of 600 pages I was thinking before.

There is, however, one interesting thing to note here. Usually, I worked on the principle: write a section of the draft - translate it - and integrate it into the game. Because of this, it was quite difficult for me to give release date predictions. But this time I will know 100% of the content in advance, even before it is integrated into the game. That means that by the end of February, I will be able to give you the exact percentage of the ready (playable) part of the update. And if there will be, say, 50%, then the update can be expected by the end of March. If it's less or more, you can estimate respectively in plus or minus, but already quite accurately.

What has been added in little and not-so-little things (no spoilers)

A +1 lewd scene has been added. Given how many of them are in this update, it seems redundant at first glance. The motivation for working on it was that with certain outcomes and made choices, some of Selenes might be stripped of any opportunities of this nature at all in the next episode. Now even the total "Miss No" who doesn't want to be involved in anything (and wasn't involved in this kind of events in the previous update) still can open this specific scene. Even if this will be the only possibility for such a reserved woman. However, she can say "no" even to this, but... I don't see a problem here. I provided an opportunity by closing a "problematic" area in that sense.

This scene, by the way, is quite peculiar... Very "broad" (about a dozen variations), but not very "deep" (a few passages for each variation).

Next. Selene Survivor's slightly paranoid and distrustful lines have become more frequent. Not too often, but that's usually the case with subconscious fears. They slip to the surface from time to time. And not always where you expect them to be. Generally, all Origins have enough of their own lines in 1.8, it's just that Survivor didn't use to be so often, you know, "paranoid". Now it's more frequent. Well, at least she can be if you allow this.

Yuturna's involvement here and there has also increased. In some places, quite substantially.

What's added greatly (still no spoilers)

It's about the moment that hasn't and won't be hinted at. Um... Unnamed?

- Huh, the Unnamed One is coming, boo!

Okay, this section has been significantly altered and is much, much better than what was originally planned. Well, I like it a lot better now anyway. And I think you'll remember this moment for a long time, hehe. And it also seriously expanded the "tail" of arts that needs to be finished... But that's the details.

Interestingly, this revision changes the dynamics of the entire end of Chapter 2 narratively, making the events that were planned for a future 1.9 update essentially redundant and even undesirable.

I haven't made a final decision yet, but at this point, I'm leaning heavily towards moving all the events that were planned for the 1.9 update somewhere in the future, like in the 4-5 Chapter, or even further.

Instead of everything that was planned for 1.9 will be just a small scene... Because the plot "hooks" to it have been scattered since the beginning of the Chapter 2, and to ignore them completely would be wrong.

But all the space that will be "freed up" by moving the 1.9 content far into the future will be taken up by the expansion of the final part of Chapter 2. And that means more content related to the main pool of characters, i.e. the troupe. This seems more appropriate and right to me now.

- What?! What is going to happen in 1.8 that's already changed the look of 1.9 and 2.0?!

Oh, one day you'll find out.

P.S. A number of Selene's decisions over the course of 1.8 will affect the events of this very, "unnamed" moment, which of course is not and will not be hinted at. If anyone asks, I didn't tell you anything.