February Status/Planning + Poll Results

Alright! Time to lay out the plan for February. I have several things to hit on, including the results of both the Focus Poll and Short Story Poll. First, before anything else, let me make a quick request. If any of you have reddit accounts, would be please consider upvoting these two posts?

Haven's Port Release Post 1
Haven's Port Release Post 2

A lot of my traffic comes from reddit. Normally, these days, release posts have been getting enough upvotes without me needing to ask you guys for help. However, something went wrong this time, bad timing I would guess, and the main release posts got buried before many people could see them. As I don't like the idea of paying for upvotes, like a lot of my fellow developers do, I'm asking nicely if some of you will take a few seconds to help...pretty please?

---------Galactic Nomad-----

With that request out of the way, the first thing I want to touch on is Galactic Nomad, which didn't get released by the end of last month. I apologize for that! It was a combination of factors working against it that caused it. The most important of which is the fact that Short Story rewards are the lowest priority on the reward list, so they are the most likely to slip if things go pear-shaped on me.  Rest assured, it will still be done. In fact, I just sat down a bit ago and wrote the first 1,000 words, and intend to knock out another 1,000 or so before I'm done for the night. Thankfully, I seem to have gotten over the case of writer's block I had with it. I'll get the story out as quickly as possible without sacrificing its quality!

----------Poll Results----

The next thing to touch on is the poll results for the Focus Poll and the Short Story Poll. I'm pleased to say that the Focus Poll was an uncomplicated win for focusing solely on the College of Allund this month. This is honestly what I wanted to do, but I believe firmly in taking all of your desires into account with my planning, as much as is realistically possible. In a very real way, these games are as much all of your doing as mine, since you all support my efforts!

The Short Story poll on the other hand was close. So close that I really want to try and do both of the top two winners. Particularly since this is the second month in a row it came in second. In almost any other month I'd just say flat out that I would do so...but February is freaking short! And the runner-up is easily the most complex currently-ongoing story. So, I'll try, but I can't promise anything! As for the actual results:

Winner: Andrea of the Silver Key | 46.25 votes

Runner-Up: Mass Effect: Final Error | 44.25 votes

Transformation Estate: 18 votes

Station 11: 16.25 votes

Galactic Nomad: 10 votes

DoL: Origns: 0 Votes

Wow. I did not see that coming. Apparently, you guys and gals REALLY liked Andrea of the Silver Key! And even Station 11, which is also entirely new to the voting options, had a decent showing. Ironically, I split my own votes evenly between the winner and runner up, so even taking my own votes out of the equation still shows the same slim split between the two. As such, as I said, I'm going to at least make a solid try at updating both Andrea of the Silver Key and ME: Final Error this month. But as it did win, Andrea of the SIlver Key takes the higher priority.

-----------Plans for the Month--------------

So, my plans this early in a month are usually only a vague outline, as I generally don't know how to slot things in until various bits get rolling and I get a feel for how much time they will take. As it worked well last month to do so, I'm going to prioritize getting all of the various parts rolling in general in the first few days of the month. Yesterday was committed to doing all the social media work and forum updating for the Haven's Port release, as well as getting a start on the late Galactic Nomad story. I also managed to do the first render for this months $20 comic, which is going to be Cyberpunk themed (Image attached as a teaser ;-)). I'll be taking the 2nd and 3rd to hammer at Galactic Nomad, get the comic renders rolling, and plan out this month's $20 wallpapers as well.

After that, I'll be diving hard into Chastity Quest. It's going to take a few days to really get a feel for how that's going to go this month. I'm hopeful for a nice large 40ish scene update. But between the short month and the fact that I'll have to spend at least a few days working with new Skyrim mods to hash out the locations for The College of Allund, I'd be lying if I said I could absolutely guarantee that. I'd actually hoped to use some free time last month to prep the mods beforehand...but then the day job contract that allows me to actually do important things like eat, kinda of exploded in my face. It's part of why Galactic Nomad didn't get done last month, as well as why Haven's Port was only 22 scenes instead of my originally planned 24. It also ran me ragged, burning any free time I had to the ground. Resulting in no time to do the prep work I'd hoped for. But, such is life.

For now, that's all I can tell you, in a few days I should have a more concrete time table update :-).