Development Diary #56

New development diary. We have important stuff to announce :)

Many of you may already know that Adobe flash is dying. And it seems Adobe has strong intentions to finish with it by the end of this year. 

We weren't too worried about this, because standalone versions of flash should keep working as long as we keep the standalone flash file with us. But thanks to the information provided by our patron Eric, we know that Adobe's plans are a bit more agressive. They intend to block flash content for sites, remove download links for any version of flash (including the standalone links), and of course disable plugins for all the browsers.

It's a bit frustating to think that for example Space Paws won't be playable on any site, so everyone will have to play the desktop version without any more alternatives. :/
That's why we've been searching for alternatives. Unity was an option, but learning all its code and software from zero when we're already deveolping a story, working on the art and all that....is a bit too overwhelming, tbh. Especially if you are more of a writer or an artist than a programmer.

That's why it's very likely for us to move to renpy (if you don't know what's renpy, it's basically a good engine for visual novels). This change provides us the next improvements:

-Screen resolution will likely increase from 1600x900 to 1920x1080 (better quality)

-You'll be able to adjust volume easily.

-You'll be able to quick save and quick load a game. You'll have a lot of save slots as well.

-Dialogue text will display progressively.

-There'll be a backlog (so you will be able to check what they were saying before a decision)

-'Ctrl' key will skip text.

-You'll easily hide the interface.

-Installation woul be easier. Just extract and play

-It's more likely to eventually have an Android version of the game. 

And more or less that's all. The rest should be similar to what we could do with Flash. The only bad side we've found is that online version are based on html5 (that's a good thing) but it seems they are not so stable, at least with heavy stuff. So we'll probably do a lite version for web (with static images instead of animations, or just fewer animations, we'll see). Nothing new, because Space Paws online version also had its limitations.

Likely we'll try to make this change for this next update. It's not being easy, but we think we can do it. It doesn't make much sense to keep developing it with flash if we have to make the change someday anyway. It shouldn't take us much extra time because it's especially delaying the storywriting work, but well, the story can remain a bit longer only in my head, I guess lol. Plus, who doesn't love to have more extra work during summer? Haha :P

Just keep in mind that. We'll try to make it look as good as any update we've done so far, but this is a new engine of a new game, so please don't be too harsh if something is a bit unpolished ^^'

About the status of the update, here it it the progress:

-New characters: 4 out 5 done so far

-New H-scenes: 1 out of 2 done so far

-Sex Battle: created, all animations of this update done so far (11 animations)

-Backgrounds : 4 out of 8 done so far

-Battle animation soldiers: 0 out of 3 (Currently working on it)

-Skills animations: 0 out of 4 (we'll go for it after having the soldiers done) 

-Battle revision: it was already built on flash. The port to renpy is quite advanced

-Other Cg's: 6 out of 9 done so far.

So basically, I'd say that we're beyond the halfway of the update. We've already did a good amount of work, but there's still work to do.

That's all for now. Be good, stay safe and enjoy summer!