Game Status Update #63 - Dev Build This Week!

Hey everyone! Today I have a detailed update all about the second dev build for the Morning After Update and what remains before the full version goes into early access.

But first, to the topic of today's cover image—the initial round of voting has ended for the guy that'll be featured in the third Grind'm hookup scenario. We started with 16 contenders, and now the top 8 are moving on to the semi-finals.

I have a separate post you can find here with more details plus new images of the 8 guys sans clothes so you can see more of what they've got to offer.

Now, the dev build. For those who are newer, dev builds are in-progress versions of the game I share with Seniors & Graduates as I hit new development milestones. The first for the Morning After Update was release earlier this year, and now after many months of work, the second dev build is nearly finished.

I worked overtime to get it done by the end of August. While I didn't meet that goal, I did get almost every piece of the picture in place. What now remains is doing final testing to make sure there's no needed content I missed, all the scenes link together as they should, and there are no game-stopping bugs.

This will be done sometime this week. I am aiming for earlier, but I will ask you all to expect later so as to be pleasantly surprised if I actually meet that goal.

I've already talked ad nauseum about all that's gone into this part of the game and the challenges that have pushed it further and further back. I've also talked about what changes I've made so future updates can come out quicker. You can look back through earlier game status update posts if you'd like to read more about it.

Instead of reiterating any of that in this post, I want to lay out the specific content going into the Morning After Update. I realize that a lot of these "I promise I'm working on it!" posts can come off as "trust me, bro." So I want to give a specific list of what still needs done so that when I write the mid-month status update, you can see exactly what was completed during the two-week stretch and what still remains.

Before that, I want to give a summary of all the components that have gone into this update so far, which is what will be in the dev build.

COMPLETED COMPONENTS

Writing

The Morning After Update script is currently at 250,000 words. To give a sense of scale, once the remaining writing is added in, the full update will be equivalent to the length of a novel like A Game of Thrones. That's even accounting for what are essentially duplicate scenes with alterations.

That might help conceptualize why wrangling all of this has taken awhile 🙂 This is a direct result of addressing all the choices made up to this point at the same time, which is why I've talked so much about how I'll be scaling back to avoid long delays in the future.

With that said, below covers what's been written so far. It's broken down into specific scenes and then significant variations of each scene. Within each of those variant scenes is a whole lot of variant dialogue—at the extreme end, I have some screens that have upwards of 20 different versions of dialogue that you can see—but I won't be including them in the count.

This section was broken down into five parts: Additions to Day 2, wakeup locations, continuations of those scenes at a new location, a character scene for those who invested in that character, and what I have been calling pondering scenes.

Day 2 Additions

A few new ending points have been added so you can follow a character's storyline without needing to make choices you might not prefer.

• Frat Party - 1 scene - Spending the night with Evan

• Matt's Apartment - 1 scene - A way to sleep over without getting drunk or hooking up with Leo

Wakeup Locations

These are the direct continuations of all of the Day 2 ending states. An extended scene is a lengthier sequence—for instance, the Matt scene you get if you wake up at his place is much longer than the one you get if you left his apartment early the night before.

The dorm scenes not focused on Marco generally allow you to talk to him about the events, with different versions of that conversation if you have "good friend potential" status (hung out with him on Day 2) vs. not having spent much time with him. You can skip that convo, which leads to at least one other variant.

• Matt's Apartment - 1 extended scene, 4 primary variants

• Frat House - 2 extended scenes, 3 primary variants

• Griffin's Apartment - 1 extended scene, 3 primary variants

• Dorm Room, Marco-focused - 3 extended scenes, 5 primary variants

• Dorm Room, all other significant events - 12 scenes, 55 primary variants

Storyline Continuations

These are scenes that come after you leave Matt's apartment, the frat house, or Griffin's apartment.

• 5 scenes, 21 primary variants

Ponder Scenes

These scenes are the main reason this update has taken so long. They account for pretty much every major choice you can make with each character, and each scene had to be linked together in a myriad of different ways based on other choices, both new and old.

First, the game checks for any character you've had significant interactions with and then allows you to set what relationship state you want for them—typically Sexual, Romantic, Sexual & Romantic, or Friendly. If you haven't had a significant interaction with a character, you are automatically assigned a Friendly or Neutral status depending on your choices. These different states will be reflected in what scenes and choices you are given later on.

Each character you need to set the state for yourself has at least one scene, with most having two scenes separated into Major and Minor events. These scenes have variations based on all your choices, essentially summarizing what all you've done so far.

There are also transitional scenes between each of these. Some are smaller and just ensure dialogue flows logically as you progress. Others are much more involved. A semi-spoilery example: You are sometimes given the option to springboard off of a story you tell Marco to strike up a potential sexual relationship with him. The transition in this case has a bunch of different dialogue to account for it since it has now become the most significant recent event.

• Pondering scenes - 22 scenes, 64 primary variants

• Transitional scenes - 4 scenes, 75 primary variants

Unlocked Character Scene

I won't be specific here as it's a big spoiler, but fully investing in one character will unlock a scene after the pondering sequence is done.

• 1 scene, 2 primary variants

In summary, the writing completed so far comprises 53 scenes further divided into 232 variants.

Coding

Turning all of the above into a playable game is a big task, especially for a untrained programmer. But it's a necessary evil, and so I soldier on. This is what's done so far:

Day 2 to Week 1 Transition

This is something you won't see while you play, but when you progress from where Day 2 left off, the game detours through a section that sets variables based on past choices. This is done in part as an effort to avoid breaking saves by making as few changes as possible to what you've already played. This section may have additions yet to come, but currently it does the following:

• Adds and adjusts any flags needed per character, such as missing relationship points, what knowledge they should have, and what knowledge you should have of them.

• Evaluates relationship points gained during the game so far and, in conjunction with specific choices, sets what the game considers you relationship status based on how friendly you've been with a character and whether or not you've built up to a potential romance and/or fuck buddy situation.

• Based on earlier choices, adds flags for Connor's preferences such as sexual position; whether you're focusing on romance, hookups, or both; and others such as being an exhibitionist or voyeur. These all alter dialogue later on. For example, if you're flagged as a bottom, your sexual fantasies will talk about wanting to get fucked while a Connor flagged as a top will focus on doing the fucking himself. Don't worry—you aren't locked into a position, this is just to flavor dialogue.

• Flags any knowledge Connor should have that hasn't already been flagged, including who he knows, how much he knows about them, and if he's seen them naked.

• Sets Connor's hookup level with each character, which I talked about in Game Status Update # 61. This determines what sexual scenes you'll be able to encounter and is based on specific milestones reached.

• Determines the most significant event you last encountered, which will either be brought up immediately or immediately after more pressing situations are addressed. An example of the latter would be making out with Riley, which is significant but is followed by encounters with Julian or Marco that are handled first.

• Sets the default starting outfit for each character's sprites (more on that below).

• Lastly, jumps to the appropriate wakeup scene based on where you left off.

Story Scenes

All the stuff in the writing section above is coded into the game.

Defined Character Flags

When you are given choices to define how you feel about a character, the flag for that choice is set along with other flags that can adjust your preferences. Every instance of making a decision is coded following a checklist to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Repeated Choice-Based Scenes

If you end up deciding to romance multiple characters, the game will acknowledge this with dialogue. A tracker was implemented to make sure this pops up as well as make sure you don't see the same dialogue more than once.

Definition Tracking

Counters have been added keep track of how many people have had relationships set so as to make sure nothing is repeated.

Pondering Scene Variables

Once you've gone through the initial wakeup scenes, I have the game check every significant choice you've made to see what characters you have to think about.

Transitional Sequences

Depending on what came prior, each scene has to link to the correct transitional sections to determine what scenes you jump to next, making sure you see the right dialogue during that transition. A lot of testing was done to figure out the best way to do this. With each iteration, I had to make sure each all the links between scenes were adjusted to accommodate.

Referenced Character Names

A counter and flags were set to determine who has been referenced so far so their names are correctly filled in during the transitional sequence.

Pondering Menu

If you have several people left to ponder after the initial wakeup scenes, a menu was added to show those remaining options. If you end up only have one person left (or two for a specific circumstance), I had to make sure you instead jumped directly to their pondering scene.

Referenced Events

Tracking was added so Connor doesn't repeat his thoughts about events that affected more than one character. For instance, what he thinks about Matt's video when going through Griffin's scene changes dialogue in Matt's scene to reflect he already commented on it. If you instead do Matt's scene before Griffin's, you'll see different versions of that dialogue. This isn't fully implemented but will be by the final version.

Main Menu Update

Code was updated to account for the new layout of the main menu.

Connor's Mood

To avoid emotional whiplash between each scene, Connor now has his mood set based on certain events and choices, which adjusts the expressions he makes as well as some dialogue. This has only partially been done since I added this in after much of the content was already written. It will fully implemented in the final version

Quality of Life Code Changes

Beyond all of the above, I also made two significant changes to how I handle the coding that make my life a whole lot easier. I detailed this in Game Status Update #59, but in brief, I made changes that allow me to set an outfit for a character's sprite without needing to specify it each and every time I change their expression. So far this is only reflected in new scenes, though it's been changed in prior content in a few spots. I also changed how to refer to a specific person in dialogue without needed to have different versions of that dialogue for every character.

Testing

I am making sure everything flows together, you don't see things you shouldn't, you do see things you should, images display correctly, and you don't hit game-stopping bugs. With the number of variants, and how things can break as I add more / fix other areas, this takes awhile.

...and there's probably more coding stuff that I can't recall off the top of my head, but you get the idea.

Art

A lot of new art has been added, and a lot of prior art has been updated to bring earlier scenes up to the quality level of more recently created pieces.

Character Models

Most of the characters have been adjusted in some way to fix mistakes, correct awkward proportions, or just to improve them in general.

• New Characters - Professor Annika, Professor Zeno, Ian, and Kaleb were created for the game.

• New Models - NC17, Noir, and most significantly, Dominic had their models completely changed.

• Revised Main Character Models - Asher, Evan, Griffin, Isaiah, Mafia, Marco, Owen, and Will have had changes ranging from minor to significant, but an effort was made to keep this from being too noticeable, if at all.

• Revised Minor Character Models - Bastien, Blaze, Gabriel, Hugh, Quinn, Trevor, and Madame Zeal have had adjustments. The most noticeable is Hugh, who has new textures.

• Dick Rigging - All Genesis 8.1 character models using a third-party dick asset had the rigging fixed due to my not understanding how to do it when I first made the models.

• HD Details - Many characters have had HD details applied to their models to add more realism. This is mostly for close-up shots since it's resource heavy, but it looks good in those instance.

Full Scene Images

• 51 New CGs - Featuring Connor solo, Asher, Dominic, Evan, Griffin, Julian, Marco, Matt, and Owen (plus a few side characters, and most importantly, special guest Andy). There is also one CG apiece for Riley, Tomas, and Will in the game, but they can't be unlocked in the dev build. Juniors and up can see them in this sneak peek.

• 44 Revised CGs - Many CGs have been updated to account for the new models for Asher, Dominic, Isaiah, Mafia, NC17, Noir, and Tomas. (There's one revised Dominic CG I hate and will redo. It's labeled as a placeholder in the dev build.)

Sprites

In addition to the newly created sprites for some characters, many other characters had their existing sprites updated to reflect model updates, a new standardized camera position, and improved lighting.

• 96 New Sprites - For Dominic, Evan, Griffin, Hugh, Julian, Kash, Marco, Matt, Owen, Parker, and Quinn

• 172 Revised Sprites - For Asher, Hugh, Isaiah, Mafia, Marco, NC17, Noir, Quinn, Tomas, Will, and Madame Zeal

Backgrounds

In addition to some new backgrounds, many of the existing backgrounds have been updated to be denoised and to adjust the colors to match the backgrounds in CGs.

• 60 Revised Backgrounds

• 18 New Backgrounds

• 1 Easter Egg Background (🤔)

New Sets

A few new locations were created:

• Frat House - A spare bedroom and two hallways

• Riley's Room - This one I spent a lot of time on to make it as fun and nerdy as possible, including handmaking D&D book models and assembling toys from a variety of different assets.

Main Menu

The main menu has been updated for the Morning After Update with new art and an adjusted layout. You can see it in Game Status Update #60.

I think that covers it for all that's in the dev build—if not, it at least covers most!

TO-DO LIST

Here's a summary of what I have left to complete. I won't be as specific about numbers here since stuff may be removed or added as I write. But this covers the basic plan, and it'll give us something to compare against once we reach the mid-month game status update.

Writing

From this point on, things become much more linear, which is a massive relief as it means it shouldn't take nearly as long to write or have as many words as the above content. This is an overview of what is planned:

• Dorm to Showers - 11 variants

• Showers - 2 variants

• Unlocked Character Scene - 2 variants

• Dorm to Class - 5 variants

• Tomas's Class - 2 variants

• Will's Class - 2 variants

Coding

Primarily the scenes above, plus additions and adjustments to the Day 2 to Week 1 section.

Art

• 20 New CGs - Possibly more if I have time since I cut some planned CGs that weren't necessary but would be nice to have.

• 12 Revised CGs - If not doing these will let me put the final version into early access this month, I'll first release the update to Juniors, Seniors, & Graduates, then do these CGs in the week between that early access release and the one for Sophomores.

• New Sprites - Week 1 clothing and/or various states of undress for Connor, Blaze, Cherish, Evan, Jordi, Kaleb, Quinn, Riley, Wes, Will, Tomas, and Xavier.

• Revised Sprites - Adjusting posing, camera, and lighting for every sprite that hasn't had this done. This is something I consider very optional, so I won't do it if it'll delay the final release. The existing sprites will suffice for now.

• Additional Character Model Fixes/Adjustments - Only if necessary and only for characters appearing in this update.

• Easter Egg CGs - This is a "would love to do" feature that I probably won't have time to implement since it also involves figuring out a bunch of coding I've never done before, but it's on the list in case it becomes possible!

Testing

Going through everything to make sure I didn't break anything so nothing is broken for you.

Final Pass Checklist

Beyond testing, I have a constantly growing list of things I need to double check before I release this. These include things like adding in Connor's mood where it isn't already and just generally making sure all the code is cleaned up. There are a lot of places where I could fail to mark things that will affect how your story plays out, and I want to make sure that isn't messed up by typos or anything.

I think that more or less covers it. I plan to tackle the writing first, but I hope to have even more done by the time we reach mid-September.

PATREON CONTENT

Finally, just a quick note on Patreon content since it's been so sparse. I have some images made for what was to be the July Guy Gallery that then became the August Guy Gallery. I was considering finishing that up and just releasing four galleries this month, but as you can see above, I have too much art to do for the game, and there's also gonna be promo art for Grind'm. I'll instead do that gallery (which I previewed here) in November. The September galleries absolutely will come out, though, since they are tied in to the final Grind'm vote. So there's that to look forward to!

Whenever I have time, I'd also like to write a Behind the Scenes post detailing all the changes I've made to my workflow since I think it'll be helpful for anyone else creating a visual novel like this.

Sneak Peek posts will also return because I'll finally have new art to share! So lots of fun stuff coming up even beyond the game.

As you can see, even as quiet as it may seem I've been, I've been doing a lot up to this point. I am very much looking forward to finally finishing this update so we can move on to smaller but more regular updates. Just a (relatively) little bit more to go!