CPE Development Update - 2-18-2024 (Gallery work, gameplay/cutscene recolors complete, feelin' good)

Hey everyone, time for another CPE development update! We're halfway through February now, and it finally feels like the pieces are starting to fall into place. Admittedly, most of the past few weeks was slow going, so this isn't going to be a huge update or anything - but the last week specifically I've been really picking up speed, and I'm feeling good about it!

Before anything else, I should probably address the lack of streams, yet again - I'm really sorry it keeps happening! I really do want to get back into it, the main problem right now is just my sleeping schedule. Basically, I've been going to sleep at around 8-10 AM, and sleeping through the daylight hours, which doesn't work great for streaming - especially since Orex is on the polar opposite schedule, so even if I did stream super late at night, he wouldn't be able to join me. Since 2024 started, I've tried to correct my schedule at least 4 times, and every single time, I end up back on the late night hours within just a few days. For those of you who don't know, I've always had intermittent insomnia; it's gotten a lot better as I get older, but it's still something I have to grapple with occasionally, and right now it's definitely been flaring up and making it difficult to control my schedule. Luckily, as someone who works from home this isn't an absolute dealbreaker, but it is obnoxious and I'm hoping to be able to get it under control again soon.

In any case, though, the lack of streams does not mean a lack of work! I finished up importing the new versions of all of Alicia's gameplay AND cutscene animations, so outside of H-scenes, pretty much all of Alicia's animations are recoloring properly. This also included a rewrite of the Blaster recolor shader, to make it work like Alicia's much more efficient recolor shader. We still need a proper UI for selecting which recolor to use (which I plan on adding to the menu options at a save point), but once that's done and all of the H-scene recolors are ready, the whole recoloring system will be finished.

Aside from that, I've been focusing on the cutscene improvements, and making my cutscene camera controls more robust while doing so. To facilitate the cutscene improvement work, I've also started the process of adding every cutscene in the game to the Gallery - which also means I'm working on making the Cutscene Gallery menu available again, since it was temporarily removed after the UI update.

As you can see, the menu itself is nearly finished. All of the cutscenes are listed, along with a name and brief description, but any cutscenes you HAVEN'T unlocked yet will be unavailable (the image above is using an early-game save; don't want to spoil anything in a screenshot). Cutscene unlocks are retroactive, so if you have a completed game save, you should be able to rewatch all of them right away when v0.47 comes out. Now, it's just a matter of actually making each scene selectable - definitely the most technically complicated part, but since I still have my old code for starting gallery cutscenes, fingers crossed it shouldn't take too long.

After all of that's done, the rest of the update should come pretty easily: a new trigger type (that's already partway done), the updated HUD design, and new gun designs for all of the trigger types, and then that'll be an update! I don't think we'll make it for the end of February, but at this point I'm confident it'll be out in March at the latest. After that finally happens, I have sincere hopes that I'll be able to slide naturally back into the 2 month release schedule we used to have, and we can finally get some consistency back into this project!

I know the v0.47 update itself isn't the most exciting thing in the world, especially not for how long y'all have been waiting for it, but I really think getting an update out will go a long way towards making things normal again, and stuff like the recolors should make it a fun update regardless. And if nothing else, it'll serve as a reminder for me that I am still capable of doing this, and CPE isn't going to be dead in the water forever.

Like always, thank you all so so so SO MUCH for sticking with us. I've said it a million times by now, but I mean it just as much as I did the first time, if not moreso. I don't know what I did to deserve having such an amazing and supportive community, but I appreciate you all more than I can ever hope to describe. I don't directly respond to comments very often, but I see all of the love you guys send my way, and I really do think it's the main reason I'm still going. I don't want to disappoint you, especially after you all stuck with us through all of this, and I also don't want to let myself down by giving up on this dream.

All that to say, much love to you for reading this and for continuing to follow the development of CPE, through the good times and the bad. I think it's finally time this ship started sailing full speed again, wouldn't you? See you in the next update!