[Progress Report]: 23rd of August

Hey everyone,

What an absolute doozy of a week. I'm continuing work on Chrys' events, and I hope to have her last one finished today so that I can start work on Harper in the following week! I'm also hoping to have a poll for Riley's new "default" outfit as well.  This update will most likely be light on the main story so that I can give each of the girls at least two events that work on their stories. Harper and Valentina in particular are ready for the next phase of their development, while Riley's work week will be focused entirely on re-integrating her into the academy.

That's really it on the update... So, I'll do the usual where I answer some questions that I've gotten over the past few weeks.

"What are the two extra rooms in the elevator hallway for?"

One of them is for Riley. :)

"Will Artemisia be receiving her own content in the future?"

Yes, but it's going to take a while. There are a few things that need to happen in the story first before that transition takes place.

"How often do you work on the game?"

Thirty to forty hours per week. Fifty hours on release weeks. Back when I started, it was closer to twenty hours, but the new lighting and better render quality (longer renders) means that I need to work more to get the same amount of content out. Also, yes, this is in addition to my regular day job. I'm one of those people who is comfortable with only six hours of sleep, so long as I don't have to wake up before six in the morning.

Why don't you recommend using the developer console for stats increases?

Artificially increasing your stats may sequence break the game - a lot of events in Superhero Sucks depend on your stats to trigger. I never recommend editing these because it could soft lock your game and prevent progression.

That said, I understand that most people want to increase their stats in order to avoid the early game grind. I promise to include as little grind as possible, ideally none, in all of my future content. When I have the time, or you guys vote for it, I'll also go back and remove the early game grind entirely in favor of more early game events.

Is this game supposed to be linear or a sandbox?

Superheroes Suck has a linear main story and romantic side stories that you can choose the order of progression in. Overall, I'd say the game's story is mostly linear, with the academy acting more like a hub area for you to review animations and catch the occasional changes. I'm planning for some branching content in the future, but alternate story events take a lot of time.

Real Life Stuff

That's it for the update this week. You can all leave now and ignore this part. I would understand, really. I don't usually chat about my real life on here because we're all here for the game, but I mention it when it affects game development. The short of it: I'm about a day or two behind from where I want to be, and will be trying to make up that time next weekend. The drama: I got a call last Wednesday that my grandfather was dying. We were pretty close, so I made a three hour drive out to see him only to find out that his nurse had given him too much morphine and instead of dying he was just really, really sleepy. You can imagine my face. I drove three hours back and basically lost that day of work. I then got a call today that he died this morning. So I drove out there again, now seven hours ago, and was refused entry due to some family drama. I don't want the update to be depressing, so I'm going to make some tea, do a little light exercise, and get into a good mental state before I work on the renders today. Those are the reasons for my being behind. I don't think it will affect the release date.

Thank you for supporting me,

~Solace