Spook’s Progress Posting #7 – Wanna Dance with Somebody

Hi-hi, wild girls and wild guys. Another week behind us, already? Phew. And hey, this is lucky number #7 in the progress reporting game, which makes me thing we’re on a good track making it this far. Onward to report 77 then, eh? We’ll get there, in good time, I’m sure. Back on this week, it’s been another good one for the books, it has! As I said last week, that was a week of shifting gears towards a new version, and this was a week of roaring ahead as we let the engine purr! Let’s talk all about it!

Where are we with 2 weeks behind us on this cycle then?

Goal: The plans for this week were to aim for 15+ CGs, completing the remaining tricky gameplays and to get on the ground running with Scene CGs again. I also wanted to get some dedicated render time in too, to get at least the new restaurant gameplays game ready.

Accomplished: After pushing through the gameplay stack, things picked up in pace as hoped, allowing for 24 CGs to be made and to even my delighted surprise, even more than that, 29. to be rendered too! There was even some in-engine progress made to boot, so lets see those progress bars already!

It’s been a steady and serious attempt to get progress across the board, as you can see. We’re still early days on this version, with only just having the Brave release of the last out this week too (hooray!), but we’re on some real steady footing now. I’m into the first scene and almost out the other side of it too, nearly all the CGs made so far are already rendered (so less of a delay ahead at the end of creation), and as I mentioned all the gameplays are now Post-Pro’d and their texts set up in engine as well. They just need some code to make them run and some testing, with will be progress made on Asana’s bar for next week. We’ll see what engine improvements were made for her 15% down below.

FYI, most of Asana’s bar left to fill is full on playtesting, which needs more content added in before it’s worth attempting, but that bar can be filled to close to 100% with just a couple of days dedicated to it. Similarly, Kelsey’s bar is limited by the trickle down of the bars above. For those that don’t know, the writing for pretty much every version we’ll see in the next couple of years is done, and the pink bar is the progress of minor changes to fit the words better to the images once they are created and finally paired up, plus the efforts to get them from word documents to running in-game too. Essentially what I’m saying is the real focus should be on the top 3 bars, and what a jump they all took in a week, eh?

But since we’re on the topic of Kelsey…!

[From This Point On, Beware Of Potential SPOILERS]

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[Seriously. This part contains minor SPOILERs for not only this version but v0.23 as well!]

Y’all have been warned, ha!

This week’s show and tell will be about Noe and Kelsey’s time together in this version, because it’s been the main focus of my week. It’s also that because by next week I aim to be well on to the next scene and that will mark the end of Kelsey’s recent time in the spotlight for a while, at least until Beck content starts winning fan polls starting with our next roadmap (all things going smoothly over the next few versions that is). She’ll be around of course, it’s no secret she’s my go-to for causing trouble when Sal isn’t right for the job, but we’ll be more eyes on Noe again more often as we should be. It’s also a chance to shine a light on a part of the game that gets, I feel, less attention than it should (and would if other aspects didn’t need the CGs more). Yes, I’m talking about Noe’s Day Off section, which brings me to the first image of the week. Take a look at this, barely a couple of hours old no less!

For the first time, after a long time, Noe’s Day Off Screen is complete at last! I’ve been waiting to see and say that for years now and today’s the day. With this version I’ve added the last activity, with 4 CGs in it’s chain of 10, which means all the options you can take in-game have 4 links to find as their mini-stories unfold. That also means the Day Off section is 40% complete too. Yes! That is going off of the minimum I want for it to be able to accept a v1.0 version someday. If time and bandwidth permit in future, of course I’d like to add a few more options for the activities you see, such as letting Noe go to Luna’s/Clubbing on Relax mode for sexy fun and not just to train Frankie, or to add options to Self-Improve Noe’s own Competitive stat on Wednesdays by Dancing, or her Open Mind via Tattooing… Things like that. Those are aspirations for another day however. For now, let’s enjoy the fact we’ve got a whole new way to get Noe out of her shop and using that fine body! Even if she does need a few tries first to tune up her moves, see?

This is the first in the repeatable outcomes for the new activity. You can already see it’s going to be fun taking orders from Kelsey for a change, and not a pain in the ass for Noe at all! Muhaha! Her first words in that mini-scene are literally “Fuck off, Kelsey”.

For those who have been paying close attention to the last few versions, you may have already released by now that Kelsey’s scene in this version will also be tied to this location as the key to unlock this activity. I’ve been having fun with it, and you might even be surprised to find out when your play it that it’s not all flash and guile, but it’s got tenderness too. I’ve been looking forward to this scene as it’s finally a chance to show Kelsey’s not all big talk about her abilities and that she’s got a driven, passionate side too. It's also great seeing Noe's fiery side be let out rather than have her be all professional all the time. That’s all I’ll say on the substance for now though, you’ll all just have to play it in a few weeks!

Speaking of which, I’ve been weighting up the progress of this week and the last, mapping out the trend towards completing the version now that there’s more of a solid base to stand on and the To-Do is being reeled in. We’re still a far ways off from a set release date, but give I’m 2/3rds through the scene above and if we end up going with the shorter 3 scene content slate (see last week’s progress report if you haven’t already) we’d be over 33% of the way there, it’s still looking possible to get our next taste of Noemi before August turns to September. Speaking of being 33% done, by next week I plan to be comfortably over that mark even for a 4 scene version, so we’ll soon see the Public Teaser too. That I can put a date on, circa Tuesday 29th / Wednesday 30th. Won’t that be sweet?

Misc News of the Week

Just a little Misc news for this week, which is a lead on for last week’s. The poll is still running from the previous reporting (linked above), I left it open a while for anyone who joined after the Brave release to have a chance to have a say. That being said, it’s so far pretty one sided. I suppose it’s not to be a surprise that people would err on the side of more than less, even if it means waiting more than less too. In any case, I’m glad to know where the community stands. I’m taking it on board as I also weigh up the progress made. Perhaps we’ll talk about it and some final decisions in next week’s post before the Public Teaser comes out.

The Week Ahead

The plan for next week is pretty simple. Push the progress ahead as far as possible. Given the past tract record, I think 18-20 CGs should be doable with the potential to still hit over even that target, so that’s my base goal for the week. I’d also like to take some time to tackle the engine side of things as I mentioned above just below the progress bars. I should be able to essentially reduce that side of the To-Do down to just the final playtesting (which to be fair is about 50% of that bar) with some focused time there, so lets see. I’ll also keep up with the rendering since it’s going so well (thanks to Sexbox 2099!). The only think I don’t see getting a lot of progress, some but not leaps and bounds, is Post-Proing.

The long story made short: Keep on making as many CGs as can do Monday-Thursday and as much Engine/Writing progress on Friday.

So that’s the week that was, #7. The down time between versions is behind us and worn off, putting us back to making hot stuff and fire! Kel-Kel wouldn’t have it any other way, and Noe’s not going to be outshone in her own game neither! So until next week…

Be bustin’ moves, and beWilder!