Haruspex Production Update 1

Hey ya'll, Ruby here! Hope you're doing well!

So, got good news, bad news, then more good news.

The Short Version:

Good news - Production is going PHENOMENALLY, a lot of things are coming together really fast and huge strides have been made! Everything's going better than expected.

Bad news - Still currently waiting on an essential art asset, so the preview for Day 2 is going to be around a week late, my apologies (though there's still a link to what I have so far for those so inclined.)

More good news - The next preview will drop early May and have both Day 2 and Day 3 to make up for it.

That's the What, so let's unpack the Why in a bit more detail:

The Good News

I decided at the start of this month that it was going to be the Month of Locking The Fuck In, and I feel that by any metric, I proudly succeeded. A quick list of what I've done this month:

-Made up over a dozen line sheets complete with context and direction for almost every character in the main cast and got those off to everyone's respective performer, which means that the preview after this should have WAY more voice acting if all goes well. I'd say that roughly 80% of the cast is both locked in and has what they need, including all of the biggest roles.

You can see an example of what one of these look like with Aspity's sheet here!

-Storyboarded two different animatics. One for the Day 12 finale and another for Artemy's 'trial' on Day 11 and got those off to their respective animators. This means that roughly half of both the two last days have more or less been edited. I'll have more info about this all soon, but for now, I'll just leave you this sneak peak at the Day 11 storyboard. And yes, this means there will be 2 animatic sections (at least)

-I've recorded the audio for roughly the first 1/3rd of the script. Nearly everything up to the end of Day 5 is recorded, and everything up to the end of Day 3 has been edited.

-Research has still been ongoing and I can now safely say I've finished my deep dive into Stanislavskian acting and it's various descendants for the time being. When things have calmed down after this preview, I'll be doing another short write up about the material I read and watched around this, as I did for An Actor Prepares.

-Most relevantly, the rough cut of Day 2 is fully edited, preview ready!

Between this and the storyboards, I feel comfortable saying that I have effectively put together 2 full Days this month, in between everything else I've been doing! When I say that I have gotten more done this month than I can remember getting together in recent memory, I mean it and am proud of it.

So, if things are going so great, why am I writing these words right now instead of posting a preview?

The Bad News

Well, if all you want is the preview, then as a show of good faith:

Here it is, enjoy.

That said, I would actually rather no one watch it quite yet.

As I've said before, I only like sharing previews if I think they're worth watching; if I'm proud of what's there and think it's already refined enough that I'm comfortable with the idea of THAT being the only time someone watches it, even if I make important tweaks later on.

This is very, very close to being there, 90% there in fact, and yet that 10% is among the most important parts to me and the broader project.

See, at a couple points over the course of this show, I've felt compelled to take a moment and step back to unpack the more complicated ideas and concepts the game is playing with/evokes. Day 2, for instance, has a brief but in-depth explanation of the Hermeneutic Circle which I think is really useful for understanding what Pathologic is doing with it's different routes, and thus return to a couple times over the course of the video.

For those moments, I've been working with our esteemed artist Clark to put together a classroom 'set' that I can use as a framing device for slowing down and dissecting the more complicated ideas. I expect it will be a bit of a running gag we'll get a lot of use out of.

With that said, if I made any major mistake this month, it was not asking for that art asset sooner. It only really occurred to me when I reached it's place in the edit that 'oh fuck, I need a thing.' Thus, it is still currently in the works and it's spot in the timeline remains blank.

A placeholder would take longer than it's worth for something I'll have in hand soon enough, but just leaving it blank entirely and saying 'there's the preview' feels wrong, so I'm not super eager share it quiteeeee yet as it doesn't feel up to the standard I'd like. As ever, huge projects like these are a matter of spinning a lot of plates, and this is the plate I let drop this month.

That's my mistake, and I apologize for that. My b.

The More Good News

So here's the deal:

The next preview is going to be around a week late. However, I am of course not just sitting on my hands as I wait for the art to roll in. I am still on that grind, and that grind is now on Day 3.

Having talked to Clark about this, I expect he'll be finishing the art around the same time I'm finishing the rough cut of Day 3. Hence, I'm going to be dropping both Day 2 and 3 simultaneously once I've got that in hand and put together properly.

Outside of that one hiccup though, things are shaping up better than even my most optimistic projections!

My personal soft deadline has been to get Haruspex uploaded by the end of October at latest, and I firmly believe that's doable at this point. Now that I have a whole lot of the side work for all of this squared away, the next days should come together smoothy while also being a lot more feature complete.

I naturally can't quite promise 2 new days with EVERY preview, I am still taking care to pace myself to avoid burnout of course. Given how things are coming together though, I wouldn't expect it to be the last time either.

Because, on a personal note:

I'm incredibly excited about how well all of this is coming together, and that excitement has made into the most fun I've had with a project in a long while!

As I see more and more of it come together I only get more and more eager to see the rest of it come together faster, better, sharper, which in turn has kept me deeply energized with all of this. As I said, still doing my best to pace myself to keep this energy going, but the energy is absolutely there.

I have something I want to share and I can't WAIT to be able to get it out there, know it's gonna be one of a kind~

And for now, I think I'll leave it at that and get back to it. Thank you as always for your support and patience, it truly means the world. Promise to make the wait well worth it!

See ya again real soon~

Ruby <33