Philosophy #34 - Endings

Philosophy #34 - Endings

After every episode is released and before the development of the next episode, I always like to take a step back and take a focused look to see where I'm at in the story. As I've mentioned before, it's hard for me to put myself in the player's shoes but I try to imagine what it's like. Admittedly, I fail most of the time. When the outline is staring at me right in the face, like it has been for months, it's hard for me to ignore things you don't know about yet.

I wanted to take this time to maybe shed a little light on where things are going without giving too much away. More specifically, I wanted to give some insight into my whole approach to the game and something to think about while you're in the middle of the story.

After the events of Episode 14, you've had some interesting encounters with a lot of characters. You've had some first-time events with girls like Vanessa and Harlow. You've gotten closer to your goals with Erika. And things seem to be going well at the coffee shop. But there are still questions to be answered and tasks to be completed.

Right now, for some of you, you might feel like you're in the thick of it where you might not understand where things are supposed to be going. Or you might not even care and you simply don't care for what's happening because you just want to see what happens next. In either case, I think now is a good time to talk about the ending.

Consider a couple of things when it comes to the ending and my approach.

The first is that the ending is actually the most important part of the story to me. Despite how much fun you can have in the middle of the story or how interesting you think the characters might be, I don't think it matters unless the ending lands. I've put a lot of emphasis on the ending that it might have been to the detriment of the game and for you, who are watching everything unfold very slowly. This goes back to the trust that I always talk about. The faith you have to put into me isn't completely blind because you have some semblance of what I'm capable of and where the story is going. But you won't know for sure until you get to the ending to see if I'm actually capable of delivering.

This leads to the second thing to consider. Everything that's happened so far in the story has been made in consideration of the ending. When I wrote and planned the story, I started from the end and where I wanted to be. Then I put myself back at the beginning and decided how I was going to get there. The destination has always been in my view and to some extent, it should be in your view, too, even if you can't see it.

As all of the days, weeks, months, and years of development begin to pile up, we're slowly inching our way to the full story and the ending that I've planned so long ago. We're still a long way from getting there. This philosophy post is just me telling you that I want to complete this story so I can finally share with you something I've kept with me all this time. It's going to take more time to get there but we are getting closer.

And one more thing I wanted to mention while we're talking about the ending. I want to reiterate that the story is definitely not over and the characters are not finished. Despite learning more about them than you knew in the beginning, there's going to be a lot more to uncover. I can't make promises of whether or not you'll like what happens. More than anything, I'm doing my best to make sure it all makes sense in the end. I know it's my responsibility to make sure that the beginning and middle of the story are just as meaningful as the ending. But when it all comes together, I think the entire story will be greater than the sum of its parts, with the ending being the most important. I hope to celebrate together with you all at the finish line when we look back on your story to see everything you've been through to finally get here.

On Episode 15

I had some decent progress this week and got a good amount of renders done. Some of these scenes are kind of complex, so renders can be slow while I'm trying to pose things. But I'm taking it scene by scene, render by render, and progress is slowly being made. I won't have official progress updates in June, so I apologize in advance for that. My goal is to have a progress report early in July with a preview while I go more in-depth about what scenes I've managed to finish.

That's it for this week. I'm buckling down to see if I can get more work done this last week of June than this week. Thanks for hanging out, everybody. Enjoy the weekend.