Update - Nobuko on top

tl;dr - I've been working a lot on the PAT demo; I'll be releasing a version of that this month along with some kind of other update too.

This week's image

I don't want to explain this one too much, since it might involve some spoilers, but obviously it's from PAT. I'm not as happy with this one as I'd like to be, so I could end up redoing it at some point, but for now it should  be good enough.

Upcoming content

As I'll discuss below, I should be able to put out a teaser demo for PAT this month. While I'm going to put a teaser out publicly, I actually want to wait until it's a little more representative of the game, which means I'll probably need to include voice acting. I'm also hoping to get some feedback from you guys first!

I plan to put out an update for something else this month as well, I'm not quite sure whether it'll be AotNM yet or LMO, but I have been meaning to get an LMO update as I haven't put one out in a while and I'd like to actually complete that game. I probably won't finish it this month, but I'll get as close as I can in the available time, what with the holidays coming up.

PAL Nega Maids

I think it might make sense to make the Nega Maids themselves the focus of the next PAL update, whenever that's ready. I've got some ideas for nice, simple ways to incorporate them into the game in ways that can increase the fun of the game. :) I did a little development of the Nega Maids this week, just to get the ball rolling.

Pervert Action: Timelapse writing

So, the vast majority of my time this week was spent on the PAT demo, and on developing the writing and design for the game more broadly. I'm actually quite excited about how it's coming together and about the fact that I finally get to start seriously developing it. I've been planning it since 2015!

Nonetheless, there were actually some major gaps in the story that led me to be somewhat willing to put the project off for a while, just because I really didn't think I was ready to start fully writing it yet (or programming it, but that's another issue). This week I've had some nice breakthroughs in the writing; I've really made a lot of progress on the setting, plus I've been piecing together the story a little more clearly in my head and filling in some of the details of the main characters' stories and scenes.

The setting was always going to be a big, somewhat culturally vague city, but now I've actually decided to set it in a fictional Asian city-state, a little like Singapore or Hong Kong, although with some differences. You'll get the chance to learn more about it as you explore the game, but it helps me to make things interesting by having a more detailed location to play with.

PAT demo programming

I've mentioned before that I'm learning a new engine; it's actually kind of serendipitous timing, in a way, because the engine (Visual Novel Maker) only just released about ten days after I started trying to develop the demo in Ren'py. I probably would have tried to stick with Ren'py if I was well into development with it, but I think this new engine will actually have some major advantages. I'll be able to put a demo on Newgrounds and have a great Mac playable option, for example, and this should be easier for me to learn as it suits my development style.

Since it's early in development and I'm still learning, what I've made so far isn't anything special in gameplay terms. I'm just trying to make basic things work well. So the demo is linear and mostly just a VN, although I'm also trying to show off some of how interaction will feel, and of course some of the art, atmosphere and story of the game. Once I'm more proficient in the game I'll be branching it out a little, but I hope you'll just like my particular take on the feel of the game, and also see that I won't need to really lose too much from my text game style.

Quite a long update this week, but I've been busy. Right now I'm really hoping I'm not coming down with a flu, which would be shitty. Plus the weather's been awful - lightning storms forcing me to turn off my computer and interrupting my image rendering. What do you think of my release plans for this month? And does it sound like I'm on the right track with the PAT demo? Let me know in the comments!