Progress Report

I am on the home stretch with Day 16 and expect to have it finished tomorrow. I have been working on this thing for weeks... there's just the final scene to finish now, then the spelling/grammar pass followed by a technical pass. Then at long last it will be done. Thank god...

I'm in a weird situation where I don't rightly know if what I've produced is actually any good or not. It probably is and my perception is simply warped by having spent such a long time on it, though I am conscious that it is the embodiment of the absence of restraint - it is full of exposition, world building, plot progression, humor and a dash of the old horny with a cherry on top for good measure. On one hand, it's long. And when I say long, I mean it's fucking LONG. It is literally 2000 words shy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - that's 72000 words! Though to be fair, that does include the entirety of Day 16, but the new content itself is still longer than any previous day on it's own!

Next month, being more concise will take center stage because I have gone too far and need to learn how to remain focused on the important elements of a sequence, trimming the unnecessary fat away to make the sequence more easily digestible. 

Day 16's colossal length also impacts it's flow, or better said, it's lack thereof. Right now as massive long winded conversations get taken on epic and far-reaching diversions only to return to the original topic long after you'll have forgotten how you even wound up on that subject. That being said, there's a ton of great information there and almost all of it is conveyed with purpose. Though that is no guarantee that the purpose in question isn't entirely banal. A more reasonable defense would be to say they're enriching the world and filling out the lore while addressing a number of minor curiosities, but others might argue that they're entirely meaningless. That will come down to the reader more than anything else I suppose. I will brace myself for angry ranting in Discord again this month!

Anyway, I'll have this damn monster done and dusted tomorrow so that I can send it off to the team and subject them to the horrors I have wrought. Gods be willing they will approve, otherwise I dear say some large chunks of dialogue may end up being cut. Before the end of this month, I need to work around the save compatibility issues caused by the change in asset file formats. It shouldn't be a massive job, but famous last words. If all else fails or I run out of time, we might just have a clean slate release where all previous saves are no longer valid. If we did that, we'd include some save files in the download at the very least to get you back on your way, but again, there's no reason we won't be able to get a workaround in place in the time we have left... fingers crossed, famous last words. Beyond that there's a couple of minor bugs with the Jukebox I haven't gotten back to just yet. I'm hoping to get those sorted out before release as well, though they're only minor!

Finally if I finish ahead of schedule, I will either make a start on Day 17 or I will have a crack at the feature list. Starting on Day 17 is appealing because it's a day that is jam packed with stuff and some of that stuff is really exciting. If I can restrain myself, it shouldn't be a nightmare like the last 2 days were. I hope. Otherwise the list of technical jobs to be done is long and unwieldy, so perhaps a few days dedicated to that list will be just what the doctor ordered?

Speaking of my chronic lack of restraint, look at the length of this post! Fucking hell Xevvy, you've lost it you utter buffoon. I'm gonna shut my fucking face now, but uhh... yeah, Day 16? It's almost done. And I guess that's all I really needed to say!