November/December Development Plans

Hey everyone! Thanks again for all your support. We hope the November builds were up to snuff and you all enjoyed them!

Just thought I'd drop a post to clue you all in on how the next few months are looking for us as they're perhaps a little out of the ordinary.

First of all, the upcoming build to be released in December will contain the conclusion to Diego's route. We're really excited to finally wrap this thing up and have you all see how it ends! 

Now of course, there's only 2 in game days left in Diego's route, with the route ending on Day 20. I'm also going to be moving house this weekend, which is one weekend where I won't be able to write anything for Sileo. There's also the consideration that my computer has recently started losing power at random. I've done some troubleshooting and it's looking like a dodgy motherboard. This may or may not impact on development, depending on whether the issue persists and if so, how badly. If need be, I'll replace the motherboard, but we'll just have to see how we go. All these things considered, it works out well that there's only 2 days left in the route, so we're planning to knock those days out and if there's any left over time, make an early start on December's workload. 

December at this stage is intended to be focused on giving the game some much needed upgrades. One such thing we're planning to attempt is a visual overhaul to allow the game to run natively up to 4K. At this stage, it's 50/50 whether this will work or not as we've tested this already and hit some snags, such as decreased visual fidelity on some systems and potential performance issues on lower end hardware even in lower resolutions. A solution to the former issue in present in Renpy's newest dev builds, however these aren't yet stable enough to release a game on and we'll likely have to attempt this without it. Time will tell how this turns out. Depending on how long this takes, we also want to attempt to implement a proper UI for the Android version of the game. This is a maybe for December, and may be pushed back if the visual upgrade takes longer than expected. Our game is mostly proprietary in terms of code, it wasn't build in a standard way. I understand Renpy has the ability to automatically swap an interface based on the input method, however much of the code for this doesn't exist in Sileo and likely many of the dependencies. We ran into similar issues with the History screen back in 0.10.1 which involved us porting dependencies to the game in order to allow the History screen to work. This may be possible with the touch UI, but at this stage, we won't know until we try. 

Also in December, CurryCatz, when he's not assisting with the 4K upgrade, will be put to task with providing artwork to fill some of the gaps in Diego's route replacing some of the stock images and preparing an intro CG for the next route. I'll also be going through Diego's route with a fine toothed comb, making improvements and changes to ensure consistency throughout. Finally, we'll be taking the time to consolidate all of our ideas for our next route and come up with a cohesive plan. The hope is that, assuming all of the above can be achieved in December, the Patreon build which launches in January will consider Diego's route final and begin a new series of builds. The January development cycle will see development begin on the games next route. We're not 100% decided on which route we'll be doing yet, but it's likely to be either Tai's route or Lukas' route. The former is looking a bit bananas at this stage and will be a lot of fun to write but perhaps won't be so good for those who prefer more grounded stories - it's gonna be a trip. Lukas' is much more traditional and far less dramatic than Diego's and will be good for those looking to avoid melodrama and craziness.

Anyway, those are our plans as of right now. All of this can change and nothing is set in stone, just thought I'd fill you in on what we're thinking going forward and what the next few months are likely to look like development wise!