Maids & Masters (& v0.7 & Some Positivity For Once)

I've been pretty open - maybe even a little too open - about how rough things have been lately. That's not going to change, because this is my blog and I'm going to do what I like with it, but I do recognize that I've been more negative than I really want to be.

So I think it's time for some friggin positivity.

First, v0.7. The main story is about... 85-90% done. I originally wasn't entirely sure where I wanted to take this portion of the story; I only really knew how I wanted it to end. It took me a bit of meandering and redesigning, but I'm happy with where the story has ended up. I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of everything so it feels like you're using everything you've learned before now with the stakes set higher and more clearly than they have been in the past. I don't know how well that feeling will come through for people who aren't me, but I'm pretty satisfied with how things have been turning out.

I've also tried to make a point of including more renders. If you're the sort of person that wants more visual novel than game, several sections in this part of the story feel more like a visual novel than an RPG. There are a lot of renders in v0.7. For comparison, the first update of the game originally included 36 renders. I haven't even started on the repeatable scene renders for most characters, and I'm already up to 79 renders. I fully expect this update to have well over 100 by the time it's done, which would mean roughly 15% of the game's total renders come from this update alone.

If you're more into the RPG parts, there's still a new segment of the wilds with a Hold that will open during the v0.7.x updates, a new dungeon within the Deep Wilds that leads to one of the previously unused landmarks, new types of puzzles that I haven't included in the game before now, new enemy types, new mid-boss style encounters that use new combat mechanics, two new combat characters to join your party that also use those new combat mechanics, and more that I'm probably not remembering off the top of my head.

I'm still not close enough to done that I'm comfortable setting a release date, but based on my current progress, my previous estimate was more or less accurate. It's certainly been a journey getting here, but I'm excited to get this into your hands. This update will have a bit more "clean-up" to do than v0.6 did, so I won't just hit the finale and call it an update, and there's still some work to do with the side-content, but if I can keep this pace I should have a release date next week.