Been a little while since we've talked about this, huh? Luckily all the news I have to share is good news. Things aren't quite back to the normal semi-permanent flow state that development work was for the first two years of Maids & Masters, but I've at least found a good deal of some sorely missed momentum, so development has been going a lot smoother than it did in December, even putting aside that I spent most of December sick.
v0.14 is very nearly done. Everything except the final step of the quest is done, then it's just the cult segment and making sure all of the side content is implemented - repeatable versions of the new scenes, the new characters appearing as they're supposed to, and so on. I'd like to say it'll be done and ready in time for this Friday, but given the growing list of things I need to do before I can call a build complete plus the number of bugs in each build seeming to grow ever larger, I'd rather give a little extra time to play testing to make these builds more stable. I'll announce the release date next week.
On that note, there are a handful of things I want to address since there's all kinds of side content that hasn't been making it's way into these builds the way it should be. The big ones being the love shack and affection quests. If Act 2 has felt a little light on content, it's because the side content was meant to be affection quests, which I haven't gotten around to implementing for a few different reasons. Once v0.14 is done, the segment for v0.15 is already decided on and can start right away (since it's the only option left in the Patreon polls that were happening). So, v0.16 (Act 2's halfway point) will probably be delayed so I can use v0.15.1 to add all of that content in. In may not end up being all of that content (because not a lot of the affection quests are designed yet), but at the very least, the missing love shack content and a few affection quests will be available.
Now for that special announcement. I've been thinking over this problem of my dev cycle slowing down for months now, and trying to find a solution for a handful of weeks. Over the last year, I've taken on a number of writing jobs out of necessity - I do this full time, my bills won't pay themselves, and as much as I greatly appreciate the support I already receive it isn't enough to pay my mortgage. Since the job that took up the majority of my non-MnM development time ended roughly four months ago, my development cycle slowed way down. If memory serves, I got two releases out in four months. When I began work on a couple of new demos, both demos were done in a month without development slowing on MnM any further. So, after a great deal of consideration, I've decided to start working on a secondary project - Precious Kouhai. PK is a short nukige-style visual novel made in Ren'Py, and should be between one and two hours long by the time it's done.
There's even a preview build available for this new project for free as part of the "bonus episode" rewards for the Winter Games Bundle. If you want to check that out, go find a link to the bundle - the rewards are available on the bundle page, even now that the bundle has ended. The preview build will be public eventually, but the itch.io page is still under construction, so it'll be a little longer before that happens. Part of me is still a little apprehensive about putting more on my own plate, but with PK being as short as it is, it should give me enough time to find out if it's an improvement on my workflow or not, and if it isn't, it won't take long to finish and development will return to MnM as my sole project. If it works out great, I have more visual novels I can make. Either way, you get another game out of the deal.
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