Apparently I've decided to take a "bottom up" kind of approach to filling out all these maps. Rather than do the story-relevant bit first (which is effectively an extended stealth mission; kind of a combination of the aggressive path for Viridius and the catacombs part of Griselda's segment), I've decided to make a bunch of new animations for Evdokia's Estate (there's four right now, but I may make a few more once everything else is done) and work on the bit for Emily's Master.
Emily's Master is a bit of an exception when it comes to Estates. It isn't explorable like other Estates (which there is a narrative reason for, I'm not just being lazy about making another dozen maps, honest), so it basically functions as an extension of Emily's shop, and an excuse for a new means of purchasing things to be added so I can get around an engine limitation I discovered while updating the new customization options in v0.15.1/2. The trouble with this is that the accommodations I need to make for the new system to work without either breaking something, neglecting something, or sacrificing something are a little more complicated than anticipated. Which in turn means it took longer than I'd have liked to make progress on it.
The good news on that is that it's nearly done at this point (and should be complete tonight), and thanks to my Patrons being generous with me, I can focus on development work for the rest of this week, get the test build out to VIPs on Friday, and focus on fixing any bugs next week (provided no more wrenches get thrown into the gears and cause a delay). Once I get it finished, I'll also never need to mess with the shop setup again, as it's built in a way that includes the final tier of equipment before you have full access to it. Provided I don't have any bugs in it that need fixing, anyway.
Which just leaves that stealth segment. I know how gamers feel about forced stealth missions, especially long forced stealth missions, so - trying not to spoil anything - there is something in place to accommodate that. If you don't want to do the stealth mission, you won't be forced to in order to progress the story. You will have to do it if you want the full story for the new area, but it isn't going to be required reading. I still have a few more maps, enemy types, and mechanics to build out, but I should be able to get at least the majority of that done for Friday. It might be missing the actual ending, but that depends on how smoothly/quickly things go. All I can really say right now is that I'll do my best to get it all to a point where I'm happy with what will be in the test build.
If you want to get your hands on that test build, all test builds go out to VIPs on both Patreon and Subscribestar. If you don't want to shell out for the VIP tier, all the other paid tiers still get access to the patch notes, which goes into a little more detail of what's in the update and what to expect than what you get in the posts I make here. All tiers also get early access to each build at the same time, so if you want to play v0.17 as early as possible, give the pages a look and consider joining a tier.
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