Has it seriously been almost a year...?

Let me tell you, I REALLY needed that. I was so overwhelmed by this project that honestly? I didn't think I'd ever come back to it. Despite me always thinking about my beloved OCs, it wasn't worth the effort. But then it just clicked. I HAD to let the perfectionism and grand ideas go. Like holy shit, to any new or aspiring devs that may be reading this: LISTEN TO YOUR DAMN SENPAI WHEN THEY TELL YOU 4897539573443 CGS AND TEN HUNDRED ROUTES AND 347589347535K WORD SCRIPTS ARE NOT FEASIBLE FOR A FIRST PROJECT!!! You ARE setting yourself up for failure. You ARE going to burn yourself out. I learned that the hard way, despite SO many other devs who had already been through the ringer multiple times warning me otherwise.

Now, let's talk about what's going to happen from here on out.

-SPRITES-

As many already know, Mercy and Rian had complete sprite overhauls. (Rian also has his own cardigan, but I'm too lazy to go grab a screen of it and am just using images from previous posts ngl) Mercy even has alternate hairstyles! This is because how women wore their hair back in ye olde days when she was still alive was a prominent part of the culture. It's something she still carries with her to this day, and I thought it was important enough to display that visually for her. Hell, she's more embarassed about being seen with her hair down than she is about being naked in front of others. 

Now you might be asking yourself, what about the others? Where are Rian's shoes??? And that's the great news for me. I ain't doing shit with them! Lmao! Are they perfect? Not in the SLIGHTEST. Are they passable? Absolutely, and while I'd love to give the other boys a makeover someday so they are up to par with these two; it just isn't anywhere on the priority list right now. It will have to be done eventually, simply because the old sprites are actually so terribly optimized for VN work that I am unsure if it's more hilarious or sad. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking putting everything on one layer, but it is what it is. (This means I will have to go back and redo stuff for things like clothing layers on them, and I am going to be real with you: I WILL be halfassing this. Again, the goal is passable - not perfect.) Rian's shoes are never going to be visible, so I simply don't feel like adding them. I hate drawing shoes! And on that topic, you want to know why every guy has a tanktop on despite it being nearly winter in-game? Because I like drawing guy's biceps! Boyceps if you will! There, I said it!

This also goes for side character sprites (with one exception). No matter their importance, I cannot bring myself to create sprites for other characters when I won't even be doing that for the boys currently. This means Emmie (Mercenya's roomate) will not have a sprite for some time either. BuT DaRlIIIING YoU ArE...ThE OnLY ExcEPTioN......

Remember this dude?

Yeah. He not only has a new name (Troia -> Orion), he now looks like this:

Wowza, what a difference! But Sylla, why the fuck would you go on about how you don't want to make new sprites, but then are giving one to a single SIDE CHARACTER? I am so glad you asked. You see, Orion here wasn't actually made for Ring of Prey. He was developed for a collab project that has since fallen through. But why swap the sprites when Troia had one already??? Well, as you can see...Troia's was not finished. Just look at his hand and feet. ALMOST done, yes. And I would have been happy to finish those, if not for one thing...remember the hilarious yet sad issue I mentioned earlier about everything being on one layer? LOL. Yeah. Why put myself through that when I have an immaculate COMPLETE sprite ready to go? And he even has a tattoo, which was the main standout quality for Troia (I PROMISE there is an extremely relevant point to it. It's a Mercy thing.) He is so complete that he even has an attachable penis!!! Too bad he's an unromanceable side character! Womp womp.

-CGS-

Trust me, I would LOVE to illustrate every scene possible. Well, not really because that sounds like suifuel, but you know what I mean. I had a LOT of CGS planned out for the first big update - we are talking over 20. TWENTY. That's nearly double what commercial releases from companies like Otomate put in a single route. And you know what? I still plan on doing it. Someday. Just not now. It's one thing when I can just do some art here and there, and another when I also have to worry about writing, coding, backgrounds, other assets, etc etc. It's how I fell into the pit that caused me to stop working on this at all. I am aware that putting your best product forward on the initial release is best because most people aren't going to come back to a VN just because of some art updates, but you know what? Idgaf lol. I gotta do what's best for me and what will actually push the project forward. SO...I don't have a total just yet, but I do know for this first pass I will be cutting the intro CGs for each guy. They are nice to have, but because I am doing so few CGs I want to have them for more impactful moments. You know. Like SEX. And GORE. The stuff we came to this game for! I don't think there will be more than 10 on the first go, but realistically it will probably be even less than that. 

-WRITING-

I've already rewritten portions of the prologue that is currently playable and programmed it in (though this won't be pushed through until the update is released.) The rest of the script that I have written so far will be going through the exact same changes - especially regarding Mercy. In the part that is currently downloadable, you may have noticed she speaks quite a bit and in a very condescending manner; this was intentional. Because the next part where she would actually be playable wouldn't be out for a long time (lol tfw it's still not out) I wanted to give players some sort of insight into her character with this being the only interaction they have with her for now. And that was fine at first, but then while writing I sorta fell into a trap of my own making; I kept trying to forcefully write in shit like witty zingers and one liners from her when, quite frankly, it's just super out of character for her to do so in most circumstances. Mercenya is NOT a sassy girlboss. She is a 300 year old apathetic monster with sociopathic tendencies. Half the time she is starving to death and doesn't think most people are worth expending the energy to speak to unless she has to. So using the prologue demo again as an example - I don't remember how many lines she had in total, it was quite a few. Now? Just 3 words. She's a big thinker though, and that's how players will mostly get to know her.

-CODING-

Yeah, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing when I started and it's even worse with the hiatus LOL. Not much to say here except for while I would LIKE to implement a CG gallery and a dictionary, I'm not going to completely bust my ass on this so we are just going to have to take it how it is when it comes down to it. xd

-CLOSING NOTES-

Soooooo.....yeah. I've cut a lot of things so far, and it's better for it because I actually feel excited to work on it again without the perfectionism looming over me. Once the first part is out, I'll slowly take the time to work on all the extra goodies before moving on to the proper first route (Rian). But we gotta take baby steps.

See you next month, for realzies this time!

- sylla