Chapter 9 has borrowed a page out of Mallory's playbook and really taken flight!
I won't sugarcoat it, It has been a pretty stressful month for Kentyrr and I on the development front. Two long-planned scenes that I've asked Kent to deliver turned out to not have any assets available to create them. Normally, if we're doing something a little unusual, we'll check well in advance to ensure the store has adequate models available for the scene, but every once in a while we want to do something relatively pedestrian, only to find what we need just doesn't exist. In either case, we had to really dig deep, but we were able to break through in the end. And we did it in a way that doesn't feel like compromising at all. I can say unironically that we haven't been challenged with the art like this since Chapter 4!
Speaking of art, those of you following the preview channels already see the improvements we're making to old and dated animations and UI elements. Since Kent and I work in parallel, this extra work hasn't impacted development timelines as he's still chopping away at his backlog of art. [previewyoutube=zgaXpFhu7g8;full][/previewyoutube] From a straight up numbers perspective, we're almost 600 renders into the chapter, with about half the script complete. Music selection is complete, and the last of our scenes requiring really custom environment work is behind us...Except maybe one at the end. This has been a fun chapter to craft so far from a writing perspective, since so much is coming together near the end of our story. As previously stated, Chapter 9 does bring the focus back onto Mallory and Jaye as each struggles to settle into their new lives following the events on the island.
After taking stock, it quickly becomes clear that our genetically-suspicious team isn't out of the woods quite yet. While prior chapters have been pretty predictable in size, this one is definitely in a "when it's ready" state.
We have a lot of ground to cover before our characters ride off into the *cough* sunset in Chapter 10, and we can't leave any branches on the floor. That doesn't necessarily mean we're not tracking to our usual release cycle, but it does mean that if we get toward completion and discover we missed something, we'll have to decide whether it can be tied up in Chapter 10, or if this is our last chance. So far, so good...And I can't begin to say how good it feels to have the biggest art challenges behind us! More updates will follow as we close in on a release date!