Well, here we are near the end of a journey that began three years ago. Tonight, we release Chasing Sunsets Chapter 9, which brings the main story arc to a conclusion. We were targeting the end of July, and we're sad we missed that date, but the result were some scene additions that will hopefully make up for some of that. Today we moved out of Early Access, but there WILL be at least three more updates to this title. The next update will be an effort to stomp out any bugs or other inconsistencies in earlier chapters, eliminate duplication of any assets, and settle on a compression method that Kent agrees is a fair balance between visual fidelity and file size. Chapter 9 will lock in the player's ending, which will be explored in greater detail in the final content update hopefully by the end of this year. There are still some story lines left to wrap up in the next update, as well as some exposition on how things will evolve for characters as the ripple effects of their decisions expand both through family, friendships, and even the world. As of today, Chasing Sunsets contains just shy of 16000 renders, 200K words of story and dialogue, nearly 150 pieces of music, and nearly 300 different sound effects. Our game contains nearly 100 different characters with speaking roles, and has 204 achievements. Chapter 9 explores a world that has grown smaller for our protagonists after returning from the island. Against the continued threats from the usual suspects, Mallory wants to return to the fun she and the main character had the first time they met: Outdoors with no labels on their relationship. Needless to say, Mallory is well aware of Jaye's bungalow adventure with the main character, so she knows the bar has been set pretty high. Will she be up to the challenge? Meanwhile, Jaye is wrestling with the specter of her medical school dreams evaporating, and all of this while the pressure is still on from their government and corporate enemies to nip the threat posed by Mallory's existence in the bud. We will see some new faces as well as revisit a few from earlier chapters as events converge on a trajectory that, unsurprisingly, ends where it began. There are changes beyond the content addition. You'll notice a new main menu with updates to dated animation, and improvements throughout the UI. Additionally, Kent created real animations to replace the slideshow lewd pseudo-animations scenes in the Prologue and Ch1.
Where do we go from here? Chasing Sunsets moved on from Early Access on purchase platforms today. While we will add one more content update, and modernize the oldest parts, our focus will begin moving toward our next project, Firebreak. We hope you enjoy Chapter 9 as much as we enjoyed making it. We hope you laugh a little, maybe get a little bit of the feels, and, of course, enjoy our ladies doing what they do best. Thank you to everyone who has supported us on this project. We couldn't do it without you, and we hope what we do next only raises the bar.