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This dev log was also posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on January 30th, 2025. Hey everyone! First off, we apologize for neglecting to communicate more frequently on the other platforms like Steam and Itch over the past several months. We hope this update clears up questions that many of you have been asking. A Shot in the DarkDevelopment We wanted to wait and see how things were going to be on our end before communicating exactly what was going on with A Shot in the Dark. Now we have a pretty good idea as to what at least the short term future is going to be like for us and feel like we can communicate it to our fans. If you didn't already know, we have a kiddo. Over the past year and some our kid has been dealing with some major health issues. It reached the point a where we had to pull them out of school for the foreseeable future. All in all, the recovery process has been a lot more extensive than we originally anticipated. Josselynhas been taking on the task of homeschooling and supporting their recovery, but that means her availability to work on the business has been and still is extremely limited. With Josselynbeing the 3D render artist and the writer for A Shot in the Darkit should be clear as to why development on the game has slowed considerably. This means that TheOmegais focused on Prince of Suburbiaright now and 2D projects in general until we're able to get back into the swing of things with A Shot in the Darkat some point in the future. Josselynwill have more time available to work on A Shot in the Darkas our kiddo continues to recover and is able to do more things independently, but we can't give definitive time estimates on that right now. If you're an A Shot in the Darkfan we suggest you refrain from pledging further until we are developing the game on a more regular basis again. We do intend on finishing the game, but it's going to take longer than anticipated to get to that point which isn't ideal for anyone. We hope this transparency helps provide some insight as to the state of things right now and why we didn't feel comfortable sharing our situation until we were more certain of what the future looked like. All that being said, having to contend with these things over the past year has been very stressful for our entire family. It's taken quite a toll on all of us. We understand everyone's frustration. We'd be frustrated, too. Thank you everyone for your continued patience as we navigate this difficult time.
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on September 13, 2024.
Since the last dev log, Josselyn has been focused on renders and creating the remaining assets for Chapter 5 and the Murder Mystery Game. Sprites for all of the characters are now complete, and Josselyn is now working on the renders needed for the cut scenes. We'll include previews of all the sprites in this post!
Renders are also now complete for the Sara lewd scene, which means that her animations will be done next. TheOmega is currently putting the finishing touches on the Ashley animations, and then will get started on the animations for Sara. We'll include some NSFW previews in the next dev log!
Josselyn also got a bit of writing done while renders were rendering, and is almost done with the writing for the Murder Mystery Game. All that is left now is the last scene where the actual murderer is revealed (or are they?? :D). There are still plenty of lewd scenes left to write for Chapter 5, but those are more routine than the Murder Mystery Game has been so they should go faster.
The current render count is 2,509 and the current word count is around 44K, so Chapter 5 is definitely going to be a meaty update!
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on August 16, 2024.
The past month has been a bit slower for us work-wise, which is pretty typical for us toward the end of the summer as we usually take our annual family vacation in late July or early August. This year we also welcomed a new baby nephew into our family, and had family staying with us for a while as a result. So, while that made it harder to get work done, it was wonderful and refreshing to spend time reconnecting and getting to know the newest member of our family!
Since the last dev log, Josselyn has been doing a lot of writing for the second half of the Murder Mystery Game which has ended up taking far longer to write than anticipated. The good news is that it's definitely nearing the end! The current word count for Chapter 5 is 37K words, and we are likely more than ~50% complete with the writing as far as word count goes. But since we aren't 100% sure on that, we are going with the more conservative estimate of 48% of scenes written.
As soon as parts are written, our coder Cosmic Mirage has been implementing them, and it's beginning to feel like a real game! He also has plans to implement some (optional) minigames that will fit with the theme of the game, and we are excited to see how they turn out.
Josselyn also finished the renders for the Ashley scenes for Chapter 5 and has started working on the Sara renders. The current render count is now 1,684, not including the current set of Mai sprites in the render queue that will render today and over the weekend.
TheOmega has been diligently working on the Ashley animations, taking his time to make them as good as possible. We know that players have been very patiently waiting for this scene and we want to make sure it was worth the wait! As promised in our last dev log, here are some previews of the NSFW Ashley scene in Chapter 5:
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on July 20, 2024.
Same as last dev log, we've been plugging along on both the Murder Mystery Game and Chapter 5 content. And once again, our progress percentages are still rough estimates, since it's hard to say exactly how much work is left, especially in regards to the MMG. But it's all coming together even better than we expected, thanks to the hard work of m. (GUI) and CosmicMirage (coding)! Here are some previews of what they've been working on:
Josselyn has been doing a lot of writing for the Murder Mystery Game and it's getting close to done at this point. The writing for the MMG is about 80% done, while the writing for the regular Chapter 5 content is probably more like 30% done. The MMG writing has taken longer since it's a new type of writing that we haven't done before, so once it's finished the remaining (more routine) writing will go more quickly. The current word count for Chapter 5 is ~28,000 words.
Josselyn has also taken a break from making sprites for the MMG and has been working on renders for the regular Chapter 5 content. Unlike previous chapters where we typically go scene by scene to make renders, this time Josselyn has been working through them by character, so that also makes it a little harder to estimate how much work is finished vs. remaining.
The focus of the past few weeks has been the Ashley content, so we'll include some SFW previews of those below. The current render count is ~1,500, not including a few Ashley renders still in the render queue and a few renders that will need to be made after the animations are posed.
Speaking of animations, TheOmega is currently working on two Ashley animations for Chapter 5. We know that players have been waiting very patiently for more Ashley content, and we're excited for you to see what we've been working on! We'll include some more NSFW Ashley previews in a future dev log. ;)
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on June 28, 2024.
A lot of work has been happening on Chapter 5 since the last dev log, but unfortunately a lot of it is not really well-captured by the progress percentages. Whereas we have "regular" development cycles basically down to a science now, we are doing many "new" things this update and that has made it hard to estimate how long things will take and what exactly is left to be done.
The novelty of working on something new and a little unpredictable has been really refreshing, which is exactly why we wanted to do the Murder Mystery Game this chapter. We've definitely learned after doing this for many years that keeping things fresh and fun is key to maintaining the longterm stamina required to finished a multi-year project, even if it isn't always the most efficient way to do things.
Most of the render work over the past few weeks has been making sprites, specifically for Ashley, Sara, Andre, Jazmin, and Kevon. Two sets of sprites (Sara and Kevon) had to be redone completely because of technical issues so some time was lost there. The good news is, of course, things continue to get faster as we learn from past mistakes and how to prevent them. Right now we have 1,380 new renders for the update, including all the sprite variations.
Josselyn also did quite a bit of work setting up environments for later scenes which doesn't really get captured in the progress percentages, but it will save time later when it's time to actually make the renders.
Another time suck these past few weeks has been fleshing out the second half of the Murder Mystery Game. As we mentioned in previous dev logs, the Murder Mystery Game is integral to the main plot of the game, and Chapter 5 is particularly important as far as story goes. It's important to us to get this right, since we know players have invested a lot of time and energy into the story so far and we don't want to let them down!
Multiple days have been spent moving boxes around in Figma to make sure we have a good grasp of how the Murder Mystery Game will conclude and how it ties into the main plot of the game. Here's an example of what we've been working on:
More of the Murder Mystery Game itself is taking shape in terms of code, as well. Keep in mind we are still mostly using placeholders for the GUI, so it will look a lot more polished as time goes on and we add in custom GUI.
Lastly, here are examples of the sprites that have been made since last dev log!
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on June 7, 2024.
Since our last dev log we've been making progress on both the Murder Mystery Game and the regular Chapter 5 content. We sat down and did the more extensive planning of the lewd scenes that we need in order to start on animations. Lewd scenes for both Ashley and Sara have been fully written and are now waiting on renders/animations. The current word count is around ~19K.
Implementation of the Murder Mystery Game is progressing nicely, and we decided to rework the art assets a bit after seeing a preliminary version of it all put together. So while the current render count is around ~450, that includes ~360 sprites (for Alexis and the MC, previews below) that Josselyn re-posed and re-rendered since the last dev log. She also posed ~180 brand new sprites (for Ashley's character) that are waiting to be rendered, so those aren't included in the count.
Cosmic Mirage (coder) and m. (GUI artist) have been working together to make new UX/UI for the Murder Mystery Game, here are some early mock ups of what they're working on.
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on May 17, 2024.
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on May 3, 2024.
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on March 8, 2024.
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on February 24, 2024.
All writing and renders for Chapter 4 are now complete! As we've mentioned in previous dev logs, we won't know the actual dialogue word count until we prep the chapter for translation, but our estimate is around 55K words. The final render count is 2,240.
Our original plan had been to work on translated/localized builds during the Chapter 4 update cycle and then to update the GUI with the Chapter 5 cycle. However, the GUI update was completed faster than we anticipated and those changes had to be integrated into the code while they were still relatively "fresh" (and therefore also improved and tested during this update cycle). That is why we switched priorities to updating the GUI with the Chapter 4 update and we will be working on released translated versions once we are working on Chapter 5.
TheOmega is plugging along nicely with coding and animations for Chapter 4. Now that renders and writing are complete, Josselyn can get started on polishing and adding music to the scenes. We hate to give estimates when things can change unexpectedly at any time, but our current goal is to release the BETA version of the update on Patreon and SubscribeStar before the end of March. That would make the Steam and Itch release likely to happen in early April. As always, we will give more specific dates as we get closer!
Josselyn is also working on the early stages of writing for Chapter 5. The format of Chapter 5 is going to be different than any other chapter/update. It's something we've been planning for a long time so we are excited to finally be working on it. We'll release more details about what Chapter 5 will look like after the Chapter 4 release!
Since there are no lewd scenes left to preview, here are more story scene previews:
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on February 11, 2024.
Things are moving pretty quickly with the Chapter 4 update now that we have a second set of hands helping with the coding! We have plowed through about half of the scenes that had been waiting for a while to be coded, and we are also mostly done with tweaking and testing the new GUI.
Josselyn is working on the very last scene of renders and only a handful of renders are left to make for the update, so we should have a final render count soon. She has also been working on outlining the Chapter 5 update in preparation for writing it.
There are no more lewd scenes to preview, so here are some previews of a non-lewd story scene!
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on January 26, 2024.
Josselyn has made a lot of progress with Chapter 4 renders the past two weeks. All of the renders for the Monica lewd scene as well as two non-lewd scenes are now rendered and ready to go. There are also currently 50 posed renders that will be rendering over the weekend to finish off another scene.
The current render count is 2,060 (not including the ones that are posed but not yet rendered). Two more small scenes and Photogram renders are all that remains before still renders will be done for Chapter 4.
If you're interested in learning more about our process for making 3D renders and animations, check out our latest podcast episode:
[previewyoutube=SeD7lLafH38;full][/previewyoutube]
TheOmega has been working on Sophie animations and coding the Paloma scene (which has a fun new feature we can't wait for our femdom fans to see!). We also have a second set of hands helping with regular coding now, so hopefully that will speed things up a bit (famous last words!) as we implement the many scenes in Chapter 4 and finish polishing the new GUI.
We also recorded a podcast episode this week about a topic we know many (aspiring) devs want to know more about. Josselyn will likely edit and post that episode next week! In the meantime, you can listen to old episodes of our podcast on our YouTube channel.
Here are some NSFW previews from the Monica lewd scene:
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on January 12, 2024.
We hope everyone had a happy and healthy holiday season! We took some days off to celebrate Christmas with friends and family, and have returned refreshed and ready to work.
If you haven't already, be sure to check out our annual year in review post: ViM Studios: 2023 Year in Review! That post also talks about our goals and priorities for 2024, most of which have to do with developing A Shot in the Dark.
Since our last official dev log (A Shot in the Dark: Dev Log 18-Dec-2023), the last remaining scene that was left to be written was finished. All that's left to write is the chapter wrap up and Photogram content. The final word count for all the scripts written was between 60K-70K words, and we're estimating about 55K words of pure dialogue. We'll have the exact figure when we prepare the chapter for translation.
Josselyn has been plugging away at renders for Chapter 4. Before Christmas she was able to finish the remaining renders for the Delia lewd scene, and after Christmas she finished the non-lewd renders for the Delia scene. This week she posed all the renders for the Monica scene, about half of which are rendered.
The Delia and Monica scenes were the only remaining lewd scenes from Chapter 4 that needed renders. That means all the "big scenes" are done! Non-lewd scenes typically have far fewer renders, so the ~4 scenes remaining to make renders for will likely not add substantially to the render count (which is currently 1,936). The final render count will probably be around ~2,200 but of course we won't know the actual number until we're done.
TheOmega has been working on coding and animations for Chapter 4, as well as a bug fix for a texting issue that some Steam users were reporting. We got the fix out to Steam players last week. If you were encountering the texting bug with a version purchased on another platform, please let us know so we can get you an updated build.
As mentioned in our end of year wrap up, m. from Tsundere Studio has been working on revamp of the GUI for A Shot in the Dark. They finished up last week! This process went much faster than we anticipated, so although we hadn't originally planned to update the GUI with the Chapter 4 update, we'll now be able to.
Thank you to m. for all of their hard work! Be sure to wishlist their game on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1703610/I_Just_Want_to_be_Single/
We are super happy with the overhaul! Here are some previews:
This dev log was originally posted on Patreon and SubscribeStar on December 18, 2023.
We are excited to announce that A Shot in the Dark - Chapter 3 and the Walkthrough & Guide DLC are now available for purchase on Steam!
Big news! We are translating A Shot in the Dark into multiple languages in preparation for our Steam release. This has been a goal of ours for a long time so we can make the game available and accessible to as many players as possible. If you are a native speaker of any of these languages, you can help improve the translation!
Steam Visual Novel Fest celebrates the spirit of telling a story through art and interactive fiction. The event runs from August 7 to August 14, offering demos and discounts on current and upcoming visual novel games of all kinds. We are honored that A Shot in the Dark was invited to participate, and excited that Steam is elevating the visual novel genre with this event. Be sure to play our recently updated Chapter 1 demo and add A Shot in the Dark to your wishlist today! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1853830/A_Shot_in_the_Dark/
[previewyoutube=jfBmwxZoMyQ;full][/previewyoutube] Our studio has started a podcast about adult game development! It's something we've wanted to do for many years, so we finally pulled the trigger and started. Why a podcast? We love to talk about adult games! There's a lot of things that we want to share with the world, that we just don't have the time or desire to write down in a stuffy dev log. Basically, the goal of this podcast is to record the types of conversations we are already having, and let you be a fly on the wall to hear them! In today's episode, we're going to tackle a question that we get asked all the time: What's it like to work with your spouse all day? We know many of you have to be curious about how we navigate being both business partners and life partners! We need your questions for future episodes! Some questions we plan to answer in our next episodes:
The moment you've been waiting for is here! You can now play Chapter 1 of A Shot in the Dark for FREE on Steam! Chapter 1 includes:
[previewyoutube=nvcr5WjxRs0;full][/previewyoutube] The Steam page for our 3D adult visual novel, A Shot in the Dark, is now live! We also recently released an official trailer for the demo release of A Shot in the Dark! We hope this will get everyone else as hyped as we've been for the upcoming release! We are still testing and tweaking our ALPHA build of Chapter 1. We hope to have a BETA build by the end of the month available on select platforms, with a Steam release this summer. We can't wait for you guys to play it and let us know what you think! ViM Studios
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