Hello B.E.S.T.I.E.S! (Yeah, I didn't really know what to call B.E.S.T players so I opted for that ^^) Today we reached a new milestone for our game: there are now more than 20,000 players who have played, tested, loved or hated our game! And its really great because, for early access, its really a great success! When we think that a little over a year ago we started from scratch saying that we were going to make our own game by learning everything as we went along and that now, thanks to you, your advice and requests ... We're here, it's fabulous and it motivates us to continue calmly! So once again: THANK YOU!
Well, apart from that, a little information on the progress! We improve on animations and renderings again and again and save time on that thanks to the 2 computers. So you'll have a little more animations and a little nicer stuff in this episode, with even better image quality compared to episode 2. We've almost finished the last scene of the first part of Episode 3. We just have the last few animations to do, then we're going to put the music on and send it all to the translators. Then, as seen with Steam players, this Part 1 will be available on our support sites which will test the new features (and hunt for bugs if there are any ^^) to make a real release of the full episode on Steam as soon as it's ready. Part 2 is organized, written and a few surprises have been added. As you now know, this part 2 will essentially be based on the evening at Grace's. As there will only be a global environment normally this part should go faster regarding the images. Regarding the code, this will be our first "free-roam" that we will try to make dynamic and fun for players to do. Once again there will be several scenes depending on the previous choices, activities to do depending on the time of the evening and the desire you have to follow or not the program organized by Ruby :) Finally in part 1 you will meet a new girl who is important in the story.
Only we have a problem... Her first name. We have had an idea from the beginning but we are not sure of ourselves. So, to involve you in the development of this story, we want to offer you the opportunity to name this character! Dont hesitate to give your ideas! The first name should have a slightly oriental sound, be original and, above all, please you. We will keep the best proposals and vote on your proposals on our support sites!
As for the deadlines, given the planned roadmap we are just on target, Part 1 was planned for May and Part 2 for July. We're right there for now. Learning to code the second test took a little longer than expected but the result seems nice to us and we can't wait to see your results on it! Our objective is clearly to try to finish the episode for you by the beginning/mid of July, before the holidays if possible :) That way, we can continue on Episode 4 for the end of the year as we had planned. That's it for today, I'm going back to the last spicy scene in progress :)
See you soon ! Dolyla