Crisis Point: Extinction - Lewd Metroidvania (2019 Public Demo now available!)

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey there, everyone! Got a jam-packed weekly update for you this week, so let's get into it!

 

 

First off, the gif up above. While working on the recolored enemy variants this week, I realized just how sad and lame the Tentacles looked, so I decided to take the opportunity to update their animation! Now, instead of just sinking into the ground, they have a proper digging and attacking animation. There's still a few tweaks I want to make to keep it visually interesting (like making each tentacle dig at slightly different times), but it already looks way better!

 

 

I also worked on recolored enemy AI this week, and giving them new/altered behavior for higher-tier versions of enemies. So far, the Warped Soldier, Slime, and Tentacle are all complete! The higher-tier Warped Soldiers now aim directly at Alicia instead of only in a straight line (which you can see in the gif above), Slimes move much faster along walls and have less downtime when jumping and landing, and Tentacles not only dig faster, but higher tiers will dig a few times in a row before resting. I'm really excited for these changes; it should help the lategame combat stay exciting and challenging, even once Alicia's toolkit has expanded!

 

Next up, Orexius started working on the Slime BE H-scene this week - but before he started work on that, we decided to touch up the Slime sprite, which hasn't been changed since development started. It was pretty ugly before, if you ask me, and this new coat of paint brings it in line with the rest of the game's visual quality standards!

 

And as far as the Slime BE H-scene itself, goes...

 

 

 

One last thing before this update ends, about our streaming schedule - I've been doing some thinking about why it is that we seem to miss at least 1 stream every week, and the conclusion I've come to is that a dedicated stream schedule just doesn't work well for me, creatively. I was diagnosed with ADD as a child, and it's shaped me creatively in a lot of ways, and I get the feeling that hard schedules just don't really benefit me, and instead cause a lot of stress and anxiety. 

To try and fix it, I'm going to be changing the way our streams work: instead of a stream Mon/Wed/Fri at 3 pm EST, I'm instead just going to be aiming for at least 3 streams a week, whenever it feels right! Ideally, the amount we stream won't change (and might even go up!), they'll just be unscheduled. If it doesn't work out that way, I'll figure something else out in the future, but that's what I'm going to be trying for now!

 

And that's all for this update! The rest of this post will be a personal health update, so you can stop here if you just want to read about CPE. Thanks for reading and for supporting our work!

 

Health was a mixed bag this week. The fitness part didn't go so great, I only worked out a few times - however, one big change this week was in the food department. I've been terrible about ordering out a lot and barely cooking this year (and since way before then, if we're being honest), but this week I managed to go the entire week without ordering out once, and cooked more than I have in the past month. That may not sound like a lot for most people, but for me it's a pretty big deal as it's something I've always struggled with. I've also been managing to eat a bit less, and my weight is finally starting to move downward ever so slightly, so despite the workout failure, I'm calling this week a win - and next week will be even better!

 

Alright, that'll be it for this update! Thanks so much for reading, we'll see you in the next weekly update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)

(Doodled by our animator, Orexius!)

Hey everyone, welcome to the weekly update! We had a nice productive week, so let's get into it!

https://soundcloud.com/anon-42-498945869/crisis-point-extinction-boss-3-theme-preview

 

First off, our musician finished up the boss fight track for Boss 3, and you can listen to a preview of it up above! I love how it came out, so hopefully you'll be excited to hear the full thing once the update releases! I wasn't sure if I wanted to give each boss a unique theme at first, but our composer does such amazing work every time that any excuse to get more music from them is a good excuse in my book!

 

 

Next up, Puffernutter started work on a brand new tileset for a new area, an offshoot of the Summit, this week! Absolutely EVERYTHING in this image is subject to change, as most of the assets are either placeholders or are still in a very rough state at the moment, but we were so happy with how it was turning out that we wanted to show off a preview now!

 

 

 

Next, on top of some other stuff (like increasing the speed of Boss 3 so the fight's not so easy), I worked on a system this week to allow for player choices during dialogue! This likely won't be used super often in CPE - we're not going to have a branching storyline or anything - but it will be very useful for chatting with folks back at camp. I hope to use it to help flesh out their personalities by giving everyone optional dialogue here and there.

 

Also, to help out anyone struggling to make their way through the game, I'll be giving Rodriguez an "advice" option (as you can see in the image above) that has him point you in the right direction on where you should explore next, so hopefully getting lost won't be as common in the future. I like this implementation a lot, both because it's organic within the world (as compared to a waypoint marker or something like that), and it's also completely optional for the player; if you prefer figuring it out for yourself and don't want to be told where to go, just don't ask him for advice!

 

Lastly, Orexius finished the animation a while ago, but I don't believe we ever showed off the Tentacle BE H-scene, so here's an in-game preview of that!

 

And that's it for this week! We didn't end up holding any Picarto streams this week, sorry about that, but we DID go ahead and set up a second, more casual form of streaming on our Discord server! Unlike Picarto, our Discord streams aren't archived (and don't have audio), so I plan to use them for shorter casual dev streams rather than the usual 4+ hour streams we do on Picarto. I'm hoping it'll help fill the gaps when we're not feeling up to a lengthy stream, to allow us to still engage with people while we're working on a smaller scale. At the moment, anyone can watch the Discord streams by being in the server, but only Patrons are allowed to use voice chat, so hopefully the streams won't get too crazy!

 

The rest of this post will be a personal health/life update, so feel free to skip it if you want. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week!

 

 

Fitness took another dip this week, and I didn't do any real exercise, unfortunately - BUT, we've been sticking strong to eating better! We've fallen into a rhythm of only eating out once a week, ordering less when we do eat out that one time per week, and cooking a LOT more (and with healthier, fresher foods) at home, so I'm still feeling pretty good about it all things considered! Once I finish posting this update I'm gonna head to our exercise room and get back on that exercise train immediately, so next week will already be off to a better start than this one was.

 

And that's it for this week! Thank you so much for continuing to follow and support us, everyone, it really means the world to our team! We wouldn't be here without you!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey everybody! This week's update is a bit smaller, we only have one real visual to show ya, since I've been working on mostly non-visual stuff this week, like writing the Azulisk CG scene. That being said, let's get into it!

 

First off is the one major visual from this week, showing off new functionality for the Warped Scientist's red vial. As you likely know already, the Warped Scientist has 3 vial colors - red (damage), blue (BE status effect), and white (immobilizing status effect).


 

For recolored, higher-tier Scientists, I decided to handle the damage and status effect vials differently; for the red damage vial, as you can see in the gif above, it now creates a lingering flame effect that will cause damage to Alicia if she runs into it. The flame doesn't last forever, but it means that you'll have to be more aware of your positioning when fighting Warped Scientists.
 

I don't have a gif for blue and white vials, but instead of changing the effect of the vial itself for those ones, I decided to make the scientist throw 3 vials in quick succession. When he does this, all 3 vials will be of the same type as the first one, so you won't need to keep track of what types he's throwing and you can focus on avoiding them. I decided to go that route with the scientist because I realized the biggest issue with enemies in Crisis Point is that it's too easy to simply dodge one attack, then kill them before they pose much of a threat, due to their cooldown period between attacks. These enemy recolor AI changes will hopefully lead to enemies either having more difficult to avoid attacks, or having longer "attack phases", meaning the player has to dodge properly for a longer period before getting the opportunity to kill. It'll be exciting to see how all of this changes the later parts of the game, in any case!

 

Aside from that, Orexius finished up the Duo Slime BE H-scene (it's much like the non-BE scene, with a second slime jumping on Alicia's face), and also started working on some general cutscene animations, like this one:

Up until now, the majority of Crisis Point's cutscene animations have been bespoke animations made for a specific moment in a specific cutscene (i.e. Rodriguez putting his hands up when Alicia draws her gun during their first meeting). These animations are great, but the characters in cutscenes don't do a lot of animating outside of those rare bespoke animations, so the goal is to give each character a small library of reusable animations unique to them and fitting to their character (i.e. Alicia crossing her arms, Birch flipping through his book), and then adding those to existing cutscenes whenever they feel fitting, to give each character some more life and movement without every animation needing to be unique.
 

Last thing I wanted to mention for this week is a small one, but I implemented right analog stick aiming for gamepads this week! This system does NOT change the way aiming in Crisis Point works - you're still limited to 8-directional aiming, and when running you still can't aim behind you or anything. All of the existing limitations are still in place, but I figured some players would be more comfortable, for example, using the right stick to aim and R1 to shoot. If it makes even 1 person more comfortable playing the game then I'm glad to have added it!
 

Oh, one more final note about streams - sorry to anyone who's waiting for Picarto streams again, I decided not to do any this week because Picarto had some website changes and they were causing issues for a number of people, so I figured it would be better to wait it out a bit. We did a few Discord streams instead, and hopefully Picarto has smoothed out the issues well enough now for me to start streaming there again this week.

 

And that's it for this week! Sorry it's not as exciting as the last two weeks; Orex can only work on H-scenes so much before other animations need to be done ? Thank you so much for supporting and reading! The rest of the update will be a personal one, so feel free to stop reading here if you want, and we'll see you next week!

 

As far as personal stuff goes this week, it was pretty alright! Exercise was still a bit of a bust (but not completely, I did exercise a few times which is better than last week!), and more importantly the house talked about why exercise has fallen off for all of us. We've realized that it's because our exercise room is on the smaller side and can only really comfortably hold one person, so exercise has become a "wait your turn" thing rather than a group event like it used to be when it was in our living room. The lack of community and encouragement between the three of us, for lack of a better term, resulted in a lot less pressure to keep it up, and we all gradually fell off the wagon. We're not entirely sure what we're going to do about it yet, but now that we know what the problem is we can work on fixing it! I'm happy to report we're also continuing to do well in regards to eating better and cooking more, so all in all I'd call it a pretty great week in terms of personal health and improvement.
 

And with that, the update is done! Thank you so much for reading everybody; I hope everything is going great for all of you, too! We'll see you in the next update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey everybody! So, just to preface this weekly update, you might be expecting a really big one since we skipped last week's update due to the covid vaccine shots (we're all doing fine now, so no worries), but this update is going to be pretty normal sized. I've been struggling pretty hard this week with mental issues, which is something I've dealt with for years but it's been especially bad this week. I don't really know why, but I'm planning on seeking some mental help soon, now that our household is fully vaccinated.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnspEj7kl1Y

 

First up in the update is something from last week. In the video up above (which is playing in slow motion to make the effect easier to see), you can see a comparison shot of the game's screen transition fade effect - before, the fade was as simple as drawing a transparent black box on top of the screen, which makes for a perfectly workable transition, but it looks kinda muddy and flat. I decided to rewrite it using a very simple shader that adds a flat amount of color to each pixel instead, and the result is an effect that fades the darker colors very quickly, while the brighter colors stay visible for longer. You can see the effect most clearly by looking at the lights and windows, or the metal bits of the room transition doors. It's a simple and subtle change, and I'm not sure how much anyone but me will care or even notice lol, but the effect is much nicer if you ask me.

 

For this week, I spent most of my work time refactoring our H-scene code, which was an absolute spaghetti mess and made it so adding new H-scenes into the game required hours of work, even after the animation was done. Refactoring it took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I decided to rework it now because of how many new H-scenes were added this update, which made it very clear how inefficient (and frankly annoying to work with) the old code was. The refactoring is pretty much done now, thankfully, and should make implementation of future scenes much quicker.

 

My work may have been a struggle, but Orexius has been cranking out work like crazy - here's some of the cutscene animations he did for Birch and Alicia this week.

We also have the finished version of that 3D model I mentioned a few updates ago, and he's here to say hi!

This guy won't be in the next update just yet, unfortunately; we don't have the time to give him proper animations, so he'll be making his ingame debut in v0.45 instead.

Lastly, Orexius also updated Alicia's.. "solo" H-scene, which you can see a preview of right here. It now includes a second variation of the animation, as well as an "outro" of sorts.

 

And that's it for this weekly update. We're going to try and wrap up development of v0.44 as soon as possible, but it might end up being released somewhat late in the month, or having some intended features delayed until next update. My apologies ahead of time if either of those end up happening; we're going to try to get it done on time, but I can't make any promises as there's still quite a bit to do to wrap it up. If it does get delayed longer than you'd like, don't forget that you can unpledge and you'll still receive the update when it comes out. In the meantime, though, thank you so much for continuing to support us!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our major playable update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, consider supporting us!)

 

Hey everybody! Before I start with the post proper, I apologize for not posting outside of Patreon for the past few weeks - if you want to know why in detail, you can read the post about it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/status-update-50409809

If you don't want to read it, suffice it to say the past few weeks have been rough for us for a few reasons, and things were moving very slowly. That being said..
 

(NSFW trailer available here: https://www.redgifs.com/watch/lightslatebluequaintpooch )

Despite running the timer down to the absolute wire, Crisis Point: Extinction v0.44 is now complete! I told ya I'd release it by the end of the month, didn't I? ..well, it's still April in my timezone, at least.

Anyway, you can watch the trailer up above for a few highlights, and here's a quick list of the major things we did this update cycle.

 

v0.44 MAJOR CHANGES AND FEATURES

-Added in cutscenes before and after Boss 3, along with new boss fight music, to finish up the Boss 3 rework
-Continued work on new Golem enemy, which will be added in officially in v0.45
-Added several new H-scenes
-Added a handful of new animations to various cutscenes throughout the game, to give them more spice
-Started work on Boss 4 (will be kept secret)
-Gave many recolored enemies altered behaviors/attack patterns, to freshen up the late-game combat and exploration
-Fixed more bugs and glitches (full list at the bottom of the post)
 

A good few of the things that were intended to be in v0.44 didn't end up making it in, including a few things I teased in weekly updates, and I'm sorry about that. The last few months have been rough and I let some things fall through the cracks; that's not an excuse though, and I'll do my best to avoid this happening again in the future.
 

v0.44 doesn't offer much in terms of brand new content, but it DOES offer many much-needed changes to the game so far; the recolored enemy behaviors make playing through the game much more exciting, and the new cutscenes before and after Boss 3 are my personal favorite scenes in the game so far! I highly recommend playing through the game on a fresh save file to really see the most of what this update has to offer.
 

As far as our v0.45 plans are concerned..

 

v0.45 GOALS AND PLANS

-Implement new Golem enemies
-Add more new and updated H-scenes
-Add more cutscene animations to be used in cutscenes throughout the game
-Implement new mobility upgrade
-Implement Azulisk (Crystal Dragon) CG, and hopefully redo Edovex CG
-Add further story cutscenes and a new small "biome"
-Continue adding altered behaviors/attack patterns to enemy recolors
-Finish implementing dialogue choice system
-Fix more bugs and glitches
 

v0.45 will be focused more on pushing forward with new content, since v0.44 revitalized and finished up existing parts of the game. Many of the things in v0.45 have already been started; Orexius has already finished roughing out almost all of the Golem's animations, Red is already hard at work on the Azulisk CG, etc. I have confidence it'll be a great update, especially with things finally calming down and returning to normal around here.

 

Oh, one last thing before the post ends, regarding the $5 tier Gallery and $2 tier Gifsets - I will be updating these as soon as I can, but I'll need a few days first. I've been crunching hard the past few days and I need a small break, and the Gallery update in particular is going to be more time consuming than usual to do, both because of the large amount of new H-scenes to add and because of the reworked H-scene code. The gallery is basically going to have to be remade from scratch, so I ask for your patience - I'll have their updates out asap.

 

Alright, that's it for this update! An endless amount of thank yous to all of our incredible Patrons for their support during this update cycle, especially these amazing and gorgeous people here:
 

SeraphStarliege
Katsune Teku
Benjamin Arnold
Leon Kiske
Pedro Fraga
TCTheorist
Joshua Woodward
Skrabyzarc
koldkanadian
7mod Al-rby3
Marumatsu
HOELS
Lukas Binder
Dezren
 

Thank you so very much for reading, and to our $10 patrons, I hope you enjoy v0.44! See you in the next one!

-A42

 

 

 

v0.44 MINOR CHANGES AND BUG FIXES

-Fixed an issue where the fade-to-black effect at the end of the demo might not cover the entire screen, in some situations
-Fixed a missing background graphic and a misplaced Edovex nest in a late-game Summit room
-Fixed bug where Warped Soldier bullets were not properly recolored to match the color of Soldier they came from
-Fixed bug where Hoverjets Hover sound effect would continue looping if the player grabbed a ledge while using it
-Fixed bug where Hoverjets Dash sound effect would continue looping if the player was hit during an extended dash
-Fixed an issue where Warped Soldier bullets would go through walls
-Fixed a room just before the Deep Soil being improperly labeled as a save room on the map
-Fixed a potential bug where Birch wouldn't show up during the camp cutscene where he upgrades your blaster
-Fixed a bug where Warped Sentries would always stand up to block Force Shots that explode in front of them, even if the Sentry was stunned
-Altered the lighting used throughout the game slightly
-Fixed issue where some background pillars in Subaquatic Caverns clipped through into the underwater section very slightly
-Updated screen transition fade effect; the new effect is similar (fade to black), but now uses a shader for a more colorful, visually interesting fade
-Fixed a minor longstanding camera issue where, if the player didn't move for a while, the camera would appear to come to a rest, but then suddenly move 1 more pixel before stopping
-Updated Screen Shake code to look nicer
-Fixed an issue where Power Orbs didn't scale burning damage on enemies
-Fixed an issue causing Alicia's H-scene voice clips to not change sometimes, when entering a duo scene
-Fixed a slight positioning issue with Tentacle H-scenes
-Increased Boss 3's HP and the speed of all her attacks, to make the fight more difficult
-Made the burnable vines next to the Kilogrip in Deep Soil less annoying to hit
-Added sound effects to Crystal Shot bullet chip, and Crystal Dragon enemy

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)

Hey everyone, this is gonna be a pretty short weekly update. Development is progressing pretty well overall; I personally ended up not getting too much done this week, due to a combination of tax-related stresses and personal issues, BUT the updated gallery is nearly finished and I should have it out early next week, and now that taxes are done I'm going to be scheduling a doctor's visit to hopefully, finally, help take care of the other part.
 

The good news is I'm the only one taking it a bit slower right now; Orexius has been tearing through animations, and Puffernutter has finally had some free time to work on tilesets as well, so even though I'm struggling a bit we still have good progress happening.
 

I'll be posting a bunch of animations Orexius has worked on, but first, I wanted to ask for some additional info from anyone out there that's run into the H-scene crash bug in v0.44.1. If you've encountered that crash, can you provide me with any additional information about your crashes, other than the error log? To be a little more specific, I know the crash can happen as a result of H-scenes after you run out of health (and I'm working on fixing that), but has anyone had it occur during regular gameplay when you haven't died? I haven't been able to make that happen, and unfortunately the error log isn't very specific, so trying to find and fix all instances of the crash has been rough.

 

Anyway, with that out of the way, here's a bunch of animations Orex has worked on:

 

These golem animations in particular aren't quite complete, yet, and only have basic flat shading; I haven't been able to work on actually implementing the animations yet, and we want to get them ingame and make sure no changes need to be made before Orex fully details them.

There are a few NSFW animations, too, but they're still WIP so I'll save them for a later date

 

Alright, that's it for this week. Sorry that I don't have more to talk about in this weekly update; things should improve soon, once I get the gallery update out and can get back to working on the game proper. Thanks for your patience, everybody! My personal issues are holding me back right now and I'm sorry for that, but because of you all, I can finally afford to see a doctor to try and work through the things that have been plaguing me since.. well, before I even started CPE. This is certainly not the first time it's made me struggle with work, but with any luck (and thanks exclusively to all of your support), it WILL be the last.

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey everyone. I won't beat around the bush, this week was a struggle for me again - I managed to get the Gallery update out, which I'm happy about, and I did some writing work as well, both for an upcoming CG and story scenes, but things were pretty slow on my end.
 

I'm still waiting on the doctor to get back to me about scheduling an appointment, but hopefully once that's done it won't be too long before I can get some help in dealing with some of my depression, ADD, and anxiety. I don't think I've ever specified what kind of mental issues I'm dealing with (even though some of it is probably obvious if you've been following me for a while), and I'm not sure why that is; there's not really any value in being private or secretive about it, and I guess Mental Health Awareness month is as good a time as any to talk about it. I'm not sure why my depression is flaring up so heavily right now, nothing is going wrong in my life at the moment - if anything, we're doing great now that Puffernutter's health issues have been clearing up.. but I suppose that's the nature of depression, isn't it? It doesn't always make sense; if it did, it might be easier to deal with. Anyway, I won't talk your ear off about it - it's not an excuse for not getting more work done, and I'm sorry for that. Thankfully, the rest of our team is helping to pick up the slack while I try to figure out how to work with my own brain.
 

I mentioned Orexius was working on some NSFW stuff last week, and one of those animations is the new Edovex BE scene!

There's still a little bit of work to be done here (like giving Alicia her regular clothes), but enjoy the preview! We're doing something special with the animation that I'm excited for you all to see, too; you won't know what it is just from the loop, though, so you'll have to wait and find out.
 

Puffernutter also had some time to work on tilesets this week; we posted a scene from this new area a while ago, and things might not look TOO different, but last time the scene was cobbled together from non-tile images that weren't actually possible to make levels with.

 

Now, this scene is made up of actual tiles prepped for use ingame, and there's been a lot of extra detail and polish too, so it's looking much nicer overall and I can start putting together rooms with it. Everything is still WIP, and the background still needs work, of course, but that'll come in due time. Oh, and ignore the fact that there's 2 Alicia's, Puffernutter just uses her sprite for scale reference when zoomed in ?
 

Anyway, that's about all I have this week. Sorry again for the mediocre weekly update; I'm really hoping next week's will be different, and I'm going to set myself some distinct work goals to try and make sure it happens. I can't thank you all enough for sticking with me even when this stuff happens; I hate letting you all down, but the stability you guys give us even in the tougher times means more than I can describe. So, thank you all so much, and I'll see you back here next week with a much better update.

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey everyone. This'll be a pretty short update, but not for any bad reasons. Some good news this week, first; I managed to get most of the work I wanted done (not quite all of it, but it's a big step up from the previous few weeks), and I have a doctor's visit scheduled for early-mid June. I was hoping to have a visit sooner than that, but it was the soonest they could schedule me, and at least it's finally happening.
 

There's still not too much to post about this week; I spent my time implementing the various animations Orexius has been working on the past few weeks, doing some more writing, and planning out the new area Puffernutter is making tiles for. So, there's not really anything to show from my work, but it IS getting done slowly.
 

Orexius has been continuing work on the Edovex BE H-scene, and I have some previews of that for you today; first of all, the Duo H-scene loop:


Additionally, if you remember from last week, I mentioned we were doing something special with the animation.. so here's a still image preview of that!

 

The bad news (and you probably already realized this considering the last few weekly updates) is that the next version of CPE will almost definitely not be out on schedule. I don't know how much it will be delayed, but I've been feeling burnout of various degrees for.. a long time now, and now that I'm finally doing something about my mental health issues, I'm very hopeful that I'll come out of this better than ever. I've rarely been able to reach the level of productivity that I know I'm capable of, and I was never sure if it was the depression or the ADD (most likely a mixture of both), but with any luck I'll be able to figure it out and finally do something about it with the help of the doctors, instead of just trying to power through my mental issues like I've always done.

 

Alright, that's it for this weekly update. Sorry there wasn't too much to see, but the week did go overall well despite that! Sometimes we just don't have too much to show off visually, such is the nature of game development. Thank you all so much for supporting us; we'll see you again next week!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)

 

Hey everyone. Not too much to write about this week on the development front; I've just about finished catching up on implementing all the animations Orex has been working on, and Orex is nearly done with the final Edovex BE animation, so fans of the Edovex have a lot to look forward to in v0.45. Red is making solid progress on the Azulisk CG, and I'm nearly done writing it, so we should hopefully have a preview to share on that CG soon.
 

This week wasn't super great for me, my sleep troubles have been flaring up on top of everything else, but I'm doing my best to keep things moving. I'm mostly working on writing, between the Azulisk CG and story scripts, rather than actual in-engine development. It's equally important work, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it matters nearly as much? I'm not sure why, maybe just because it's not directly creating content for you guys to play. Either way, it needs to get done, and I'm slowly making progress on it.
 

The good news is that my doctor's appointment is happening this week. I have no clue what exactly the appointment will entail, or what the results will be. I think it's very likely that this first visit will just be information gathering, so to speak, and I won't get any sort of treatment/medication until a followup visit, but it's been so long since I've seen a doctor of any kind that I'm just not sure. Either way, though, I'm equal parts anxious and excited to finally get the ball rolling.

 

Alright, this is all going to be personal stuff from here on out, and it's a bit of a read, so don't feel like you HAVE to read it, but I want to get some thoughts out. Don't worry, there's nothing bad here, but it's stuff that's been on my mind for years and I think writing it all out will do me some good.
 

I've been relatively secretive about my health and mental issues for most of this game's development, and to be honest it still feels a little weird to be open about it sometimes. There's always a worry in the back of my mind that it'll come across like I'm making excuses, or trying to pander for sympathy points, but the more I think about it.. honestly, I think I'm okay with it if some people think that's the case. I can't be likable or trustworthy to everybody, and I'll run myself ragged if I try to do that. I look around at all of my peers and friends in the NSFW game dev space, and seeing the kinds of struggles they're going through behind-the-scenes is such an odd experience. As friends, we share our struggles more openly and we support each other as best we can; but as creators, we often hide that away in favor of having a sparkly clean public image where we work tirelessly, 12+ hours a day, to create content. To both newcomers and veterans in game dev, myself included, it creates an immense pressure to "keep up" and probably contributes heavily to a lot of the mental issues and depression that people like me suffer from.
 

Chasing productivity can be valuable, but when it starts to come at the cost of your health - whether mental, physical, or otherwise - is that really worth it? Some people can work 12 hours a day and still have a healthy life outside of it; heck, some days even I can put in 14+ hours and feel great after.. but other days even getting 2 hours of solid work out of myself feels like pulling teeth. And the thing I keep needing to tell myself is, that's okay. If I look at my productivity on a daily basis, days like those feel like the end of the world, and it quickly devolves into a spiral of guilt and depression and just general awfulness. But looking back on the things I've created, with the help of so many other amazing and talented people, and the support of all of you unbelievably kind folks supporting us both on and off Patreon, how can I justify feeling anything but proud? CPE is an amazing game, and just because it's taking longer than I'd like doesn't take away from that. If anything, the fact that it exists despite all of my issues says so much. I could've just given up, during all of those depressive episodes, but no matter how much they try to take me down, I've always gotten back up, every single time, even if it took me a while to find the strength.
 

The point I really want to make is, if me being more open about my mental health and struggle to be productive can make even one other person understand that it's okay to struggle sometimes, and you can still make a successful game even if the productivity just.. won't come out some days, or weeks, or even months, then I think that's worth it, even if it makes me seem untrustworthy to some folks. Creating things is already hard, and we don't need to make it any harder on ourselves by being unrealistic about what we can accomplish; everyone works at their own pace, and someone who takes the time to understand and respect their own pace, rather than beating themselves over the head because they can't be faster, will ultimately come out ahead of someone who burns themselves out because of the pressure and ends up quitting.


 

That was kind of a long-winded tangent, and I thank you if you bothered to read any of it. I'll try not to apologize for not having a better weekly update than this; I do that a lot, and it's probably not a healthy mindset to have. So instead of being sorry, I'm going to be thankful instead; I cannot possibly overstate how much it means to us that you give us the time and support we need to not only work on the game, but to work on ourselves, so that we can become better people and better developers and deliver the game that you all deserve.
 

Thank you all, so much. ❤️ We'll see you in next week's update. Hopefully it will be an exciting one!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, please consider supporting us!)
 

Hey everybody. Gonna be another small one this week, and not as exciting as I hoped it would be last week; BUT there is good news, with hopefully more coming on the horizon!
 

So first off, for work I continued to work on stuff outside of the game, mostly writing; I've been struggling most with opening the engine and actually programming/implementing things, but writing has been a little easier to get myself to do, so I'm letting my focus stay there for the time. The Azulisk CG script is nearly done, and I have a few cutscenes/gameplay dialogues written out for v0.45 as well. I'm going to try and have all the conversations I want for v0.45 finished by next weekend, so I can send them to our VAs and give them plenty of time to record.
 

Aside from me, Orex finished up the final Edovex BE H-scene and that's all ready for implementation now. He'll be starting work on more H-scenes now, since we still have plenty to update or improve. Red is waiting on me to finalize the Azulisk script so he can finish the related CG, so I'll be trying to finish that up first thing this next week.

 

For a more personal update: last week I mentioned I had a doctor's visit scheduled for this week, but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect out of it. Unfortunately, it did end up being a pretty basic visit; the doctor I saw wasn't one of their behavioral health specialists, so the visit ended up being more of a general thing and getting care started, since I also had some physical health concerns to bring up in addition to my mental health issues. I'll be getting an appointment scheduled with one of their mental health specialists soon, and they estimated 1-2 weeks for that, but I'll find out an exact day soon.
 

Despite the appointment being less of a decisive thing than I had hoped, I'm not surprised by it, and it was a positive experience overall; I've met with some doctors in the past who seemed in a hurry to get me out of the door and didn't really give a shit, and I didn't get that vibe this time. Everyone was very kind, and it seemed like they actually care about their patients, so I think we made a good choice. Despite the lack of forward movement from this one visit (which again was unsurprising, depression and anxiety can't be cured at the drop of a hat), I do honestly feel a little better already - knowing that something is finally happening helps, even if I have to wait a little bit longer. I've already dealt with crippling mental issues for at least half my life, so "a little bit longer" sounds pretty okay compared to the "indefinitely" I was looking at before now.
 

I'm excited for this next week, I'm still rocky at times but I feel overall more positive right now than I have in the past month at least, and I'm hoping to finally be able to get some good work done. In the meantime though, I know this is yet another low-content update, and I can't stress enough how grateful I am to you all for putting up with it; I hate delivering lackluster updates, but you've all been so overwhelmingly kind and understanding, and it really has helped me not beat myself up too much over this. As much as I wish I could flip a switch and be okay again, mental health doesn't work that way, and you've all given me the space to deal with what has been the worst depressive flareup I've had since my father passed a few years ago, and I truly cannot thank you enough for that. You're the best group of supporters a creator like me could ask for, and if I have any one dominant feeling right now, it's that I can't wait to get better so I can make you guys better stuff than ever before.

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone. This week was a mixture of both great, and ehh. The bad news, which I'll get out of the way first, is that the work side of things was the 'ehh' part; I didn't get as much writing as I wanted done, BUT I did have the most productive day I've had in over a month, so it wasn't a complete loss! I managed to take a script from about 50% to finished in a single day, which may not sound like much, but it feels like a lot right now, so I'm trying to stay positive.

 

Orex is also still banging out animations for me to implement once I'm fully back in action. This week he finished up a few things; a clothed version of Alicia's masturbation animation, a "death" transition into said scene for when Alicia runs out of HP in gameplay, and an update to the regular (non-BE) Edovex H-scene.

 

 

For this H-scene update, in addition to the obvious anatomy and shading improvements, Orexius went out of his way to update the animation from 4 to 6 frames total, so it's a huge improvement over the old scene if you ask me.

 

So, now for the GOOD news! I posted last week that it sounded like it would be 1-2 weeks before I could see a behavioral doctor to talk about my mental health, and that seemed to be the case more and more, because they didn't end up calling me back. They said that might happen and if they didn't I should call them back, so I was planning on doing that (and was putting it off because phone anxiety, bleh), but I got a call from them for a separate topic entirely regarding my physical health, and while I was already wrapped up in a phone call I asked them about scheduling an appointment with a behavioral doc.

 

Apparently, she was the correct person to ask about it, because she managed to get me scheduled for a telehealth call with someone just two days later. That call has already come and gone, and I have officially been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and ADD - all of which I already pretty much knew I had, but, it's still a weird feeling to be officially diagnosed. Still, getting some confirmation is nice, and it's a good reminder that I'm not just lazy or insane, since my brain likes to try and convince me I am all the time.

 

So now that I've been officially diagnosed, a few things are happening. First, the doctor I spoke to is going to look into therapists and get me a list. I'll be meeting with her again in about a month, so I'll likely be starting weekly therapy in late July/early August. I also have an appointment scheduled for July 1st with someone who handles medications/prescriptions, and that's when I'll be getting medication to help counter all of this in the short-term, while the therapy helps to address the root of the problem. All this is to say, things are really looking up right now! I still have a bit of waiting to do (and by extension, I still have to ask for all of your patience for just a little while longer), but the ball has started rolling now, at long last.

 

I still haven't quite internalized that all of this is happening. I've been dealing with mental health issues for so long, it's just become a "normal" part of my life, something that never really went away even on the best of days. Heck, even now in the process of getting help, the ~24 hours leading up to all of these appointments always fills me with crippling anxiety and I can barely bring myself to do anything. It's such a big part of my existence that I can't imagine a life where I don't have all of these issues.. and yet, because of all of you, I can actually afford to take the steps necessary to make it happen. It's going to be a long road to fixing myself completely, but getting started is always the hardest part, so things can only get better from here. I don't know if I'll ever be able to truly thank you guys enough for this, and all the other things you've done for us, but as soon as I'm able, I'm gonna do my damn best to try!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone. Gonna be another simple update this week (how many times have I said that by now), but things are proceeding as smoothly as we could hope right now, all things considered.

 

I got about the same amount of writing done this week as last week, so no major improvements on that front, but no backtracking either, so I'm happy with that. I'm nearly done with all of the scripts I wanted for v0.45, so I should be able to send them off to our VAs next week; I'm quickly running out of work I can do outside of the game engine, so fingers crossed I'll be able to get myself back to implementing stuff again soon.
 

I have my doctor's appointment this coming week where we'll be talking about medication (and presumably getting me on a prescription), so I'll finally be starting the road to improvement. It's not going to fix things right away, but it feels good to know that something is happening just around the corner. It doesn't feel like much has happened yet, since it's just been a few appointments and no actual therapy or medication yet, but the real starting point is just ahead and I have high hopes for the future.

 

Aside from me and my work, Orexius is nearly done with all of the Edovex's H-scenes; all of the new BE H-scenes have been done, and he updated the non-BE scene last week as well, which left him with the brand new Duo and Trio scenes this week. The Duo scene is done, and the Trio scene is well underway; after he's done with this, the Edovex's H-scene count will have risen from 1 scene to 6! Big day to be an Edovex fan ? After that, we have some gameplay QoL animations planned that I'm excited to talk about soon. They should make movement in CPE feel even smoother than before.

Red is also making great progress on the Azulisk CG. We had some issues with figuring parts of it out at first, but the rough edges have been smoothed over, and since v0.45 is delayed for an indeterminate amount of time (AKA until I get myself together), it should definitely be done in time. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out, and I hope you guys will like it too!

 

Alright, that's about all I have for this week. Sorry there's nothing to show; the Azulisk scene isn't quite ready for a preview yet, and I don't want to post yet another Edovex preview when we've already showed, what, 3 of them this update cycle? I have high hopes that I'll be able to get myself back to working in-engine soon, though, so the update can at least get closer to being completed.
 

Since this month is about to come to a close, and with it the "normal" deadline for v0.45 will be passing without an update coming out, I do want to remind everyone pledged that if you feel the need to stop pledging at any point, you WILL still get the next update once it releases! I always send the update out to anyone who pledged $10 USD at least once during the update's development, even if they're no longer pledged, so please don't feel like you have an obligation to stay so you can get your rewards, if you aren't comfortable with the speed of development right now! At the end of the day you guys are paying me to develop a game, and I harbor no ill will towards anyone who wishes to unpledge while I figure my mental health out and get things back on track.
 

That being said, to anyone who does stay pledged, you have my eternal gratitude - it's still blowing my mind that after all these years of dealing with depression, anxiety, impostor syndrome, self-doubt, and generally awful mental health, I can finally afford not only the money - but also the time - to see someone about it and try to figure myself out. It means more to me than I can possibly express that you guys have given me this chance, and I can't promise that I'll be able to fix things quickly, but I can promise I won't waste this chance; even if it takes some time, I'm gonna get through this and come out stronger than ever.

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everybody. Continuing the trend of short weekly updates, we have a short weekly update for you today.

To get it out of the way now, I didn't really get any work done this week. I spent a good amount of the week anxious as hell about my appointment, which is pretty much how all of the appointments have gone so far, and it makes it hard to get even regular around-the-house stuff done since my stomach is busy being figuratively twisted into a knot. I've always had anxiety problems with upcoming events, but I think COVID and the complete at-home isolation that came with it made it even worse, so that's fun. I'm so sorry I continuously have very little to deliver, as far as game news goes, but I'm trying my best to not feel too bad for it; you've all been so incredibly understanding and supportive that it's honestly helping me not feel like a complete piece of shit every waking moment like I usually do when updates are bad, so right now I'm just going to try and do what you've all been telling me to do, and focus on my mental health and getting better.

The good news on that front is that the appointment happened a few days ago, and I am now officially on an antidepressant. The medication they prescribed me is primarily an antidepressant, but it's often used to treat all 3 of my major mental health issues (depression, anxiety, ADD), so the doctor wanted to start here in the hopes that one medication + therapy would be enough and that I wouldn't need to worry about taking a veritable cocktail of pills every morning. I started taking it a few days ago, so obviously no effects yet, but the medication is known to start causing changes for some people in as little as a week, with on average 1.5-2 months for the full effects. No way to know yet if I'll feel the effects on the quicker side or if it'll take longer, but it's nice to know there's a possibility that I'll start to see some minor improvements soon. Even if it takes on the longer side, though, this is the first real, actionable change that's happened since I started pursuing mental health care, so it's honestly already a pretty big comfort to me. I'll probably be starting therapy late July/early August, and in the meantime I now have something real to do that could result in some positive change. I'm fully prepared for the possibility of this medication not being "the right one", but even if it's not, just knowing that things are finally in motion is already helping me out a bit.

 

Enough about me and my life, though; there's not too much game progress to talk about this week, but I do have one fun thing I want to show off that a few people have been asking for for a long time. 

We're adding xrays/internal shots to CPE! Orexius has animated one for the Edovex H-scene (featuring double penetration in the trio scene), and we'll be using the base animation he created to go back and add them to all penetration H-scenes in the game. This will be a toggleable option, so if you don't like xrays in your porn then you'll be able to turn it off. We also do not plan on having oral xrays at the moment, just downstairs penetration. All of the xrays probably won't be done in time for v0.45, since there's plenty of other work for Orexius to do, so we'll be working on adding all of them over the next update or two.

 

Alright, that's it for this week. I've been saying thanks a lot lately, but it's because I truly mean it - not a lot of people in the USA are able to afford proper healthcare, and the only reason I'm able to finally start working on my life-long mental issues is because of all of you. It's not only the financial support, though, you've all been constantly cheering me on, giving advice, and reminding me that it's okay to take the time I need to figure all of this out. I probably won't ever have the words to thank you all properly, but I'll keep doing my best to work on my issues so we can keep on delivering you not only this game, but many more after it. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you with another update next week. ❤️

[Anon_42]

Hey dudes, sorry about not posting last week's update here, I wasn't in a particularly good state at the time and I forgot to post anywhere but Patreon. I'm gonna go ahead and post both last week's and this week's updates at once here, so you can read them both if you missed either.

 

7-10-2021

Hey everyone. This weekly update is going to be very short, apologies to anyone who was hoping for more.

Orexius is nearly done with the Edovex trio and xray cumshot (we'll be posting something about this on Discord soon, to get feedback from our Patrons there), and Red is progressing smoothly on the Azulisk scene; we have a few changes left, but the character art is nearly done, and then it's just background and final tweaks and it'll be done.

For me, this week was... rough, to say the least. A combination of the depression and side effects from starting medication, probably. My sleep has been terrible, my mood is by far the worst it's been, sometimes even just feeding myself has been a struggle. I'm sorry there's not anything from me in terms of development this week, I'm just trying my best to get through these side effects right now. They said 2-4 weeks for side effects to subside and start feeling the benefits, so hopefully there will be some improvement next update, but we'll have to wait and see. Sorry again there's not a longer update, I really appreciate all of your patience while I'm dealing with this.

7-17-2021

 

Hey everyone, gonna be another quick update this week because I don't have too much to talk about. I took this week off again, and the good news is that it seems like I'm over the worst of the side effects. That first week was absolutely miserable, one of the worst mental/emotional states I've ever been in, but this last week I've been feeling pretty much neutral, which is a big step up. I'm not sure if I'm actually feeling the positive effects yet or if I just feel good because I'm no longer feeling terrible - "neutral" is fantastic after hitting such a low point, after all - but I guess it doesn't really matter which? I felt pretty good for the latter half of this week and that's what matters. Hopefully it only continues to get better from here.

I have a check-in with my mental health doc in a few days, and I believe that's when we'll be talking about therapy options, so I should be getting a therapy schedule going soon. I can't say I'm really excited about it, but not because I have anything against therapy, quite the opposite - my problem is that appointments of any kind (like my upcoming check-in, or something like a flight) give me horrific anxiety, especially the day before the appointment. It's bad enough that it feels physically painful sometimes, and the thought of having an appointment every single week sounds like my own personal brand of hell. On the other side of the coin, I've always wanted to go to therapy and I'm so glad I can finally afford to do it, so it's a weird conflicted mix of the two feelings. I brought this up with my doctor when I talked with them the first time, and they suggested the idea that it'll get easier the more often it happens, which is definitely true in my experience - I had frequent chiropractic appointments for a while after my car accident a few years ago, and I don't remember having issues with that - so I'm just going to have to power through the anxiety for the time being. If it doesn't get better (either on its own or with the medication I'm on now), then I can talk about it with them further and try to figure something out. For now it's just another hurdle to overcome.

 

Anyway, that's all I have to talk about regarding me right now. As far as CPE goes, there's not too much to say since I took the week off again - though I'm going to sincerely try to get at least SOME work done again this week, since my mental state is on the upswing at the moment. In the meantime, Orexius and Red are still hard at work; Red is continuing work on the Azulisk CG in his limited free time, and we've got a WIP background now, so one step closer to completion. Orex finished up all of the Edovex animations this week, including the xray and xray climax animations, so he'll be moving on to more xrays for other enemies, and some gameplay QoL animations I wanted to experiment with. I'll have more to share on that soon, once we get the chance to tinker with it a bit.

And that's about it for this week's update. Thank you for reading, and for continuing to overload me with kind and supportive messages; I don't respond to all of them and I'm sorry for that, I'm not great at socializing and putting myself out there, but every single one of your messages truly means the world to me. It's easy as a content creator to assume that people just care about the content and not the person behind it, but everything you've all done and said since I opened up about my depression has proven that that couldn't be further from the truth. It's yet another reason for me to want to get better, so I can make sure your kindness and encouragement isn't wasted!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone. Yet another pretty short update this week, though there is a pretty rad animation Orex made this week that I'll be sharing.
 

First off, my personal week. It was a pretty decent one. I didn't manage to get any work done like I was hoping, but I'm trying to be alright with that - even though I've had a lot of time "away from work", so to speak, most of it up until now has been spent in a depressive state, so it hasn't exactly been restful. This week I felt pretty decent (aside from the continued extreme anxiety when I have an appointment coming up), but once I tried to start working this week and was still struggling with it, I also realized that I only just started feeling decent again, so I figured giving myself a bit more of a break would be a good idea.
 

So aside from the lack of work, I had another meeting with my psychiatrist this week. We talked about how things have been going for me, what changes I want to try and work towards, and she gave me a list of therapists to look into. I'll be doing some research this week to try and decide who I want to work with out of the 5 options she gave me; I'm not sure how long it'll be after I decide who to go for before I actually start having therapy sessions, but in the meantime, my psychiatrist worked with me to set up a list of small goals for me to accomplish before I meet with her again in a month, to help me get out of the stagnation of my comfort zone in a healthy, sustainable way. She continues to be a wonderful person to work with; when we were figuring out those goals, I was a bit overambitious with some of the things I wanted to accomplish, and she was quick to pull me back from those when necessary. After she discussed that, and why she pulled me back from it, I'm starting to get the feeling that "expecting too much to quickly" has been one of my key struggles with making positive changes in my life; I expect a lot out of myself, and when I fail to meet those expectations, I struggle to find the motivation to keep trying.
 

I'm going to keep taking it easy for a little while longer; I plan on trying to do some small work on personal for-fun projects, and if that goes well and I'm feeling productive then I'll try working on CPE too, but I don't want to force myself just yet. It still hasn't been a full month since I started taking the antidepressants, so it's entirely possible the effects will become even more pronounced over the next week or two. I have another appointment with the doctor who prescribed my medication very early next month; this medicine definitely seems to be helping with my depression, but so far I don't feel like it's doing anything for my ADHD/anxiety, so if that continues I'll probably talk to her about trying out adding another medication on top of the one I'm taking. The one I'm on now is only approved for depression, it just also has the side effect of often helping people with ADHD/anxiety, so it was a 50/50 shot whether it would help me with those too, and not a big surprise if it doesn't.

Anyway, that's about all I have regarding myself this week. Before I end this post, though, Orexius has been working on learning some special effects animation (which was previously one of the few remaining animation/art things I still handled personally), and he took the time this week to go back and animate a new explosion effect for the Seeker Mines you encounter in the game's underwater sections.
 

For comparison's sake, I grabbed an older gif showing the OLD version of the mine's explosion animation:

 

And here's the NEW animation:

 

Obviously the new animation lacks the ingame context, but hopefully you're as big of a fan of it as I am! After seeing this, I'm pretty stoked to have Orex go back and update some of our other special effects to be fancier. Much like my character animation work from the early days of CPE, it wasn't bad per se, but my animations and effects tended to be pretty basic. I'm not an animator, and there's a level of quality and flair Orex brings to the presentation that I have a difficult time reaching when I do artwork. Basically what I'm saying is, Orexius is awesome.

 

Alright, that's it for me for this week. Thank you all for reading, and for continuing to be so supportive and kind! I've said it before, but all of your kind words and reassurances really do help me to not feel so guilt-ridden when things don't go according to plan. After talking to my psychatrist, I'm going to try and put a little less pressure on myself, and try to find victory in even the smaller things, so I can work towards a healthier relationship with my work and life. Thank you again for reading, and we'll see you again in next week's update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone, sorry I missed the update yesterday. To be honest, I didn't even realize it was Saturday, my mental clock is super off right now. Gonna be more or less another personal update this week, though I do have an update to that explosion animation from last week! We got some feedback and Orexius decided to tweak it some more, and now it looks even cooler than before. I'll have that later in the post, so feel free to skip there if you don't want to read personal stuff.
 

I've been doing a little work on personal projects like I mentioned last update, and the good news is I haven't forgotten how to program lmao, so that's reassuring. Right now my biggest struggle is just, getting myself to start working in the first place. There are so many days where I'll wake up feeling ready to work, get ready for the day and head down to my computer, sit at my desk, and then just kinda.. freeze up. My motivation slips away completely as soon as I can actually put thoughts into action, and it's immeasurably frustrating.
 

I have an appointment with my medicine doctor this week, so I'll be discussing my thoughts on the medicine I'm on now with her; I think I've talked about it before, but basically it feels like it's definitely helping with my depression, but it hasn't done anything for the anxiety/ADD - which isn't surprising, since depression is the only one of my symptoms it's clinically approved to treat. It often helps patients with the other two things, but not always. It certainly hasn't been a magical "happy pill" or anything like that, but it's kind of amazing how much of a difference it makes day-to-day. Before, when something bad happened on any given day, it would typically ruin my entire day. I couldn't pick myself out of that emotional slump until I slept and basically had a hard reset. Now that I'm taking medication though, of course I still have bad days sometimes, and I still get sad sometimes, but it doesn't seem to consume me in the way that it used to. I'll take an hour to myself, sometimes more sometimes less, and then I'll be okay again. Basically, I feel like this medication has just allowed my brain to remain at a "neutral" state in a way that I just plain wasn't able to do before.
 

So, once my appointment comes, my core goal is to talk to her about ADD medication options. I know that the "getting started" problem is a common one with ADD, and it's been one of my main struggling points with developing CPE as a whole, not just in these last few months. It's kinda weird, as an adult I basically "forgot" I was diagnosed with ADD as a kid, because I haven't been treated for it in any way for the past ~15 years. I didn't literally forget, but I never considered it at all when thinking about all of the things I've struggled with over the years. Instead, I just convinced myself that I wasn't trying hard enough, which is.. just about the most unhealthy mindset possible, especially for neurodivergent minds. This appointment is very early in the week, so I might have something to report by the next update, with any luck - some ADD medications start working immediately, so it will depend on what she puts me on.

 

Anyway, that's enough personal stuff for this week. Orexius has been working on more xray animations, as well as updating all of the Underwater Mine animations (not just the explosion). He's also working on an alternate Ledge Grab animation, for ledges where Alicia doesn't have a foothold, since the current animation looks a little silly in those cases. The only animation I'm showing off this week is the updated explosion, though:

The effect from last week is still there, with a few minor tweaks, but there's another layer on top that should make the effect read much more as an "underwater" explosion specifically.
 

Alright, that's all I have for this week. Hopefully you're not tired of hearing me say thank you yet, because - seriously - thank you all so much for sticking with us. I know CPE development is in a bad place right now, but it means the world to me that you guys are giving me the time I need to deal with all this. I feel like I'm finally on track to get back into development soon, especially if ADD medication works out. There's a LOT to do once I get back to it, so don't expect another playable update to come out very soon even if I do get going right away, but if all goes well then CPE development should be a lot more consistent once I finally am back behind the wheel. Here's hoping we have something good to share next week!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey guys, sorry I missed Saturday again - I swear my mental clock is stuck a full day off right now and I keep not realizing what day of the week it is. This will be an entirely personal update, pretty much; I don't really have anything to share on the development side of things. Orexius has been working on more xray animations, and I'm still trying to get my mojo back, so this will just be an update on me and my health.
 

So to start off, I had my appointment with my medication doc this week. My main concern was, of course, getting ADD medication, and after going through all my options, we ended up settling on one of the few non-stimulant medications available. While she was doing my checkup, she noticed I have a very high resting heart rate, around ~115, when the average adult should be between 60-100. I asked her if it was because of how out of shape I am, and she said that just being out of shape shouldn't be enough to make my resting heart rate that high, so there's probably some underlying cause there in addition to my poor health. She wants me to get an EKG, but she wasn't sure what the cost of that was, so she said she would find out how much it would cost me and let me know at our next appointment. I do plan on getting insurance once I start seeing a therapist, so I can find an insurance plan that works with both my doctor and my therapist, so worst case scenario I can wait until after I have that to get the EKG if it's too expensive out of pocket. In the meantime, because of the high heart rate, she's not comfortable putting me on any stimulant medications; combining a stimulant with the antidepressant I'm on can sometimes make people jittery, and she said it could be potentially dangerous before we know what's going on with my heart rate. Thus, the non-stimulant.
 

The unfortunate part is that the stimulants are the ones that tend to work immediately. The medication I started on, being a non-stimulant, is like the antidepressant in that it takes a while to start working - pretty much the exact same timeframe, too, 4-8 weeks for the full effects. I won't know for a few weeks if it's helping with my ADD or not, and until we figure out what's going on with my heart, I won't be able to try any of the stimulant varieties. I've been on this new pill for most of this week, and the good news is I'm not getting horrible side effects like I did with the antidepressant. I got really nauseous one afternoon, but that's about it, and laying down for a while thankfully shook it off.

 

The one piece of good news I can relay about Crisis Point is that, while I haven't been actively working on the game in-engine, I have been spending a lot more time thinking about/mentally planning the game lately. I can tell my mental state is getting considerably better, both because of the antidepressant and because I've been trying out some new hobbies lately to try and refresh myself. This was a REALLY busy and stressful week for me, but I find myself able to handle stress better than I used to, so I'm still feeling pretty okay despite that. I wish I had gotten myself to work on CPE this week, but my motivation feels like it's coming back slowly but surely, and I'm confident that whether or not this ADD medication works, the coming weeks will have me back at my work desk - maybe not at full speed yet, but I'm positive that I'm going to feel up to making progress again soon.

 

Seriously, everyone, thank you so much for putting up with this hiatus for such a long time. Even though we still have some content coming in from Orex, I'm the main workforce behind CPE, and I'm sure having the game stall for so long is just as frustrating for you as it is for me. I say this every week, but I really can't thank you all enough for allowing me to put myself above the game for a while. I've been pushing my mental health aside for years so I could focus on the game, and I'm sure that's part of how it got to a boiling point like this. I may not be fully back in action yet, but with my mental health steadily climbing back up again, I'm just grateful that my unhealthy mental habits didn't push me so far that there was no coming back. As far as I'm concerned, I've gotta have the best fans in the world, and I can't wait to get back to delivering you guys the content you all deserve.

[Phantasmo27]

Mental health is super important, so I'm glad to hear that you're getting help. 

 

I just wanted to mention, as one of the people who has been following this thread for a while, I hope that you don't take the lack of replies here as a lack of interest. I read and appreciate all of the updates that are posted (even if there isn't much to update on, still posting regular updates is very much appreciated).

 

This game looks awesome, and I guess the main reason why I haven't commented until now was that I'm mostly just waiting for the finished version - I've played too many early access games at this point and I just don't have the time to commit to them anymore (so I'm trying to budget the time I have towards finished games). I'm probably not the only one, but just wanted to say that I am really looking forward to playing this someday.

[taksan99]

Hi, I am one of the Japanese people who are waiting for this game to be completed (I am using my game's walkthrough site to promote this game ).

 

I was really impressed by the erotic animation of the dots. The quality is high. On the other hand, I liked the CG style of the illustrator who created the CGs for "Warped Soldier" and "Warped Scientist" because it was the most suitable for this game. And simply as a game (Metroidvania), I thought it was very complete.

 

Please don't let the pressure get to you and keep developing at your own pace. And by all means, come to Steam. )

I am using a translation. I apologize if I am rude.

[Anon_42]

On 8/9/2021 at 2:06 PM, Phantasmo27 said:

Mental health is super important, so I'm glad to hear that you're getting help. 

 

I just wanted to mention, as one of the people who has been following this thread for a while, I hope that you don't take the lack of replies here as a lack of interest. I read and appreciate all of the updates that are posted (even if there isn't much to update on, still posting regular updates is very much appreciated).

 

This game looks awesome, and I guess the main reason why I haven't commented until now was that I'm mostly just waiting for the finished version - I've played too many early access games at this point and I just don't have the time to commit to them anymore (so I'm trying to budget the time I have towards finished games). I'm probably not the only one, but just wanted to say that I am really looking forward to playing this someday.

No worries at all; I love getting comments, but I know full well that a lot of people prefer to lurk, and that's completely fine. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment despite that, it means a lot! I look forward to the day when you get to play it as well ?
 

On 8/11/2021 at 6:20 AM, taksan99 said:

Hi, I am one of the Japanese people who are waiting for this game to be completed (I am using my game's walkthrough site to promote this game ).

 

I was really impressed by the erotic animation of the dots. The quality is high. On the other hand, I liked the CG style of the illustrator who created the CGs for "Warped Soldier" and "Warped Scientist" because it was the most suitable for this game. And simply as a game (Metroidvania), I thought it was very complete.

 

Please don't let the pressure get to you and keep developing at your own pace. And by all means, come to Steam. )

I am using a translation. I apologize if I am rude.

Thank you so much for the kind words, and for helping promote the game!! I'm flattered to know that even people who don't speak english are enjoying it! We definitely plan to put the game on Steam once it's complete, too!



 

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone, sorry there was no update last week! I wasn't intending to skip it, it just sorta happened - you ever have that problem where you mean to respond to a message from someone, but you forget, and then hours later it feels weirdly late and awkward to respond, so you wait more, and ultimately end up not responding at all? It's that sorta thing. I really need to work on that lol, another thing to bring up with the eventual therapist.
 

So the new medication, the non-stimulant ADD pill, hasn't really made much of a difference for me unfortunately - I haven't felt any side effects really, but also no real benefits. Some basic googling tells me that non-stimulant medications tend to be much less effective at treating ADD, so I'm not too surprised by it, it just means I need to get that EKG done so we can figure out if taking a stimulant would be safe for me.
 

I haven't really done any work yet, but there has been one.. let's call it interesting.. development, that doesn't really pertain to CPE itself but will be relevant for my future games. It won't really change anything on your end as players, but the engine that I work with recently announced they're shifting their pricing model, and instead of being one-time purchases, they're going subscription-only. Personally, I can't stand subscription-only business models for programs, especially not ones you have to use for your job, so basically I'm ditching it and moving to a new engine lmao. CPE will be finished in the current engine, so it's not going to affect that - they're honoring all previous permanent licenses, so nothing is changing for me in the immediate future - but when they inevitably release a new version of the engine it'll be subscription-only, and I ain't dealing with that. I've been tinkering with Godot a bit the past week, and it's super promising, so I'm strongly leaning towards changing over to Godot for future games. It's completely free and open source, so there's no risk of them pulling shit like this in the future.
 

Anyway, aside from the engine stuff and the medicine not really helping, things have been going pretty well thankfully. I've been trying to cook a little more and eat a little healthier (key word: a little), and once Puffernutter's ankle heals (she got a pretty bad twisted ankle about a week ago), we plan on starting up exercise again. I still feel bad about not getting anything done for CPE, but it's felt good to focus on real life for a bit, now that my mental state has evened out a lot more.
 

CPE hasn't been completely idle, though; Orexius has been powering through more and more xray animations, and we now have xrays for the tentacles, warped sentries, scientists, and poison alraune. Red has officially finished up the Azulisk CG, too. I still haven't sent scripts off to our VAs yet, so I plan on doing the little remaining script work I have over this next week, so I can send it to them and give them time to record. I meant to do that several weeks ago, but yeah, things weren't going so great several weeks ago. I have a friend visiting from out of town this week, so I'll be spending some time with them, but they're not going to be here 24/7 so I'll definitely have time to do a bit of writing.
 

I also have two doctors' appointments this week, one of which is a followup with my medication doctor, so I'll be able to find out if I can afford that EKG or not. Even if I can't afford it now, I'll be able to in the near future - I finally picked out a therapist and sent them an appointment request this week, though it was only a few days ago so I haven't heard back yet. Knowing that I'll be seeing a therapist weekly, I intend on getting on insurance as soon as the enrollment period opens. Irritatingly, one of the enrollment periods just closed like.. a week ago, so it'll be a while before I can sign up for that, but in the worst case scenario I'll be able to afford the EKG once I get that going. Because of the nature of insurance and deductibles and shit, I plan on going crazy with medical care in 2022, and trying to get all sorts of my issues figured out. I haven't really talked about any of it, but I have loads of minor physical problems in addition to the mental ones; it's all stuff I've learned to live with, but it would be lovely if I could sort it out, so that'll be a big goal for next year.

 

Alright, I've rambled just about enough for two weeks worth of personal updates, huh? Sorry again about missing last week, I'll try not to let that happen again in the future. Thank you all so much for continuing to read these updates, even when they're not really about the game! Sometimes it's easy to forget how many people are following my work, since comments are usually pretty quiet when things are going well, so I really appreciate all the comments and well wishes you guys have been sending me regularly. It makes this whole thing feel like it matters a lot more, and has me looking forward to the day when I can not only get back to work, but can do that work better than I ever could in the past when I was struggling with all this. See you all again in next week's update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey all, gonna be another entirely personal update this week. My week was a lot busier than I realized it would be, between the two separate appointments (and the anxiety that came with them) and my visiting friend, who I thankfully got to spend a lot more time with than I expected. They were visiting from the other side of the USA, and they're in college right now so it's not a trip they can make often, so I'm really glad we got to hang out so much, and we had a great time. I didn't have the time for the CPE scripts I was planning to work on, but the good news is most of the script writing for this update has been completed for a while, so there's not too much left to do once I have the time for them.
 

So, healthcare update time. I haven't heard back from that therapist yet, so I'll be contacting them again soon to hopefully get that going. Until then, my behavioral doc is seeing me monthly to basically fill the place of a therapist temporarily, so I'm not navigating this completely alone. It's going well and she's helping me take some steps towards getting out of my comfort zone, but I won't talk about that side of things more than that; it's a little too personal, and also pretty boring. For the medication side of things, though, I was thankfully able to get the EKG as hoped - it was much cheaper than I feared it might be, and the results came back good. I do have a high heartrate as we already knew, but the EKG didn't show anything unusual or concerning beyond that. With that result, my medication doc cleared me for stimulant usage, and I started taking them just this morning. So far I don't feel too different, but I do feel a bit more alert than usual - I talked to Orexius about it as well, since he started taking stimulants several months ago, and he also didn't feel very different when he got on them, aside from the benefits when he's actually working. I think I already feel a bit of a difference there, too; normally I put off writing weekly updates for a while, but I was able to get into it much more easily today, so that bodes well.
 

Since I only just started with the stimulants today, I don't know if there's any noticeable side effects yet, or how effective they will be, but I should have more to report on that next week. Plus, even if this kind isn't the right one for me, now that I'm cleared for stimulants we have a lot of other medications we can try, so it's only a matter of time until we find one that feels right!
 

Aaaand that's pretty much all there is to report. Now it feels like we're really getting things moving, and I'm really excited to see how I'm feeling by the end of the year. I'm going to wait a few days before I try diving into work again, so I can get used to the new medication and see how it makes me feel outside of the context of work, but at some point during this next week I'm going to give a "normal workday" a try, and then we'll go from there. Thank you all so much, again, for your incredible patience during this - it's safe to say that all of you are directly responsible for me being able to take this time to work on my mental health, not only because of the financial side of things, but also just because you've been so accepting and supportive of me taking this break from development. I can't imagine what it would've been like if I was dealing with this and a standard 9:5 dayjob, and I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you for the opportunity you've given me. You guys are the real MVPs here. We'll see you again in next week's update, and it's one I'm very hopeful for!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everybody! It finally happened this week. I was able to wake up in the morning feeling ready to go, make my way down to my desk, and actually successfully work for the first time in months! As you can probably tell, I'm feeling pretty pumped. I wanted to give myself some time to adjust to the medication, so I didn't work for the first half of the week; it was on Thursday that it happened, and so far, every day since then I've also been able to work. I think I might have pushed myself a bit too far yesterday, I was pretty tired by the end of my workday and I felt like I was going to delay the weekly update to Sunday since I wasn't feeling up to recording footage at the time - but when I woke up today I felt much better, so here we are! I'm going to try and limit how much time I spend working for a while, so I don't push myself too far and end up going backwards, but it really does feel incredible to be creative again.

 

With that, I don't have too much else to talk about on the personal side this week, so let's get to the update!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7_2SSzKt48

First off, the video up above. How often has it happened while you're playing Crisis Point that you try to jump up to a ledge, but just barely don't make it, so you have to wait for Alicia to fall down far enough for you to ledge grab, then you can finally jump up? Well, it happened to me one too many times for my taste, so we're fixing it!

 

Once Alicia gets the Kilogrip upgrade, in addition to being able to normally ledge grab, she'll also get the ability to quickly parkour-vault up onto ledges she just barely didn't make it to. Since you need the Kilogrip first, you won't be able to do this right out of the gate - and it doesn't enable you to reach any ledges you couldn't already reach by ledge grabbing - but it improves the flow of platforming considerably! The animation doesn't lock you into it either; there's a short period at the start where you can't shoot, but that's the only restriction. You can cancel out of the animation at any time by pushing away from the ledge, and once you're up on the ledge you can start shooting again. There's still some work to do on the ability - as you can see the art isn't complete, for one, and there's also quite a number of bugs still - but the main functionality is done, and the issues will get ironed out before long.

 

 

The other thing I worked on this week is another ability I've been considering for the Iron Boots. Previously, the Iron Boots only let you sink in water and that was it - now, they have a second ability: an air slam attack!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ioFGYg0frY

 

This one is still VERY WIP right now, there will be special effects and whatnot. Functionally, the air slam serves as a way to descend quickly (which also helps you control your movement underwater better), and it also allows you to bounce off enemies while dealing melee damage if you slam into them! The latter functionality hasn't been implemented yet, which is why it doesn't show up in the video. I'm hoping to use this to make early underwater exploration more enjoyable, as well as implement some fun enemy-based platforming challenges.

 

 

And that's all for this week! It feels almost strange to be able to write a normal weekly update for once, but strange in a good way. Feels like things are finally getting somewhat back to normal. I still have a long way to go to be "healthy" - I don't think I've been mentally or physically healthy since well before starting Crisis Point, honestly - but this is a really big step forward, and I owe it all to you guys. Combining my already-bad mental health with the stress and burnout of working on the same project for such a long time brought me to a really bad place, and the only reason I'm here now, able to start recovering and trying to reach a happier place in life, is entirely because of you all. Thank you guys so, so much. I owe you more than I'll ever be able to repay, but I'll do my best to repay it by making Crisis Point the best game it can be! We'll see you next week with another update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey everyone, I don't have too much to talk about this week. Like I talked about in last week's update, I'm trying to limit the amount of time I spend doing work for now - the last thing we want when I'm finally making progress is to push it too far and end up going backwards.
 

This week, I pretty much just continued working on the same things from last week, the ledge vaulting and slam attack. They might have looked fairly complete in last week's update (aside from the WIP animations), but there were lots of bugs and missing functionality, which is what I worked on this week. The slam in particular had some annoying issues when trying to bounce off of slimes that were on the ground, so it took a good bit of tinkering to get it all working properly. It's nearly finished now, I just need to make it actually deal damage to enemies, and do some more testing to make sure everything is working as intended.
 

Aside from work this week, I had another doctor's appointment, this time a followup with my general doctor. We mostly talked about my high heart rate (and I scheduled another visit for some other health issues I want to talk about), but there's not too much to talk about there. I've been measuring my heart rate at home, so I can confirm that it does reach the ~110-120 range that they measured, even when I'm at home, but my heart rate was actually a little lower this time than the last few visits which is good. Still too high, but it wasn't at the 120 they've been measuring the last few times. My appointment anxiety is getting better, too; it's still there, but I'm starting to be able to deal with it better and not get quite as worked up. Anyway, she's going to give me a referral to cardiology so I can get more thorough testing, probably using a holter monitor, and then we can figure out where to go from there.
 

I'm going to continue taking it slow with work - I'm paying a lot of attention to my brain when I'm working, and any time it starts feeling stressed or overwhelmed I stop - but it feels really good to actually be able to work semi-regularly again. My mental break happened pretty much immediately after the last CPE update came out, so unfortunately the next one is still a ways off - I'm basically starting at the very beginning of the update development process, and I'm not going to be working as much as I was before. I just want to be upfront about that so you guys know it'll be a while, even though I'm able to work again now. I'm also thinking about streams, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be doing them again any time soon - I think I want to wait until I can consistently work for several hours straight without stress, so I'm not just streaming for an hour or two then stopping. I'll keep you updated on that in the weeks to come, maybe something will change.

 

And that's about all I have to talk about today. Thank you so much for reading, and for being such incredible supporters! I don't know where I'd be without you guys; most people don't get the luxury of being able to essentially take a 4 month break from work for mental health reasons, and the fact that I was able to do that is just.. still mindblowing. You guys are absolutely amazing to me, and I will never forget that. Anyway, see you again in next week's update!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our (mostly) weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)
 

Hey guys, sorry I didn't post a weekly update on time! Now that I'm back to work, and trying to not do too much, I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to work around my mental health. I worked for probably 7 hours on Friday, because I felt fine the entire time - but after I was done, it hit me real hard how much of a mental toll that took, and I had to step away for a few days. Sorry about that; I'm all good now, but I'm still learning that I need to be careful with how much I work, even when I feel fine in the moment, so that sort of thing doesn't happen again. I'm going to be changing up my work schedule a bit, but update days will remain Saturday for the time being, so that won't impact much on your end.

 

Just to give you guys a quick update from what went on last week, there wasn't too much - I'm starting to get used to the ADHD meds, and it definitely feels like they're helping with my focus. The 7 hour work day last week was spent doing a big refactoring to our animation system that I've been wanting to do for ages, but stuff like refactoring and rewriting code has always been one of my biggest struggles in development. With the medication though, I had no problem staying pretty focused the entire time, so it definitely seems to do the trick! Aside from the refactoring, I also pretty much finished up the Ledge Vault and Slam abilities. There's still a tiny bit of work to be done on them, mostly bug testing, but they're 95% complete now so I should get some time to work on other stuff this week, like implementing the H-scene xray animations. I'm also planning on doing another refactoring for the H-scene system; as you all know, with last update's refactor, there were some unfortunate crashing issues introduced, and upon reexamining the whole system I realized there's a much better way to handle it that should be easier to work with and avoid crashes. I wouldn't be surprised if I made some stupid mistakes on the last refactor too, since I was heading in a bad mental direction while working on it, and didn't have the benefit of medications.
 

As one small aside, Orexius is basically done with the xray animations now (the only thing left is the Azulisk BE scene); he's working on more special effects now, and I plan to have him work on some less-important animations after, like Alicia idle fidgets, and stuff for the rest of the gang to do back at base camp instead of just standing around. He's still waiting on me to implement the Golem WIP animations in-engine, so he won't work on finishing the Golem animations up until after I get to that.

 

Like I've said before, v0.45 is still a ways off, between me just now getting back to work and needing to take things slow for now. Thank you guys so much for being so patient with this. I was admittedly worried about how it would feel when I finally got back to work, before; I have a tendency to feel real guilty about things when I feel like I've let someone down, and since it's been so long, I had the fear that I'd feel pressured to crunch hard to get the update out in a reasonable time since you've all been waiting so long. After all of your support and kindness, though, I've been able to stay rational and not wreck myself from self-inflicted pressure like I normally would, so getting back to work has been much easier and more enjoyable than I expected. All that to say, thank you again, and I can't wait to deliver you guys more real content! See you again on Saturday!

[Anon_42]

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our (mostly) weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, you can try a free demo of the game on our itch.io by clicking here! If you enjoy the game, please consider supporting us on Patreon! We couldn't make this game without our supporters!)

Hey guys, not much of an update this week (and sorry it was a day late again!) - I had multiple doctor visits this week, so a lot of my time was taken up by appointments (and appointment anxiety), and I didn't get to work too much. The work I did do was mostly on shaders and special effects stuff, mostly for the Slam attack, but I also want to do another pass over most of CPE's special effects now that Orexius has been learning how to animate effects. He's been putting out some excellent effects that I'm looking forward to showing off in future updates!
 

We're also going back and reviewing each area in the game, and seeing where we can improve them visually; the Deep Soil is our first target, because to be honest, the current iteration of the area is basically not at all like I envisioned it, and we want to fix that. I made a lot of mistakes early in development with not writing things down, and not giving my artists enough information to go on, so that's something I'm working on improving. Me and Puffernutter went over the Deep Soil this week and wrote down key points, what improvements we want to make, and gathered references so when she has time to work on tilesets she'll have a much clearer picture of what to aim for, and we plan on doing that for every other area in the game as well. Since I don't have to be very involved in the process, it won't slow down my work much, so don't start worrying this is going to be The Great Rework™ 2.0 or anything like that ?
 

Anyway, aside from the little work I did this week, Orexius started working on some less-necessary animations for the main cast, stuff like Rodriguez using the computer at base camp and Alicia idle fidgets (including a lewd one I think you'll all like). I'll probably show those off in a future update, once we have a handful of them done.
 

Sorry I don't have much more to share, but all the appointments I had really took it out of me. There's not much to talk about regarding the appointments, either; we made a minor change to my ADHD medication (trying out 2 short-term pills per day instead of 1 extended release and 1 short-term, because I wasn't really feeling much of an effect from the extended one), and the rest is going to wait until mid-November to really get anywhere, since I'm waiting to get on insurance once open enrollment starts before doing anything major. I did get blood drawn for an allergy test though, which I've never done before, so it'll be interesting to see if I've been secretly allergic to anything all these years and just never realized it!
 

So that's more or less what happened this week. Sorry again it's such a short post, but I'm all done with appointments for a while now, so I should get some solid work in by next update! Thank you all for reading, and for continuing to be so patient with me as I try and get things back to normal. See you again next update!