Heya. I’m still alive despite being dead silent for a very long while now. I do apologize for that especially to those that were waiting for the update. I can’t really give a worthy explanation. 1. I procrastinated, 2. I Bit more than I can chew, 3. Was actually making/redoing/re-editing/rewriting all the stuff for the game, just at a slower pace. A mix of all three was what’s happening. I’d say my procrastination is probably the biggest part of it, there were months where I made zero progress on it, and only did bonus content. Then there were a couple months where I didn’t release anything at all. I’m embarrassed to say that but it is what I did. I then started to slowly dedicate my time on it, until two months ago when I began super-focused on it and it got done at a rapid pace. So, I’d like to think I’m at a better pace now. Doing a hotfix at the moment(because there are a lot of things I broke in the current patch.)that should be out in a couple days for patrons.

Chapter 2 is divided into 2 parts. The first part is what’s available now for patrons in early access (gold right now, silver and bronze in 5 days). The 2^nd will complete the chapter and is currently being worked on. There will be smaller patches in between that’s focused on bug fixes and fleshing out functionality included in part 1 but these will not include the major content of part2.

What to expect?

Speech Bubbles - I moved all lines of dialogue to the Speech bubble system in Renpy. Again, this is a work in progress. Just this morning I found that the font I chose doesn’t have a hyphen(-) and instead puts a very long space where one should be and I had to fix that for the upcoming hotfix. But I do like it overall. I like how your eyes are closer to the characters who are speaking, and how immediately intuitive it is to determine who’s speaking. I still maintained the colors I used for each character’s name, but this time in their lines.  See below for examples of bubbles in different usages(Say, Narrator, and Thought bubbles.) with some lines from Chapter 2.

A speech bubble for spoken lines of dialogue

A narrator bubble

A thought bubble.

These are implemented in the whole game, not just in the new chapter. Here's a preview of what it looks like in a scene you've seen before.:

(Preview is sped up.)

There are a lot of issues upon implementing this, but I’ve been working on fixing those, by the next couple days, the hotfix should include almost-bug free version of all dialogue and narration now in speech bubble form for early acces. Implementing the speech bubbles required manual placement of each line of dialogue/narration on the screen then picking the type(thought, speech, narrator, etc.). So one possible issue you’ll encounter is that the bubble is offscreen where it will be by default if I didn’t place them. Another is if I mistakenly chose the wrong type (it’s in a thought bubble even though it’s a spoken line.) I’ve been playing and replaying the game start to finish, trying all possible routes, and choices to make sure all unique lines will be placed on screen.   

Let me know what you think. 

There are things I’m introducing that radically change the format – how the story is presented. These are added in part1 but are works in progress….

There are these places:

And this: 

Let's call them "Maps"

You point and click around them, read stuff, interact with people, obtain objects. Again, you can preview it in the patch but it’s not finished. I removed the MC sprite in the middle of the map as I needed to overhaul how it works(kinda want it to move around within the limitations of renpy). Not everything that can be interacted is highlighted. But(since I’m still adding stuff in), not all that are highlighted can be interacted too, not yet anyway. This is part of the effort in adding minor RPG elements into the game. Minor stuff. Not a whole lot. Mostly point and click which unlocks quests and stories which involves more point and click and hopefully unlock some fun CGs. Nothing fancy.

Threads

Oh, speaking of quests/stories, Another element that’s a little RPG is the Threads screen. Threads because not all of it are quest but storylines that you might be interested in following and not really do a lot of questing - just reading. You acquire these by interacting with the map, or making certain choice, obtaining objects, etc.

The preview below has the content removed and replaced with “WIP” for the text, and the thumbnails are placeholders. But it works, it responds to the actions you do in-game and offer hint on what to do next, recap on what just happened and a description. You can preview this in-game but I haven’t populated it with the actual content yet as I’m working on rewriting those. This should be fully fleshed out in part2.

 
Inventory

Finally, another RPG thing I’m adding is an inventory. You’ll be acquiring a few different items in the future, so this is a must. Again, this is working and could be previewed in the current game, but nothing further yet. You cannot interact with the items yet because I still have to add those in. See shot below:

  There’s a not-so-subtle homage to another game, Robin Morningwood, in there with the MC starting to collect people’s underwear. Will he return them? I don’t know. What else would you do with sweaty underwear from hot people? Whatever it is, I haven’t included those yet. (Believe it or not, the most questionable stuff in this inventory is the..........alarm clock....could get you into serious heat with inmates when there's already a tight schedule and a blaring PA system that bursts its own hourly alarms.) Expect a lot of “WIP” signs this patch….  

So, what’s actually in this part 1 patch story-wise?

A big chunk of Chapter2. You can play the story start to finish if you picked the 2^nd choice of the last scene in chapter 1. If you picked the first choice – that route’s still 30% and your game will end abruptly. Still try to play it though, and see hints of where that’s going. But for the longer content, pick the 2^nd option in that last scene in ch1 so you get to play the whole of that route in chapter2. (see screenshot below of the 2 choices of the scene in question. Can't remember what the question was though, but it definitely has something to do with the legs spread apart in the image, I think.)   

There are other things the patch introduces that you’ll notice right away are still WIP and will continue to be added on like the features discussed above. Another is a couple of animations that I'm still finishing. One of them involves a "history" kind of animation that replaces a shot near the end. Right now, its a static shot of Dr. Kent delivering some very very long exposition. That's supposed to be an animation, so that will be added later.

Another bunch of animation still to be finished is an interactive s*x scene with videos - that part's only 30% videos and the rest is still images. I'm still rendering the videos right now, but it's quite a huge video-heavy scene that would have required a few more weeks to complete so I temporarily put still images in there for now. Still, though, you can play it and experience it on this update...   

Finally, some preview images of the main story, I selected 15 of them from this patch(will transfer them to the gallery once the game is available here.):

Jokes aside, ever had some moments where you're so lost in thought you completely ignore a friend trying to console you. While a creep is lurking in the corner? No?

New character. Oh, not really new. You've seen him a few moments ago in a different costume.

Some more magic stuff. Scenes in this island with the clouds and grass combo took the longest to render.

A scene where I had to sculpt their hairs for each new shot to fake being underwater. It looks fun, though. You'll likely revisit these places and these "costumes" in the future.

You don't want people to know it's your birthday in prison. Could somebody be singing him happy birthday? I don't know. That's just a guess.

Hiroki. A teddy bear...

What’s not yet in the patch that should be in part2?

• Rest of the main story: The alternate route(that’s not canon but still very fun isn’t finished here. As I said, the playthrough here is largely dependent on the choice you made in the previous chapter; the canon choice/route is what’s complete now. The 2^nd route that’s incomplete shares a lot of scenes with the first one, it does have unique ones of its own but my point is that it shouldn’t take a lot to finish it, it does have a different ending.
• An important MAP. Remember the 2 maps earlier, there are three in this update, one of them will be the last area you’ll be in. A 4^th very large one of the Prison Facility was removed temporarily. This will be added in part2. It’s large and represents a large portion of exploration in chapter2 that’s still WIP – a lot of sidequests, hangouts and classes. Right now, in the middle part of chapter 2, you’re shoehorned into going from scene to scene no breaks in between. But the finished format would have been that you’ll go from scene to scene by going to the actual places they’re in on the Prison Map. It also means you can go to detours, explore, and meet others. This is the part that’s been delayed so I removed the prison map entirely for now. It should be in part 2. Yes, hangouts with your love interest, as well as classes where you can meet other people are also accessed via the Prison map and are also delayed. This means chapter 2 is very lean and you’ll barrel down through the main story without detours and side storie.
• Side quests/threads. In order to finish the release, I put all of these on the backburner. These will be added in part2.
• Music/sound. I’ve not added that here. I’ve teased about making my own music but that’s taking a lot of time out of doing the visuals so I bought some stuff. Will be adding them in in part2.

That’s it for now for this preview. The chapter is available on Early access right now for Patreon(Gold Tier) will be out for Silver and Bronze in about 5 days. Early access version is 2GB and only for PC and Mac for now. I didn’t compress the images too much, they’re basically identical to the raw images I made.

For the public release here on itch. It should be out a month after the hotfix patch. That’s the tentative date, anyway.

Anyway, thanks for your time reading this….See you soon.