MNL Progress Report #107

Hey there, nudies! Apologies for the delay - some of us were out on holiday, and we needed a bit more time for debugging and clean-up, because we made some major progress, like the thing you're look at above!

I made that myself! I can do that now!

A bit of explanation - I'm not a programmer. Invertex is the team's sole programmer, and has been the person building everything you see, arranging my writing, Bear's 3D models, Anne's 2D art, and AT's animations all into one playable package. It's been a lot to pile on one person, especially for someone who only just began to learn Godot because of everything that happened with Unity. We needed a way for others, even just me, to be able to get in there and help, though none of us knew anything about Godot to help.

But after a lot of coding, a lot of teaching, and a LOT of set-up, Invertex threw me into the game files and taught me how to make cutscenes in-engine! And it's extremely simple and intuitive and FAST! I actually had a much longer cutscene built for this announcement, but it was too big for a GIF. I'll post the full version on our Discord channel and our Bluesky, so look out for it later!

But yeah, look how simple this is! Before, I had to write out every bit of code to trigger animations and whatnot within the game scripts and then have Invertex translate that in-engine. Now, I can just write the dialogue in-engine myself and select characters, animations, sounds, and everything all from simple drop-down menus! It really couldn't BE easier! In a dialogue-heavy game like this with lots of interactables, it's a simple but time-consuming job that someone like me can now handle, which in turn frees up more time for Invertex to work on stuff like environments and mechanical tweaks!

 That's not all, either! With access to the game files, I can now take my own footage and screenshots without having to bother Invertex to do it! We can also push updates to each other in real-time, so it's easier for me to get new footage out to you all! You've seen the cafe, but have you seen THIS view over here? I bet you haven't!

All in all, this took a lot of time to set up, but it's going to speed things up by a LOT. I'm going to bust as much ass as I can to get all this dialogue and interactables set up! Hoping within the next couple of weeks, we can lock down a potential release date for the demo! We'll see how it goes!

Quick reminder - we brought back the highly requested monthly pin ups and comics!

With Anne on art me and on writing, we'll be doing a little prequel series of pages showcasing Amber's original clothing-less stay in Culo Culo Town! It's not required reading material for the game or anything, but you do get to see a LOT more of Amber! Check them out if you haven't already! We'll be posting one page and pin up per month as we continue to flesh out Amber's backstory. $5 gets you the newest comic page as well as all previous pages, while $10 gets you the comics AND all current and previous pin ups! Up to your pledge at any time to get access to those AND support the game project all at the same time! We need your help to keep this thing going!

That's all for now, though! Thanks so much everyone, and see you next week!

Edit: WHOA! Apologies for the inbox spam, everyone! Looks like Patreon messed up a bit!