Mild/Moderate Chapter Delay!

Here's the super brief tldr!

It's everyone's favorite part of game development! Minor delays! :D  But fear not, of all the many reasons things get delayed, this one's not so bad.

As of right now, Amir's script and coding are complete.  His chapter is also a bit longer than Mori's and includes more world lore and setting information, which I am very excited to share.  What his chapter is still waiting on is several art assets and then me incorporating those into the game as sprites.

So when you have an update delay like this, the worst case scenario is when something big gets added or something and the devs have to commit an unknown amount of time and bugfixing into getting it operational.  In this case, we have a finite, quantifiable list of things which means that even if I don't have an official ETA to completion, the list can only get smaller.  As of today, here's what's on that list:

1. Several Expressions

2. Monster Sprite

3. Chapter CG

4. Implementation (make master sprite, tweak "stage directions", lighting effects)

And that's it!

So now you may  be wondering, why did this chapter experience delay?  Isn't it comparable to Mori's in terms of asset count?

The answer to that is... slightly.  Amir has the same number of faces and general poses as Mori but I went ham with minor upgrades that ended up adding a huge amount of time to the overall workload I saddled Atlas with.  Amir has 3 whole outfits, 3 hairstyles, an alternate arm pose for both poses, plus alternate colorings for that.  Additionally, Amir's poses are so different from each other Atlas had to render most of each outfit 2 times where with Mori it was mostly kept to his arms/upper body.  Also Mori's clothes were significantly less complex.

Each addition added an exponential factor to the amount of time Atlas has to spend on assets and that was an oversight on my part planning this chapter out.  More good news is that as we get ready to start working on Akello's chapter, I won't make the same errors in planning.  Atlas' quality of work is extremely high but for expediency's sake I need to reel it back in a little.

Also regarding Akello's chapter, another silver lining to this delay is that not only can I refine Amir's chapter in the meantime, but I can still go ahead and begin writing Akello's, hopefully minimizing the impact wrapping this up will have on later chapters.

So with all of that said, unfortunately I don't have a hard set ETA to give at this point.  Atlas has a ton of other commitments they're working on- they both go to school and work full time- and they do work on TCM on a commission basis PLUS I really don't want to sacrifice quality for faster turnaround.  I feel it will be at least a few weeks but like with everything, I'll be sure to pass on lots of updates and remain totally transparent with yall.  You've been incredibly supportive and patient, and both of us deeply appreciate it.  So for now, let's give it a few weeks and then I'll do another sort of temperature check and let you know where things stand.

As always, you can always hit me up for questions/comments/feedback here or on discord and please don't be shy, I'm always eager to hear what yall have on your minds!  This post will be set to public but patrons keep an eye out for next week as I have something very exciting to share: Logo roughs from Camille Fortuna!  Help me choose which one is best!

-Sam