Release Week Recap + Beta & Early-Access Announcement!

Hi all. :)

Thank you for your continued support!

EDIT:

Hey, just wanted to inform all of you that the rendering process took a bit longer than expected (again D:).
Because of this, the Early-Access release date has been moved to either the 23rd or the 24th.
I apologize for the delay.
If you'd like to come and test the update, you can join the beta-test on discord (for T3+ patrons).

v0.1.5 is just about done!
Since the last recap, all of the images have been fully produced, and I only have one scene's dialogues left to write.

The rendering process is also going well.
The workplace intro, Charlee's scene and most of the customer events images have been rendered.
Tiffany's scene and the minigame's images are the only things left to render, and thanks to some optimization tricks that I've learned and implemented over the course of this update cycle, they should be ready by the time I finish putting the release together.
Of course, I'm now letting my machine render the remaining images 24/7. :)

Work done this week:

• Finished producing all of this update's images!
• Written dialogues for most of the scenes.
• Re-coded some parts of the minigame.
• Corrected some issues found in a few images.

So, when will the update be playable?
Here are planned release dates!

Beta-test start:  January 19th.

Early-Access Release:  January 21st.

Public Release:  January 28th.

As you can see, this release will have a brief beta-test period.

Since this is the first beta-test I've ever conducted, I've decided to keep it as simple and straight-forward as possible.
In the future, I have plans for multi-phase tests, although I'd like to first see how this beta goes, and if there are any issues that I haven't considered.

The beta will begin on the 19th of January.
Everyone eligible for Early-Access in the month of January (active T3+ patrons) will be able to take part in the test, if they choose to.

This will be a true beta-test, focusing on finding and resolving bugs, typos, rendering glitches, and any other issue that may be found in this release.
For this reason, the Beta build will be distributed via Discord, in the beta-test section that will be made available on the 19th.

While anybody with Early-Access rights will be able to download and play the Beta build with no extra requirements, I suggest joining the beta only if interested in thoroughly testing the release, with the intent of finding bugs, etc.
If you simply wish to experience the new content, I recommend waiting until the start of Early-Access, as you'll be able to enjoy a more polished version of the game. :)

After the beta-test, Early-access will begin.

Early-Access is planned to start on  the 21st of January, unless catastrophic issues are found in the beta-test (but that really shouldn't be the case).

As always, Early-Access will last 1 week, after which the new update will be publicly released.

Anyway, what's in store for the future?

Firstly, the biggest thing that should be happening in the near future, is the purchase of a new, state-of-the-art rendering rig!
I finally have enough money saved up to afford the computer I've been planning to build since I've started developing, and I will make absolutely no compromises.

Although it will come at a hefty price mark-up due to GPU shortages, I will acquire the best hardware available on the market!
The crown jewel will be a soon to be released Nvidia RTX 3090ti, that will be accompanied by an Intel i9 12900k (or the new flagship AMD Ryzen 9 series, if it releases in time), 128gb of RAM and an ample amount of lightning fast SSD storage.

The improvements that this machine will allow me to introduce cannot be overstated.
The visual quality and fine detail of the images will see a huge increase, while rendering times will be greatly reduced.
But perhaps the most significant benefit of all will be the massive speed boost to my workflow, which should allow me to up the number of images I'm able to produce each day.

I would have never been able to afford such a powerful machine without the patrons' support, so I owe you all a big thank you! <3
Your contribution is making the game better! :)

As for the game's content in v0.1.6, most of the scenes will be picked via T2 polls, as usual.
The polls' available options will of course feature the main roster of girls (June, Ruca, Tiffany, Charlee and Angie), and possibly an introductory scene for one of the girls who has yet to receive dedicated content (Jenny, Isabella or Nagi).

Currently, the top pick in the latest T4 poll is to focus on more content for the girls rather than introducing a new system in v0.1.6, so the next update will likely see all development time going towards expanding the stories and daily routine scenes for the girls.

Well, I better get back to work on the last few bits of v0.1.5 now. :D
So...

That's all for this week's recap.

Thank you, have a great week! <3