Faenon
patreon
Weekly update - Nov 1st
🕑 Added 2024-11-01 16:21:21 +0000 UTCI hope everyone had a great Halloween and if you're a parent, you have already made plans to help your kids shrink down the size of their candy stash. It's the responsible parent thing to do :)
To progress.
TL;DR - The finishing line is in sight for Best Friends Chapter 4.
The good news is I'm firmly on schedule, with just 2 scenes (1 is pretty small) left to render out now. After that it's into final end to end testing, and adjustments that come out of that. The target date was Nov 7th and unless something really major crops up during that testing then I will make that at the very latest.
I did want to talk to you all though about one aspect of the development that I am less than happy with. Animations.
Animations are a challenge, I've never been 100% happy with the results I have achieved. If you remember, I had to redo one problematic one in chapter 3. Since then I have changed approach to how I do them. They are somewhat more basic in their application now.
These newer animations are what I would describe as serviceable. To really make them better however will require a significant amount of effort and lock up my rendering rig for prolonged periods.
I have decided to go with this approach to ensure that I can keep the pace of the development going. I have always stated that this VN was very much focused on the story with lewd scenes being used to augment it rather than the end target.
When time permits though, I would like to go back to some of these animations in the future and change/enhance them, I hope you all understand this approach and I totally appreciate your patience you all continue to show.
To end on a happier tone, I am really pleased with how the chapter has turned out, it's hit on a lot of targets that I had set for it. The story IMO is in a good place and I'm set up nicely now to take it to the areas I want to in chapter 5 and beyond.
As always, thank you all for your support, it means the world to me. This time next week Chapter 4 will be complete :)
Comments
Faenon Entertainment
That's good to know Sheldon, thanks for the feedback. I generally make the highest quality version of the game for Patreon. The Itch.io version of Chapter 1 - 3 is considerably smaller at the cost of image quality. I don't upload that version here but is there is a desire for it, I certainly can do.
Sheldon Hurd
I Totally agree. I, for One, am not a fan for the need for animation. Especially IF it causes unnecessary delays. IF there Is No need for it, and it does NOT progress the story, don't bother! Plus, I am also Pro less MB's. Both for us, the players, to have to DL and for the DEV. (larger or smaller Updates) to Upload. This Might be a bad example, not sure, but TG Trinity does Both. Some animation, and progressive TF strips (15-20 frames/renders for One TF scene) which accomplishes the same point (But adds more MB's) sometimes it is too much...
Faenon Entertainment
Thanks gamelover, good to hear :)
Gamelover
Also agree with reebone
Faenon Entertainment
That's great to hear reebone, thanks for the feedback.
reebone
I prefer faster updates over high quality animations. Better animations could be added in the end.
