Ohhh, hey folks!
How is everyone? Good, I hope?

Well, no matter what the answer to that may be, the one thing that I can guarantee is that I've got a swell treat for you all!

We've reached update 7, and boy, is it one I'm excited about! This just feels like an all-around good one, just a month where everything that was planned worked out pretty smoothly, which is really all you can ask for, isn't it?

So what is it that I'm excited about then? Well, compared to last time, the Story part is the highlight this time around! We've got ~12500 words in this one, and it's one that pushes several characters forward, either with direct important events or by giving them some steps needed for upcoming events. Yes, very happy with it, and I hope you all will enjoy it too.

We also have a little bit of a rewriting of the very initial part of day 1. This is part of a larger plan to reshape that part a little bit. I've grown to quite dislike that part of the story, just... It was bound to be a bit of a mess I guess? I started the project on a whim, I had a tight deadline of about 2 weeks to get something ready before I had to move on, and so in that time I had to figure out how Renpy works, what story I want to tell, the characters for it, everything basically. And while of course the grander idea of it has been floating around for a longer while, it's always something else when you suddenly have to be specific and in a format you haven't worked in before.
Understandably, because of that it is easily the weakest part, and so it will get worked over and shaped into something more worthwhile whenever there is some opportunity.

Art-wise, we do have the usual, we got Perce who gets his sprite (which I guess you'll have to go back to Day 1 to see.), we got the dice scene, and that's about it. A bit light, but with being away for around a week on a vacation, and just focusing a bit more on the writing duties since I wasn't happy with the last update in that regard, It makes sense that something had to take a back seat. And that was Art.
Plans for the upcoming month are to get in another Patreon character from the 25$ subs and hopefully finish the bigger banner image, too. I also have a bit of a special commission, so that one will sneak in as well, even if it's not Conway-related. Oh, and some new silly Maritime Menagerie sketches, of course!

Another cool neat new feature that we have now is that the sprite of the current speaker will be highlighted. Enlarging them a little bit to give a bit of a visual indication of who is talking at any one time.
This one comes courtesy of: https://wattson.itch.io/renpy-auto-highlight

Music! Last but not least we have some musical additions. I've teased the main menu already, but a second addition is hiding somewhere in there.

And I think that's about it. I really hope you'll enjoy it. As I said, I really am excited about this one, and not only because I think it itself is a pretty neat Update, but also because of some of the things it sets up and that are planned. We're really starting to hit the point in the game where the non-linearity of it starts to unfold its strengths, and we can start to make use of some of the things that are being tracked to open up some really fun scenes and situations. So, I think Update 8 and 9 will be really good fun as well!

Thank you very much for playing and I hope you'll enjoy this one!

And hey, of course as always, if you want to go the extra step and support the making of this game then you can do over on Patreon. It'd be greatly appreciated and you can get some neat stuff in return, like of course early access to updates, or even to get your character into the game! Just hit the banner below and it'll take you there. Would love to see you join the community of other lovely folks who help make this game possible!