Hello everyone! First monthly recap of 2024 and it's kind of a big one!

The What:
Due to a combination of factors, including more engine difficulties and Rob having an injured wrist, we're delaying the launch date of the game.

The Why:
Well! It's a couple reasons. The BIG one is Rob's drawing hand & wrist is not doing too hot and we don't want to push that. Even if they healed completely in the next two weeks, we'd still be looking at a massive crunch to get things done and it might STILL be down to the wire. Which would only increase the odds of them re-injuring themself. And I know we all don't want that!

Also, I'm still having issues with the engine and have to accept some harsh truths. There was an update a couple of days ago that kind of borked the save/load feature I'd been working on. We got it figured out (it was a combination of the update messing things up and also me misunderstanding some of the features (hey I'm learning!)) but to be honest this isn't the first time an update has nerfed an aspect of the project. I've had to remake sprite objects because the engine suddenly stopped reading it after an update. (And going by the forums... we've been on the lucky end of update-related errors.)

So, since we're going to be slowing production down anyway, I'm going to take some of this time to look at other options. I still stand by my initial reasoning and decision to do this in Gdevelop. I wanted to get more familiar with the engine and learn it and I have! Not only that but I've gotten much more comfortable with the logic behind programming and trial and error-ing things and just the overall process.

But also.. I'm kind of reinventing the wheel here. A lot of my time is spent creating things that come out of the box with other engines. History log, back button, save/load, galleries...  I wanted to learn some stuff and I have and one of those things is to acknowledge that there are certain tools for certain jobs. Gdevelop is not the tool for a visual novel.

The When:
At this point in time it's hard to say for sure what Rob's recovery plan looks like but I think a Summer 2024 launch date is doable! Especially since changing engines will free me up to focus on plugging the story script in and not trying to engineer a responsive scrollbar from scratch. (It is... surprisingly difficult. Scrollbars get no love. I see you scrollbars. I love you scrollbars.)

Going Forward:
Weekly progress reports on Tumblr will likely slow down or become much more sporadic as I don't anticipate having much to report on a weekly basis for a bit. However the monthly recaps will still happen and we should have a better idea of the timeline by the end of this month.

Because my brain doesn't work right unless I'm doing 17 things at once, I will likely be poking some smaller side projects during this time, especially once I reach a stopping point with Omamori while Rob heals (I can get but so far without them!) So if you see posts about other projects don't fear! Omamori is not being abandoned! The script is finished and it's a story we really want to share with y'all and we're going to do that one way or another.

As always, feel free to ask any questions here in the comments, on Tumblr, or in our askbox! Don't hesitate to send strong healing vibes Spirit Bomb-style to Rob as well!

See ya next month!