News Update 30(Is my hard drive broken?)

Yep. My hard drive is fucked, totally beyond repair and my files are gone. The universe has officially fucked me in the ass.

So, what exactly did I lose? Not everything, fortunately. I had a lot of code shit on my local disk and everything I didn't have I have just taken from the latest release, no sweat no big deal. Code shit is at %100. That includes the story and writing as well of course, other than a few scenes from the coming update that was lost and have to be rewritten. Not a big deal, a few days work, maybe a week.

Now, the art shit, this is the bulk of what I lost and what I'm most pissed off about. Thousands of CGs and sprites gone to the wind. Now, can i just rip the files from the latest release of the game and get them back? Yes, but those are heavily compressed and useless outside of just viewing them. Can't open them in photoshop or clip studio without doing some conversion shit, which makes editing them in any way a real fucking bitch. However, I can and will still use them for the game releases because they work fine for that purpose. So that's fine.

Now the biggest loss overall is my many source files for the art. The files with all my layers, my backgrounds, my special effects, characters, etc. I have a whole system of files that I use to create the CGs for this game. Character portraits from the front angle, side angle, 3/4 angle all with different expressions for each. Body poses from various perspectives, layered filters that combine to make the special effects, many, many backgrounds that I've been keeping in storage, waiting for the right time to use. All art that I've slowly built up and added to each month over the past year. Using these files in conjunction with the custom art I make for specific scenes is basically how I put together each CG. And it's through this general method that I'm able to make these game releases as quick as they are with as much content as they have. Without it I'd probably only be releasing an update every 3 months or so with maybe 20 or so CGs each release, like most 2D games with a single dev do. Which isn't to throw shade at them or anything, the quality of each CG is generally better than mine. But I like doing things my way, I like growing the game at the pace I'm growing it, which is why I do it the way I do.

Unfortunately with the files I lost that makes things really difficult, because I basically have to redo them all. Well, not all. There is one silver lining. My art program backs up the most recent files that I use onto my local disk, rather than the fucked hard drive, so I have managed to salvage a couple decently important files. But the rest I'll have to remake.

But, what does this mean?

For me? A fuckload more work, that's all.

For you? Not too much.

Rather than fixing it all in one go, I've instead decided to just build it back up over time, like I did originally. Working on them in the background slow and steady, starting with the ones I most need, while I also continue to work on each update.

So that means the update release schedule should remain basically the same as it always has. 1-2 months per update generally, depending on how work intensive each update is. Next update will probably be affected somewhat, but it's also not as huge a workload compared to say the one after it or before it, so it shouldn't really be delayed more than a week if that. No one benefits more than me when it comes to keeping these updates consistent and I'm sure you guys prefer it that way too. So I'll do my best to keep things normal.

And by the time v1.0 comes around, I should be back up to full power, with art that's hopefully better than it used to be, ready for the game's finale.

So yeah, that's the situation and the plan. Game goes on as always at mostly the same speed, maybe a short delay here and there.

See ya later.