Development Of The Next "Demo"

First off, I'd like to give a big thank you to all the patrons that have come and gone since the inception of this project. So much has changed over the course of what's been about 3 years. But despite the new directions I've taken, many of you have stuck around, even through lack of content and the like. It's been a big help, and I've been able to make working on this project the primary focus of my day to day life.

So, I've finally reached a point where I feel content with my skills again. I spent most of the last year learning new skills and honing old ones. The shift in art direction really took me for a ride, but I think the results will be worth the effort. 

I also spent a lot of that time reworking things I'd built previously for the project. The big one of course being the dynamic muscle system. It's come a long way, and even now there are things about it that I want to improve upon. But it's been too long since I've put out anything concrete, and I recognize that. So it's time to start working towards a release.

Over the last month I've come up with a plan, and started development on something that will show off the new art direction, give you a taste of the story of "Strains" and it's world, while also not taking over half a year to develop (hopefully~). I had planned on creating a much simpler release as a kind of render test, but after giving it more thought, it didn't seem like the way to go. This small project is titled "The Portal" and it will highlight a specific snippet of Dizzi's story arc. 

To avoid spoiling anything, I won't go in to detail. But understand that it will not be a very long game at all, nor will there be much depth to it's gameplay. It will however be a bit more involved than the glorified cum factories that were released previously. There will be things to explore, some puzzles to solve, and some secrets to be found.

Being that I'm working on this alone, I can't say for sure what level of quality the game will have, and I can't predict when it will be ready. What I can tell you is that Strains is a dream project of mine, and I will give my all to make sure it's content becomes the representation for my best work.

If you're interested in tracking the progress of "The Portal", I've created a Trello board to help visualize it here: https://trello.com/b/4R9qdYOk/the-portal