Chapter Twenty-one (0.21.0) Update #2

And here we are, at roughly the halfway point. I won't give the breakdown on progress I usually do because so many scenes are in such weird states. The four big scenes are already shot and animated with the base code done, but the script is in pieces and still being fleshed out, which leads to some inevitable reshoots. But, for the rest of the chapter? The first two-thirds is in a playable state with some need for rewrites and code cleanup.

I want to take a little time to talk about the inevitable end of Now & Then. While we do have another project in development, there will some time spent putting a final bit of polish on Now & Then once the main endings have been released. For the most part, when I look over the first six or so chapters, I see a lot of things I wished I'd done differently, code-wise and shot-wise. I cringe at how amateurish some of the scenes just look. There won't be any huge story changes, but a lot of little cleanups - shot transitions and back-end coding. The first two chapters alone have about 20 new shots to replace old ones. Definitely a few reshoots to cut down on the camera jumping around. And I know of one scene that I'll want to redo just to improve the lighting alone in chapter four. 

Of note are two things already in various states: redoing the Dream of Alice sequence as it was the first complicated lewd scene built. There'll be a little more script and some new animations to go with the rework. Also, it's been pitched to me about putting in a Chapter select option. Due to the complex nature of the story flags and needing to add in "jumps" to the beginning of chapters (which weren't even considered before halfway through development), this'll be done during the coding clean up. I've got it to work from a Chapter Select page that'd be available from the Main Screen, but coding each chapter for all the variables is going to take time. A LOT of time.

Thanks for you interest and support,

-Kinderfeld