Hey guys! Sorry for the late report. Iโm part-way through four different Female Agent tasks right now, and none of them are complete because I suck at multi-tasking. ๐
My priority is finalising the plan for the next episode. I was intending to jump straight into one of the three side quests weโve set up in the previous two episodes (White Russian, Big Mac and Booth Babe). But after a few days struggling with outlines, I think we need to insert a mini story episode first.
The purpose is really just to set conditions for the side quests (and the next main quest episode later). Iโm picturing something much smaller in scope than the past couple of episodes, so hopefully it should be ready much more Soonโข.
I just finished outlining this new mini-episode today, but I havenโt yet shown it to anybody for feedback, so I'm not sure if I'm a genius or a fool.
Iโll get it into a shape that other humans can understand tomorrow, get feedback, and publish a solid plan here once Iโm sure itโs not a crazy/bad/unsexy idea.
Other things Iโm working on
โ Public release of 1.17. This shouldโve happened last week! (But I figured it wasnโt a big deal, since everybody got the Early Access version anyway.) This will be ready in a few days, I got distracted with planning 1.18.
โ Opening up the source code to other developers. This has been suggested a few times (most recently by q5 on the Discord). In theory, this could speed up development a lot, but there are also challenges to it that we discussed on the Discord. Iโm not exactly sure what the best thing to do is, but I'm looking into what's required technically.
โ Investigating AI generated location photos. Nobody talks much about the location photos, but I think they save me a lot of descriptive writing, and also set the scene better than words alone could.
Finding the right images can be time consuming (because the scenes in my head donโt always come up in image searches), so Iโve been seeing if AI can help.
Early indications are good! Example image created by Stable Diffusion:
โA dark SUV, with tinted windows, pulling over on a street in Bangkok, at night.โ

I feel like the AI isnโt exactly sure what road markings are but, like they say in the army, โthatโs close enough for government work.โ
Okay, sorry thereโs not much to report, just wanted to let you know that Iโm only radio silent because Iโve got my head down on game work. I will report again Soonโข with the firm plan for the next episode.
Sammy J
2023-01-25 16:29:16 +0000 UTCJoe McLeod
2023-01-17 20:53:01 +0000 UTC