9/25-Monthly Progress Report

September was not a very typical month of progress for me. I put a lot of time in meticulously casting our voice actresses. I created a database of potential actresses and cast(ed) them based on my scoring criteria. The final potential list was so competitive that even a few good actresses didn't make the cut. Originally I planned to hold auditions after the game's release, but due to the imminent trailer,  I had to have voices for the trailer so the game has been delayed. Delays aside, the casting went extremely well. For a game with a story that goes so much farther than the average delivery dude porno script, I would say that my time and effort was not squandered.

I've been working on the trailer. Money is tight...a little too tight for my comfort, so I'm going to hold another fundraiser. The game is getting close to beta, but I weighed my options carefully and decided that a "trailer/fundraiser detour" would be best, especially given the fact that these websites allows us to expand brand awareness. I've spent a lot of time on this trailer. I even voice acted the female characters as an example for the actresses, because when they read the script, some precise inflections may be lost in translation.

I've been studying programming. We have a lead programmer, but I want to help him out and speed up the game's progress, so I'm hitting the books. One may argue that I should finish my side of the game first-"the primary assets", but finishing this programming course will allow me to be "on call" for the lead programmer in case he feels that there are any easier tasks to delegate to me in the interests of time efficiency.

As for this month's actual game progress? I've been working mostly on the three above factors, so the game's completion percentage has not been raised. Let's see: The huge chunk of time casting actresses? Chalk it up as a delay, but it was worth it for the quality. Trailer? A necessary detour, but if you consider that more than 80% of the assets created for the trailer are going to be reused, you could call it another delay for quality. Programming? Once I'm helping with programming tasks, we will see an earlier game launch date.

Current to do list:

Primary Assets: The necessary assets required to put Aching Dreams into Playable Beta. Estimated time to finish this section: 1 to 2 months.

• Art: 99%
• Hentai Scenes: 100%
• Battle 98%
• Guns: 100%
• Survivors
• Survivor Sprites: 100%
• Survivor Ability effects: 12 hours
• Monsters: 95%
• Monster, Healer: 1d
• Misc:
• Barricade destroyed 2h
• Character Portraits: 100%. 
• Character face portraits: 100%
• Character beach portraits: 100%
• Character nude portraits: 100%
• Character normal portraits: 100%

• Interface: 85.5%.
• Pre-Battle menu: 6h
• Day 2 Tutorial: 1d
• Isabel's Help Menu: 1d
• Story: 98%
• Main Characters Storylines: 100%
• Morning Events Storylines: 1d
• Bad endings: 5h
• Reactions to gifts given: 8h
• BASICS Inputs: 10h
• Proofreading: 12h
• Programming: 
• Rigging extra characters for combat: ~1-8d
• Learning programming to help lead programmer: ~55 hours
• Carrying out tasks assigned by lead programmer: Varies.
• Music and other sounds: 90%. 
• Misc monster sounds: 3h
• Game Design: 98% (note that most of the game mechanics have only been tested "on paper" and still require gamebalancing once the beta is made)
• A few data tables still need to be finished, and some other secret stuff.

Beta Milestone: The game will be playable, but many features will be left out. A select group of players (tbd) will be involved in balancing the game, mainly combat. 

• Game Balancing: 60%. ~1 to 6 weeks for both me and programmer to finish, but my own participation will probably be limited to simple QA.
• "Long Term" game balancing: 0% I was able to test the game's combat design from a shorter perspective, usually consisting of 1 to 7 days at a time on testing programs. I wasn't able to test longer periods consisting of 30 to 70 days because the preliminary programs I made for it involved too much human calculation, so I had to simply guesstimate on what would be a good balance when it involved items and player survival periods. When the game is closer to beta, it will be more feasible to balance the various long term variables for play.
• Combat balancing: 90%. Many of the abilities have been proven "on paper" already. From a day to day perspective in this game, I do not foresee any short term balancing problems that cannot be solved with a quick value change.

Shippable Milestone: Finishing the above will put the game in Shippable status. The game will be finished to the point where players can play and finish the game, but some features will be still under construction. The game will be actually on sale at this point, though.

• Dealing with initial onslaught of bug complaints: ?

Gold Milestone: Upon finishing this section, the game will be finished to the point where I hope players will be satisfied with the overall product. The product should basically fulfill the project's expected outline as described in the original kickstarter/offbeatr.

• Three way relationships: ~11 days.
• Threesome1: Art is 100%, Story is 25%.
• Threesome2: Art is 95%, Story is 0%
• Threesome3: 0%
• Threesome4: 0% 
• Voice Acting: ~30%. ~Variable # of days. Actresses have been cast.
• Bikini mode combat portraits: 4d
• New Captain portraits: 2d 

Backer Rewards and Extra Polish Milestone: Upon finishing this section, I will be completely satisfied with the game's content. I might skip over a few "polish" items and elect to not draw them in the interest of time or if the item in question does not add significant value to the game. The features and items in the below list are subject to change.

• Commercial portraits: 3d
• Multiple character blowjob scene: 40h
• Extra Veronica H Scene: 25h
• Extra Character Portraits: ~5 days.
• Misc drawings for dating sim section: 4d. This section is left intentionally vague to remain spoiler free.
• Larissa: 1 scene
• Stella: 1 character
• Isabel: 4 characters
• Zoe: 1 scene
• Extra backgrounds: 4d
• Spoiler free background 1
• Spoiler free background 2
• Backer On-Demand scenes: ~18 days. Creates additional scenes with either AD3 or AD2 chars. Depends on the backers that bought this tier.
• Misc reward fulfillment.

Expansion Milestone: Adds a few characters. I'm going to come up with a few concepts and allow players to decide who should be in the expansion. The characters include playable characters during combat, some dating scenarios and hentai scenes at the minimum.

Disclaimer: My experience has shown that I am simply horrible at giving time estimates, but I am getting better  at estimating because I am beginning to understand how much time an item can take on a case by case basis.

TL;DR: I think we'll start selling the game in November. Better guess is January, but December is possible.

4p0- Woke.
5p1- Lazed around, went out on an errand, employed fellow citizen's arachnid removal services.
6p2- Worked with voice actress. Exercised.
Efficiency 7/10
7p3- Exercised.
Efficiency 8/10
8p4- Conversed with mother. Ate.
9p5- Wrote progress update. Ate.
10p6- Finished morning routine, worked on trailer.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 2/5
11p7- Did some programming.
Difficulty 6/10 Efficiency 10/10
12a8- Learning some javascript.
Difficulty 8/10 Efficiency 10/10
1a9- Solved a difficult problem with a dumb workaround.
Difficulty 9/10 Efficiency 10/10
1a9 to 4a13- Did lots of programming.
Difficulty 7/10 Efficiency 30/30
4a13 to 7a16- Did even more programming.
Difficulty 6/10 Efficiency 27/30