Happy August! We have several goodies for this month.

Semi-Final Release Date:

I've mentioned that I'd make a more final decision on our release date this summer, as we've been delayed by my bout with long Covid and some health and work-related issues on our art team.

I've officially set our release date as 2023. I will not announce a more specific date until we're ready for Steam certification, so once you get a real date, you'll know the game is coming soon!

I'm so sorry we weren't able to meet our original release goal. This dratted pandemic sure has been a thing. :(  Still, we'll be releasing less than three years after our KS, which isn't bad!

Now for the Goodies!

Check out this neat garden background from Sandra!  She's riffing off actual Medieval gardens, which were generally quite practical. This is the garden in Nottingham Hold, with a bunch of veggies and herbs for the kitchen as well as the kennels for Geoffrey's beloved hounds in the back. There's a more decorative section off-screen, which you can see in our rose garden background (where Marion often finds herself meeting up with Gui on his route).

This month I had the chance to record three bardic tunes as sung by Alanna. This was thanks to our Beyond Stretch funding - it was a lower priority for our backers than ambient sound and the animated lore intro, but since those are both in great shape and I found a very affordable studio, I was able to squeeze in all three major Beyond Stretch 1 goals!

Here is the professional recording of Greensleeves (Thanks, Green Room Studios!), and I hope you'll agree that it sounds way better than the version that's in the current demo. I'm saving the other two pieces to be discovered in the game itself. One will be sung by Alanna in a tavern scene that plays out quite differently on a few different routes. The other is exclusive to Alanna's route. The backing music is genuine traditional instruments (lute, bodhran, bells) played by Quebec musician Mathieu Lavoie.

New Computer Time!

Development was briefly interrupted this month as my ancient PC finally decided to give up the ghost. The most recent Windows 10 update was just too much for poor Rasputin (alas, it truly was the greatest love machine). I originally thought Rasputin was 10 years old, but turns out it was more like 12. I'd been planning to get a new PC, so this just moved up the timetable.

For transparency, Kickstarter funds were NOT used on my new computer, but I wanted to show it off because it's so pretty. Meet Monáe, the new power behind Made Marion's development:

Yes, I always name my PCs, and yes, unlike my previous one, this one is named after one of my heroes.

That's the report for August! Next week I'll be dogsitting for my folks out in the lovely North Cascades countryside, so I'm using it as a writing retreat and hope to get some serious work done on Robin's route.  See y'all in September!