Robinpalooza 2023

Hey everyone!  I'm writing from the midst of Robinpalooza 2023 as I embark on a big writing sprint to finish the route ASAP.  Currently the route is over halfway scripted at 34,280 words. The next three weeks will be nothing but writing (and hopefully some coding) for me as I buckle down to get 'er done.

That means our Robin beta should begin in mid-late June. I may put up the first two chapters for beta before the rest of the route, which gives everyone a bit less to go through at a time if you're interested in providing direct feedback.

Beyond everything always taking longer than I hoped it would, a reason Robin's beta is a bit delayed from the original May estimate is because I looked over all our sprites during the Enhanced Demo process and decided that Robin didn't quite have the same SQ (Sexy Quotient) as the rest of the cast. So his sprite (and only his sprite) is getting one final makeover.

Here's a preview of Robin's final look, which I absolutely adore:

Robin's new sprite isn't massively different from the old one, but the lines on his face have been smoothed and his base feel is closer to "romantic hero with a hint of a trickster to him" than "comedic lead." That's more accurate to his characterization in his route (and no shade to Arrapso here, because the darn man purposefully acts the fool until you get to know him better in his route, which wasn't available to her when she designed the sprite).  So we'll need to wait for his new expressions to be complete before I can start coding the first half of his route.  It'll be worth it!

As a reminder, backers needed to pledge specifically for beta access in order to receive it (it was an add-on). You can check your Backerkit profile to see if you have beta access (message me with your backer email if you need another link to your Backerkit info). Unlike the Enhanced Demo beta, future betas will be available either on itch.io or Steam. I will send beta backers a code based on their favored platform.

Altered Sherwood Common Scene

We had a cut-in graphic that wasn't quite ready in time for the Enhanced Demo launch, but is now in our development code. It probably won't land in the demo because I've fully split off that code base from the in-development game, so I posted a video of the updated scene as it will appear in the final game. Except without that typo where I didn't capitalize Layton's name once. That's been fixed already.

That's what we have for this month. And now it's writing go time!