A Quick August Update

Hey there, everyone!

First off, thank you for your patience with the lack of updates. My IRL responsibilities really ramped up after the Jam, so I have personally not been able to do a lot of work on this project. But that's not to say we're done. Shortly after the Jam, it was resolved by myself and Vidya, our programmer, to finish the game on our own time, to make "Room" the way it was initially intended to be. 

I discussed it in full in our post-mortem, which you can read here, but the version available for download was not our original vision. TL;DR, we didn't have time to properly implement the engine we made from scrap, necessitating a transfer to Ren'py.

The good news about taking it slow is that Vidya and I will be able to bring that game to life with some time. We have already implemented several new features, including streamlining of graphics, camera changes, and most importantly: the drinks system!

In Ren'py, it previously collected all the graphics and loaded them in en masse, which made for a very big game. With our new engine, it now calls images by demand, which greatly reduces storage and should hopefully make for a more efficient experience.

Also, there is indeed a "camera change" function. This will come into effect whenever you switch from the front of the bar to the bar itself. The drinks system is to the player's right, which means there needs to be a scene change. But because this is meant to be a fluid (heh) experience, we don't want to bring up a UI menu. We've gotten around this by creating a more artful menu which shifts perspective and keeps you on the screen.

The drinks system is functional and does indeed create and count drinks as intended. The idea is to program all the combinations and attach new prices to them once we figure out the economy. (This is my next major step game-wise.)

In terms of other, yet-to-be-done announcements, we're happy to report Mollyncyy has signed back on to update character portraits! She volunteered to so do recently, and I am excited to see some of her newer interpretations. I personally also plan to write some new dialogue and adjust some of the questions, which should hopefully enhance the experience.

Ideally, I'd also love to get a Japanese translation for this game, but that's still a bit of a pipedream. Perhaps one day if I can afford it, I'll hire a professional translator and we'll find a way to program it in.

Anyway, that's the current update as of August 16th. I hope we can make you proud with this definitive version of the game when it does come out. For now, we are not attaching a release date to the project, as (once again) IRL obligations will prevent myself and Vidya from being able to come up with a timeline. 

I'll write another devlog when we're ready to reveal those details. Please follow us on Twitter @bakabakucircle for periodic glimpses and/or updates on the project. (Though you'll have to deal with my ramblings and art RT's as well...)

Thank you again!

Sincerely, 

junejijo, on behalf of BakaBaku Circle