An unexpected break

First of all today's summary; worked on Sonia, she's about half done now. I also went retro and rewrote loads of the generic "you found nothing" messages for inspecting rooms. Once Sonia is done I will be back to where I was before the single TF debate ended. Well, actually since I've done lots of small things as well I will be further along than that, plus since I have about 500% less work to do per character now things should go much more smoothly from here on out... Well except for one thing:

Monday is the one year anniversary of Redus. February 17th 2013 was the day I started working on it, back then it was little more than a demo of things RAGS could do with a very basic plot attached. It was called "What has science done?" and had just three rooms: The office, the street and the lab. Everything was built around this original game and the game file I am working on today is the same file I created back then. Why is any of this important? Well for one I think it is important to remember how we got to where we are today, to learn from our mistakes and experiences and there have been a hell of a lot of those in the past 12 months. I still haven't finished paying for that car accident even though I wasn't driving and I still think about what my sister would have said if she had ever found out how I spend my spare time. I'm still grateful that after so many months of rejection I finally have a job and I'm still grateful that my parents are letting me stay here until I have enough money to move out. There is something else that this anniversary means though.

On Monday morning my RAGS license runs out. My bank account is beyond empty and I don't get paid for another 6 weeks. I'm not going to ask for any money off you guys because this is my hobby, but it does mean that I'm not going to be able to work on Redus for a little while, not the whole 6 weeks, I should be able to get a little money before then but I doubt I can get any funds in the next week or two. As with all delays I ask for your continued patience and understanding.

Not to get anyone excited or anything, but I think I'm close to being able to release an update. It won't have all of the content I promised and there could be some pretty major bugs but I think I could have something playable around early April. No promises, but I think it is a very realistic goal. I'll let you guys know as soon as I renew my license, I'm busy all weekend so this is it until then.

Drive safely! Tim out.

Wasted

I have 2 game files for Redus that I update as I go, alternating between them. I do this because every time RAGS crashes it corrupts the file. I got a bit carried away between saves today and after 2 and a half hours I noticed I hadn't saved.
So I saved it and everything was fine.
Half an hour later I come to save again but forget to switch files.
Straight away RAGS dies on me and I lose three hours work. If I didn't use the two file system (and the regular backups I have on another drive) that would have been the entire update gone, so I would to thank my brain for having at least enough common sense to do that.
Fear not though, I was able to more or less recreate all of the changes I made, not perfectly but well enough. So what were those changes? Well aside from the usual slew of minor tweaks and additions I have completed Christie...again. She should be completely done now though, her reaction (and yes that's singular, gone are the large number of variants, I love this new one event setup), all of her questions have been modified to work with the new system, even the timers that she uses should all be working again. Since I managed to get it all done so fast I have high hopes for getting Sonia done quickly as well. As some of you know there were a couple of her reactions in 0.3 that you could stumble upon that were actually pretty deep. Well that is part of the single reaction. You aren't guaranteed to get that part as there are a few prerequisites but most of you should get it come the update. As much as I liked it being hidden away I think it is too big of a plot line for so many people to completely miss out on. Oh, and Christie isn't such a crazy bitch anymore. Because it used to be possible to change back and forth she would flip out every time you did but now you actually have to piss her off before she gets upset with you. Go figure!
Well that's all folks! I'll keep you posted.

Captain! Updates off the starboard bow!

That's the colours done, it turn out I had removed brown from the game so I had to recreate it. I've also linked the serums to the crate so they should all be accessible now although I have yet to test that. I then added a couple more unlockables that require golden stars, one item and one scene although the item can't actually be unlocked as yet since it is only available at a point in the game before you can go to the forest so I will have to change that. As usual I found some more tiny things here and there to tweak and fix. I'm sure I did something else but I can't remember so I'll just assume that's all for today. There were a lot of bugs with the 8 serums that I found so I'm sure I will find more, but at least they don't teleport anymore!

To the update-mobile!

I've done one of the two self-exploration scenes now, it took longer than I had expected but then there are 8 different versions of it, the other one is a little shorter thankfully. I've also finished the body-part TF items, there are eight of those as well. I will tackle the colour ones soon, since they no longer cause immediate changes I will actually be removing their content rather than writing new for once so that will only take a few minutes. I may decide to keep some of the descriptions from those, they are more detailed than they were in 0.3 after I rewrote them so a lot of that has yet to be seen by anyone other than myself. It seems a waste to just throw it all away.
I know it doesn't sound like I've done a lot here but it took a good 4 hours which, when you're working full time, is a lot to be spending on such a short part of the game. I know you guys appreciate it though so it's worth it in the end.

Making updates, making bacon updates. Take some bacon and you put it in an update...

That's the warehouse done, hopefully. The forklift stuff is still in but you no longer need it to find the crate. I've also worked on fixing some of the fallout from the change. It turns out I still hadn't updated some of the strip club content for the instant TF setup so it was still checking for values that no longer exist. There's going to be a lot of little things that don't make sense now that there is a new TF trigger, it will take a while to find them all and even then I am bound to miss some. I've had to change a lot of Liara's conversation and also had to come up with a way of handling the chemicals once you find them at the warehouse. What I've come up with allows you to leave the warehouse with the chemicals in your inventory if you don't want to drink them straight away. I'll have to write in some conversations about those, asking people to run tests on them and so on so that it makes sense. This explanation also ensures that you can still carry and drink the solutions after your TF but they won't have any effect. The other options were to either remove them from your inventory after the event which would have felt overly convenient to be believable, or to force you to drink up whilst you were still at the warehouse which makes no sense. I know that I never got around to explaining the coloured vials properly before but it seems to be a much more obvious issue now. It won't take long to write a few questions to sort it out but I have other things to do right now.
Also the security guard has a slightly larger role now than he did before which is nice. He will have an even bigger one once I have written his reactions but I'll leave that for a future update me thinks.

Happy 50th post everybody!

I was expecting some backlash from the whole "screw the poll results, this is how I'm doing things" situation. I'm not sure if the fact that the only person to have commented on it hadn't even voted is a sign that everyone understands and is OK with it, or if it is a sign that nobody really cares either way. Ah well, as long as people enjoy the game who cares?
So, what have I been up to in the last 24 hours?
The initial TF event is pretty much done again, I want to add a little more tailored dialogue to it as it was written for a specific form. I've written branches for the different combinations of sex organs but there are still things that are brushed over. I had also written a "new body exploration" scene for the update that will now need a lot more options, it is a little graphic though as you might imagine so I will have to be the right frame of mind to get that done.
I have created some new variables and adjusted some event triggers, right now the TF event is not triggered but I can't do that until the new Warehouse content is written in. I have however changed the phone calls and made the Warehouse Event critical to ensure that you can't go anywhere else. Mostly I've been blocking off and removing redundant sequences, nothing major and most of them were new to 0.4 anyway so you won't miss them.
The TF event was previously a basic sequence of text and pauses, it is now an elaborate tree of body parts and gender identity but by making this one event much more complex, lots of other content will be greatly simplified. Just one reaction post-change per character with a few minor variations. I can't wait! I finally feel like I'm making progress.

Results are in and the winner is...

The results of the poll was interesting, it seems that people are happy with the game as planned. Unfortunately I am not and for those of you who haven't seen my post over at TFGS I am going against the public and choosing the hybrid option. It is too good an opportunity to pass up and so that is what I am going with.
I've had a week off now so I'm getting back on with it and have already begun implementing this new setup. It shouldn't take long to do, no more than a week I shouldn't have thought, and since there will be much less work to do once it is done I may even begin wrapping up this update. I still have Jenny, Rebecca and Mark to sort out before everything is as it was but they will require less work now and I can always skip them for now. I will get at least Jenny done and then tweak Christie and Sonia to comply with the hybrid setup. That will mostly involve blocking off some conditions that are no longer required rather than re-doing any work. If I don't post again tonight expect a progress update in the next couple of days. I have more free time than usual this week and thanks to my week off (mostly spent playing GTA V and XCOM: EW) I don't have the usual distractions. Toodlepipski!

Important News Ahead!

For those who have not yet done so, please head over to TFGS to vote in the poll as detailed here: http://www.tfgamessite.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4086&start=240#p144808

The future direction of Redus will be determined by it's results. The poll ends next Monday.

And another afternoon's work is complete

A variety of small things done today including additions to the notepad, grammatical corrections, a few new image variations and a more visual representation of your golden star level. Unlocks are based on your level with each 5 stars representing 1 level. It will make more sense when you see it in action. For now there is only one level 1 reward in the game so it makes little difference right now. Not a very productive session but every little helps and trying to get something done on a near daily basis whilst working full time isn't easy. You'll have to bare with me.

Shhh! It's a secret!

That's some of the star-locked content done, if you have cashed in 5 or more golden stars you are given the user/pass combination to the archive if you hadn't already worked it out, as well as some additional dialogue. There will be many more rewards, most of which I will not announce, but that gives you an idea of the sort of thing I'm doing with it. Helping with the game whilst adding to the entertainment value. I may throw in a sex scene or TF item as a high-end reward later on but I probably won't tell you where they are or how to get them.

One does not simply walk into more done.

Finished the Examine Player action and reworked the sex scene with Jenny so that it doesn't check for variables that no longer exist. There isn't as much variation as there used to be but at least it works again.
I've also removed some of the furniture from around the office, it was a little too cluttered for my tastes, it still is but I don't want to remove too many puns from the game. Every time someone examines them I can hear their groan and it makes me smile.
I did some behind-the-scenes work as well to make testing some parts of the game a little easier on my end. Obviously those changes won't make it into the release but they will help to speed up production a little which is good for everyone.

Is 2am considered late or early?

So yeah, found myself doing a bit of work at 2am, tidying things up a bit. I squashed a pretty major bug with just four lines that my previous workaround had done using 40+. And I learned something about using RAGS which is always nice.
I cleaned up a few objects early on in the game so they interface a little better (stuff like the tome which you have to examine first and the forklift key which you use examine to pick up, not sure what I was thinking there tbh). I've also tweaked some of the passwords for the alleyway, a couple of them I hated and there were one or two glaring omissions.
Not a lot done but at least production is up as much as 25% in some areas, this is progress!

Colour coded for your convenience

Dr Langstrom now uses a darker text colour. Your welcome.
Also I had to change Nancy's text colour since it looked to similar to Mark's new one but that didn't take fecking hours.

That was not the most productive day in the world, that was just a tribute.

I think Sonia is finished. I said the other 2/3 wouldn't take as long didn't I? Obviously testing and multiple re-reads are required to ensure that I didn't make any major mistakes but otherwise I can finally move on.
And move on I did.
I've added the extra time slot, it should be at least 90% functional if not more. I ran a search to look for any events that rely on specific time slots and adjusted them accordingly but that doesn't mean some won't have slipped through. It's happened before and I'm sure it will again, but I already talked about that last time so let's continue.
I just wouldn't stop today, I missed a meal and put my own work back a bit but the will to work just kept flowing and I wasn't about to stop it. I worked on Jenny, big time. Remember a while back when I was converting Rebecca the Librarian to the same conversation setup as the lab team? It took several days right? I did the same to Jenny in a matter of hours. I haven't started her reaction stuff yet and that will take days, as will all of her sexy time stuff, but I went through the bulk of the conversations with her and shifted everything around. I had to rewrite a fair bit to make it fit the new setup, but I cleaned up so much that I was able to remove half of her previous code without actually losing anything. That's how bad the redundancies were when I started making this game. With Jenny all cleaned up it will not only make it easier for me to locate and deal with typos and bugs in her content, it will be a hell of a lot easier to add new conversation topics in the future. Since she was always my favourite character I have a feeling that I will end up adding a lot to her over the next few months. I totally crashed the mode today!

This just in: Something! Back to you in the studio.

I'm about a third of the way done with Sonia now, the big third though. A lot of the other two thirds can be taken from the first or at least based on it so they won't take as long. I did have to do some more work with some of the other conversations you have with her though and I get the feeling that I will have to re-read through all of her to ensure that the number of conflicting topics is minimized.

I have also decided to do something about the time frame for the game, it was always intended that there wasn't enough time to get everything done, that way the player is more likely to try again to see what else they can find and hopefully stumble onto entire sections of the game they never knew existed. The problem is that there is a lot more in the game than I had originally planned on and whilst I added morning 6 to give players an extra day, it still feels like a constant race against time. As such I will be adding a new time slot to each day:

Midday. 

This will still require a fair bit of work to incorporate but less than adding a new day would and will also help to break up the daily events such as the Warehouse and Housekey events. Not only that but it will mean you get 5 additional time slots rather than the 3 a new day would provide. Expect this to cause bugs when the release is finally ready as I am sure to miss some obscure time-based events that can be found throughout the game as well as some of the usual "You can't do that at this time of day" messages, but I will do my best and once they are all ironed out it will be a great boon for the game.

New for 2014: Smart phones with internet access!

Following a suggestion from Dorkulon at TFGS, I decided to move the research code over from the PC to a Timer so that I could access it from the Mobile Phone in your inventory. I was expecting a decent amount of tweaking required to get it running but I was pleasantly surprised to find only one thing had to be changed. Not only that, because of my over reliance on conditions, the entire code was contained in a single condition that I could just cut and paste. The only thing I had to change was the section on masturbation which I just added a check to, to avoid public relations issues for Sam :D. The whole process took less than half an hour and is sure to save a lot of time and effort for all involved!

Ooh ahh, just a little bit

Did about two hours or so today, worked on the new "Think" action for the player, adding some more generic stuff to it. At some point I plan to link it with the Notepad Leads, it won't provide answers but it may help to explain things. There are over 50 leads so far and some would combine with others so it would take a while to write all of the required thoughts. For now it is just used for banter and to unlock the forest. I have one lead (The suspicious scientist) set up to prove that it works. I don't want it to be something that unlocks important parts of the game so that you have to try it in every room, it will only ever be for minor hints or an excuse for me to throw in a pun or a joke here and there to liven the mood.

That is a little above average

650+ page views today and still climbing, just because of a post at TFGS. I guess there is still some interest in the game.
Busy day today so I couldn't get any more done on it even if I had felt like it, which I didn't probably the combination of Friday and rain. Even so, some of the ideas coming from the fans are giving me plenty to think about over the next few weeks. Hopefully that will be enough to draw me back into working on it. Any more ideas/suggestions are always welcome and very much appreciated, even if some of my feedback can seem a little harsh I am still endlessly grateful for it. Not only can it lead to great new ideas and getting me excited about the game again, it also shows that there are people out there who care about my work enough to give up a few minutes of their day to give me some useful feedback. These past two days may have marked a turning point in this whole sorry saga.

Okay this is getting silly, two days in a row? What? I don't expect this trend to continue but would be very happy if it did.
Finally got some work done on Sonia (and trust me she needs it!); I wanted to get something done with her reactions but I noticed a number of major issues with some of her other conversation topics, mostly regarding the change from slow to instant transformations. A lot of options were dependent on you being between major stages and so much tweaking, rewriting and the creation of entirely new options was required to compensate. That said I did get some of her reactions done, or at least several branches from one of her reaction trees. Still, it should look great when it's done. You would have to play the game a stupid number of times to find every branch so that should give the game a little re-playability.
I think I'll just add the reactions for a couple more characters for this version. I still have plenty of work to do before everything is working again but once I'm back to where I was new content will be so much easier to create. There is something like 85% fewer branches required for each character, sex scene or TF item. I know that at the moment it must seems like all this update is doing is recreating existing content and taking a long time to do so, but it will make a huge difference later on and actually, after playing through the current build a few times there is a surprising number of new features. If you are able to find them that is. One of the new characters is currently too well hidden but I will leave that as it is until a later version as it isn't in any way important right now. I may even just leave it like that as a super easter egg that only the luckiest or most dedicate of you will ever find.
We'll see... For now, I'm just happy that I have managed to get a good 8 hours or so done in two days. Here's hoping for more!

I actually did something! (Insert fanfare here)

I hadn't planned on it, I had no intention of doing so, but I had some spare time today and played through Redus. I noticed several things that were bugging me and so I opened up the editor and began fixing them. Before I knew it four hours had passed and although there is little in the way of new content I have actually done something productive in RAGS! Some of the bugs were present in older versions too, I just hadn't noticed them before (those were not so much bugs as poor design choices or curious, nonsensical behaviors), and some were specific to the current build. The thing that surprised me the most though was not that I did stuff but rather that I enjoyed doing it.

Don't get too excited though, this may have been a one-off and even if it isn't my work schedule is pretty full right now not to mention the ever-growing list of games and TV I promised to experience but this was a good day and progress, however small, was made. I just wanted to let you guys know, this is proof that Redus is not dead and work will continue on it. Yay.

It's been a long time, getting from there to here

I was looking back at some old posts over at TFGS today and seeing how much progress I actually made before everything went so badly. I want to get thing going again so that I can at least get it to a point where people can complete the game even if there are still many loose ends left to tie up. Every time I try to work on it though I just feel that I'm throwing my free time away, I have a list of TV shows I want to catch up on, a bunch of games that I bought but haven't played yet and I can't remember the last time I read a book. I know I'm just repeating stuff I've already posted before but I hate going weeks without posting something.
I had forgotten about the mini-game I made for Halloween, something else I found in old posts. I've been checking it over to see how far I got with it (I never made any of the usual checklists to tell me what still needs doing so I had to run through the game several times). It is still missing a small number of pictures that I remember struggling to find, I also wanted to populate the game with some more furniture, that won't take long though. There are lots of bugs in the latter parts of the game and some tidying up to be done throughout, if I could find the pictures I could get it done in a day probably. The problem is that I never feel like working on it, the next time I get the urge to be creative I will try my best to finish it but I'm not giving a deadline for this one, I would only end up missing it again.
If anyone would like to help there is one image I was finding particularly difficult to locate; an apartment atrium, it has to either be at night or only feature artificial lighting, it would ideally have one door straight ahead and a room to the right which is the warden's room although depending on the angle of the image that shouldn't be necessary. I want it to be wider than a standard corridor image as it is an entrance hall of sorts but I don't want a reception desk as a hotel would have. I've actually lived in a number of places that would fit the bill nicely but I have no way of getting to them and I haven't been able to locate anywhere locally that would be suitable. I can always move things around a bit but I have yet to find pics online of anything even close to what I want. Any help would be greatly appreciated and can either be submitted anonymously or you can be credited in the game (you would also receive a mention in the "Appreciative Enchanter" book in the library in the main game.
I will get back to Redus, it's just a matter of time. Thanks for your patience.

Recovery is a painful process

First let's get this out of the way, I'm not planning on getting back to work on this stuff any time soon. I have to be in the mood to write and I haven't been in that headspace for some time. That said I did do a little work the other day, nothing to write home about just a little photo editing and tidying up a couple of things so I may begin doing bits and pieces every now and then, we'll have to see. I don't want to abandon Redus completely after the couple of hundred hours of work I put into it but if I don't release any new content in the next six months don't be surprised.

I have a job now, working full time for good money. It keeps me occupied and distracted and that's a lot better than what the booze was doing. There will likely never again be whole days I spend writing and that's okay, but it will mean any future content will take longer than before even if I do start doing regular work on it.

I know you guys have been waiting patiently for the update and I thankyou for your loyalty in that regard, but I have to say the silence is getting worrying. I can check how many hits the blog has each day but not how many of them were bots or repeat visits so I have no idea how many of you there are. Based on the number of previous comments there could easily be just two of you. I'd still keep the blog open I think even if no one was there but it does feel like I'm just writing to a few google bots some times. I have little enough desire to work on Redus these days as it is, seriously any input, suggestions, criticisms or whatever would go a long way to drawing me back in. I'm not stuck or anything like that, I just don't feel like there is any demand for this thing any more. I've had so much support from friends and family, we all have, but this used to be a fairly large part of my life and it's just faded so much I can barely remember why I used to enjoy it so much.

Not in the mood for this

I guess I can't put this off any longer, that's not fair on you guys. I'm not working on any games right now and I doubt I will be doing so any time soon so you can forget about that Jan 1st deadline. You can keep checking on here if you want but don't expect to find any updates any time soon.

Screw it, I'll just tell you. My sister passed away last week, she was in hospital for a few weeks and I was watching the house and cats for her. Anyway there were complications during surgery and she didn't make it and I can't be arsed working on some game that. Fuck this I can't even think of words right now.
This was just a heads up so, yeah there you go. This has been a crap year. Now if you don't mind I'm going to go have a drink and watch some TV. I really shouldn't be writing this when I'm in a mood like this but I've been putting if off long enough already.

Oh and thanks for the 0 replies regarding that other game idea, at least it means less work in the future, I don't even know if I can be bothered doing this anymore tbh. I'll wait until christmas and then I'll decide if I'm giving up on making these games. Hopefully my head will be clearer by then.

This is Tim signing off the foreseeable future

Blast it where is that rope?

It looks like this could take a while, I might be able to pop home this weekend for a few hours though so I will try to finish and post the minigame if I can at some point over the next few days (no promises though, I don't drive so I have no say in when and for how long I can go back but I promise to do my best). The delay on Redus will continue for at least another week, I'm not going to change the deadline for that but there may be less new content than I was hoping for and some of the character reactions may not be done, we'll see how that all goes. Also I may be finally getting a new job soon, I have been informed through back channels that I will be being contacted soon to arrange an interview. What does this mean for you guys? Work on Redus will slow down even more in the future :( . What does it mean for me guys? For the first time in nearly 12 months now I will have money. As always I will keep you all posted on developments but if I do get this job I will be able to move into a new place so whilst I won't be able to make games during the day any more I will have evenings and weekends to work on them so the difference won't be huge.
My time here hasn't been completely wasted though, with my other games already planned out I have started designing another one, it is quite different from anything I have worked on before and is definitely not to everyone's taste but if I ever get around to creating it I think it would be a very interesting project to work on. I'd like to hear what you guys think about it so I can judge if there would ever be any demand for it:
You are on a ski holiday with some classmates (18-20 year olds) and your girlfriend. A supernatural being (I haven't decided who yet) catches you flirting with another girl and punishes you by turning you into the dog you are. You then play as a husky and have a few options available; find a bitch and live out your days as a dog, remain faithful to your GF and earn your old life back or try to get with the other girls in the lodge regardless. (Doing so would require alcohol, sabotage and taking advantage of your new position and yes, this route would include bestiality from the animal's POV).

I have a few scenarios sketched out but this is even further outside of my comfort zone than Redus is and I don't want to delve much deeper into this idea if it will only result in negative feedback. This is a niche fetish so please, if you aren't into this sort of thing don't bother spamming but if this sounds even remotely interesting to you please let me know. I don't care how you do be it anon posting here, pm-ing on TFGS or creating a temp email account and emailing me (seriously ten-minute email services rule and don't require you to create an account or anything). If I do work on this at some point in the future it will not interfere with my plans for Redus and I will not delay any other project for it.Actually I already have some location pics I could use on my PC at home that would be perfect so that's a big part of the work done already.
I know in the past I have joked about the lack of comments here but if you have any comments about this concept please let me know because if there is no perceivable interest it will never go any further than the notes I have jotted down already and I can't help but feel that it deserves a chance. It's fate is in your hands.

Why is it so hard to release? I've got devs constipation!

Guess what gang? No release today, or for the next few days. I don't know when exactly I'll be back home but I won't have access to my PC for a little while. I actually have better internet here but no RAGS and I didn't put the files online. I would rather not go into too much detail about what is going on only that it is a family matter. As I said I still have internet access and actually I can use it more freely so I will be on here and TFGS a lot over the coming days, I'll post an update when I know when I will be able to go back home. The game was close enough to completion that I should be able to finish it off and release it that same day or the next morning. If this lasts longer than I think it will though I may also have to revise that Jan 1st deadline... Bad times.

There goes another deadline

Still missing lots of pics, spent all day babysitting so not much progress, I can get some done tonight but there is no way it will be ready by tonight. Sundays are never good for me, I'll try to get it out tomorrow but it is looking likely that it will be a Monday release now. Sorry. Well at least everyone is back to school on Monday so I will be able to go back to working on Redus straight away, it just means that I won't get to play any Injustice this weekend. These delays are hurting me more than they are annoying you trust me.

Shake it like a polaroid picture

Well yesterday sucked, didn't post an update because there wasn't anything to report. I had a string of things to do all of which took longer than expected and were as pointless as one another. By the time I got home (late) I didn't have the brain to do work so I played some Broken Sword instead (one of the bigger inspirations for Redus, seriously if you have never played the series get it on Steam or something, they rule).
I was busy this morning as well and so I had to work later than usual to get enough done, the story is complete although sure to be buggy still. Also the world feels very empty, I still need to add descriptions and furniture to bulk it all out. The problem is I don't want to write a description only to have a picture than contradicts it completely. Oh, and finding usable pics is turning out to be a major ball ache. Seriously, how hard can it be to find half-decent pics of interiors for council flats? (Low-rent apartments work as well but the pics have to be at night and not look overly American). There is a good chance there may be missing pics by the time I release this thing, something I really didn't want but I'm running out of ideas now. If anyone has any location pics they think would fit this purpose I would appreciate it, even if I can't use them for this they could be useful for other projects. Fingers crossed that I can get this all wrapped up within the next 24 hours.

'Twas the night before Halloween and all through the house...

Done for today, I just have a little more work to do on it before I start adding pictures and descriptions. I just hope I have enough decent pics. I should be pretty much done tomorrow unless something comes up, then I'll spend a few hours on Friday sweeping for bugs. I'll give myself some contingency time and if all goes well I will upload on Saturday afternoon / evening. Fingers crossed.

Everybody's working for the weekend

I'm going to push back the deadline for this mini-project to Saturday. I could get it done for Thursday but not to the standard I would be happy with. I've got most of the actual work done, I just have a little more story to add before I populate the world and add pictures. Then I will spend a few hours bug hunting before release, there aren't a huge number of options the player can choose from but since this is meant to be far more linear than my other works everything has to be able to blend together and end up at the same ending. At one point there's nearly 20 options and most of them can cross over one another so I have to look out for unintended branches and the like. There's probably less than 5 minutes of gameplay if I'm honest but if you want to experience every route it's closer to half an hour. It's giving me a nice break from Redus and is proving to be a good learning experience.

Poor planning

Completely slipped my mind that it is half-term this week so my little sisters are home all week. I'll be working solely on this Halloween project instead. I had hoped that it would be almost done by now but the direction I was taking it made no sense so I have had to scrap most of what I had. Fortunately it is only small so it won't take long to redo the work but it is going to be a tight deadline if I want it done on Thursday. As I said last time don't get too excited about it, I just thought it would be an interesting way to add a little depth to the series. The main problem will be finding suitable pictures, what I have in my head and what is available are always very different so don't be surprised if some of them don't fit.

Leave the gun, take the cannoli

Only just got back in from a day of running errands, I'm going to have an early night tonight as well so no work. Sorry. See you all on Monday!

I've been browsing on the internet, all the live long day!

I was searching for location pics for one of my other projects and lost track of time. Had to watch my little sisters when they got back from school so I lost a couple of hours anyway from that. I did manage to find some very interesting pics though so at least that will save me time in the future. I think I may a little something for you guys as a Halloween present. It won't be scary and it won't be sexy but hopefully some of you will find it interesting. We'll see how it goes, if I can't get it done in time I may hold onto it until episode 1 is done instead to bridge the gap between the first and second games but I think you've gone long enough without anything to play with.

Why do time bombs make loud ticking sounds?

Made some decent progress today, mostly on minor tweaks to the game. I fixed a few grammatical errors I stumbled across early on in the game, moved the Golden Star code to a timer (not sure why I hadn't done that earlier) and added a few more ways to unlock them. There were a few other things I cleaned up here and there but I would be surprised if anyone noticed them. I have added a few more jokes to the game, again if you play the game right you shouldn't notice them but if you are the sort of person who just doesn't know when to quit you will at least get a giggle even if it takes you all day. There are now seven secret endings to find, I doubt anyone will find more than half of them though!

It ain't ease-ay being cheese-ay

Unrelated title but hey, it's my blog so deal with it.
It looks like the rush has calmed down and most of the people who visited the blog at the mention of an update have gone back to their respective caves leaving the rest of us to clean up after them. Ah well, easy come easy go. Got back on track with Sonia today (finally, yay) but my session was cut short as I had to go sign on. Keeping it short and sweet today because I'm too busy... being delicious.

Wohoo! Four day weekend!

Not really feeling work today, I got a few hours done but nothing like what I was hoping for. I should have the house to myself for at least four hours a day for the next few days though so I will try and make up the lost time and if I'm feeling up to it I may do a little bit tonight.
As I'm working I tend to create little lists of everything I'm working on and what I want to get done before the next update, the problem is that I have a few of these lists now so I have also taken all of those and created a master list and made it easier to edit that one than the others so I should be able to keep on top of it better now. The good news is that there is hardly any code or complicated branching left to do for this update, there is a LOT of writing to do though, possibly as much as 200 hours worth. I think after this next update I'm going to take a couple of weeks break, maybe just focus on bug fixes and typos.

1330 views, 1 comment... not sure if 1 lonely guy or 1000 lurkers

This isn't an update or anything, I just wanted to thanks for the support, even if it is silent. A 1000% increase in visitors at the mention of a future update is pretty impressive, I guess there are a few people who care at least a little about Redus. It really does help, seriously I've wanted to give up on this thing a few times now, even before the accident. I honestly think that had I not created this blog I would've done by now for sure, don't get me wrong I want to see this thing finished more than anyone but going months without being able to show off anything is pretty disheartening. I just hope that the changes in 0.4 will be enough to keep interest in the game alive, there may be a lot of stuff there but most of it is either behind the scenes, will require a lot of work to find or will require multiple playthroughs to get to.
In summary, thanks for visiting, don't get too excited about update and don't be afraid to give me feedback on the game, even criticisms. Some of the biggest changes in 0.4 are due to comments about the playability of the game and suggestions on how to improve it and it has made a big difference.

Oh, and one more thing...

I think I'm going to take that January 1st marker and turn it into a provisional deadline. If the new version isn't ready by then I will at least have a closed beta version for then exclusively for visitors of this blog, maybe have a download limit or application only system or something. With any luck it will be ready before then in which case a closed beta version will be available sooner but either way, I will be releasing something that week if it kills me (tempting fate). It's a good job I couldn't afford GTA V or Pokémon Y because I will have my work cut out for me over the next two months.

It'll be alright on the night

It took longer than I'd hoped but not as long as I'd expected, I found the problem and have RAGS again! Back to work for me then.
(The problem was with Daemon Tools trying to read a broken file, even on startup. I fixed it by getting it to load a working ISO instead, a simple fix for a problem I did not anticipate and only found by noticing I was missing a virtual drive.)
I have since made some more progress, this time on the player examine action. Rather than a generic "You are X tall with Y this and Z that" I have a wider range of descriptions (possible thanks to the instant TF system). They may not be as all encompassing as they were before but will read more like someone actually describing you than a list of physical attributes. They are broken down into two parts, the first part covers your overall appearance and build whilst the second is mostly just your junk or lack thereof. As with many parts of the game a lot of these will be locked until all of the different TF solutions are in the game but once I'm done with this next section there will be 24 unique descriptions written with 4 variations for each of them. They're only short but I still prefer doing it this way as it offers more re-playability. I should have these done tomorrow but since I can only do a couple of hours on Fridays that will be it for this week. Next week I promise I will get back to those character reactions, honestly.

Alright then what's the good news? That was the good news.

Good News:
Checkup went fine, my arm should be back to 100% within a matter of weeks but I'm off all meds and have full use of my hands without any pain. (I have done for a few weeks but now it is official).

Bad News:
RAGS Designer isn't working. I have no idea why, it was fine yesterday and nothing has changed, I haven't updated anything or installed any new software. it just hangs on start. The designer opens but it is frozen as if loading but even after an hour made no progress. I've tried reinstalling it and rebooting my PC but run into the same problem. I will keep trying to get it working but I'm running out of ideas. I'll keep you posted however it pans out.

Another day, another box of stolen pens

Fairly satisfied with today's work, the initial TF is now complete barring any bugs including two new masturbation scenes and a small number of checks to make sure everything is as it should be (the sequence was not triggering if you were drunk, something I was lucky to catch when I did). I did a little work on Jenny trying to tidy up early interactions with her, I haven't started on her reactions to your changes yet as I'm still on Sonia but things like the initial phone call should go a bit more smoothly now.
The current version isn't far off being playable again now, there's still a lot of work to be done to get it back to the level it was at before but story progression is possible once more, I may release a closed version before the public release to catch the biggest bugs, if that sort of thing interests you watch this space. I will be making that decision over the next few weeks.
There are lots of features affected by the TF system change that I have still not even looked at including watching porn and getting your drink on, that sort of thing, so even after I get these character reactions done there will be a considerable way to go. Not only that but I want to get the date with Mark wrapped up and an alternate sex scene for Jenny at the very least. I'm making better progress now than I have in months but the horizon is still a long way off.

Before I go I just wanted to let you guys know that I'll be going back to the hospital tomorrow, hopefully to get the all clear on my arm. It feels pretty normal again so it should be a routine checkup, possibly another X-ray just to be safe. I'll let you know how it goes.

Not another shower scene!

For a short period of time after your initial transformation you will be able to explore your new body, I am writing a small number of scenes for this with the first that is pretty much complete now taking place in the bathroom. I could only get in a couple of hours to work on it today so that's all I got done besides a few extra bits and pieces that you likely won't notice. I'll try and get more done tomorrow.

Move along, nothing to see here

Not much done today on Redus, did a couple of hours on another project and made a few small tweaks on Redus but that's all. I'm also considering a couple of other game concepts but they will remain on paper until such a time as I am able to work on them if I decide to go through with them. Have a good weekend folks!

When I wake up in the morning and I stumble out of bed

Rewrote the initial transformation sequence today. No longer do you wake up, see your new body and then just go on about your day as if nothing has happened, now there is a reaction period where several things are changed to incorporate the transition and Sam explains his/her thought process much more clearly than before. There is much yet to do in terms of the game changing based on your appearance, something I will be focusing on in future updates, but at least the fact you turn into a woman overnight is no longer brushed off as if it never happened. As always there are a few minor interactions unlocked during this phase that provide a little comedy but are completely optional and will not impact your game if you miss them. I am going to tweak the initial meetings with some characters after this event to better reflect the gravity of the situation but that will have to wait for another time.
I have also unlocked the forest using a new mechanic, the "Think" action. In most cases it will just refer you to your notepad but I will build it up over the next few updates to add extra functionality. At the moment "thinking" during days 4 or 5 will suggest taking a trip to the peaceful woods to provide a chance to reflect on the case. When that doesn't help you decide to take a walk since you are already there. It may seem a little stale and incomplete upon the next release but I would never get it out if I do too much with it now. The new notepad functionality is the main attraction of 0.4 and should help a lot of players who grew frustrated with previous versions of the game.

Reset to zero

Didn't get anything done yesterday, not because I was busy or anything I just wasn't in the mood. I'm still so far off the next update it just feels like I'm wasting my time. Nevertheless I got a fair amount done today. I finally sorted out the issues with restarting after an ending is reached, a series of loops now resets all variables and custom properties to zero every time you restart the game (or at least they should, it will take a while to test and there are still some actions that may appear when they shouldn't). The biggest downside to this fix is that since there are now thousands of numbers being reset at once, when you start a new game it will take several seconds longer to begin depending on your machine. It shouldn't be more than 30 seconds even for old computers though and for most it should only be an extra 10-15 seconds so it isn't really an issue. I tried spreading them out a bit but then there were a number of pauses lasting several seconds each and I would prefer to get them all out of the way in one go, you have to wait for the game to load up anyway.

I also made some headway with the new player descriptions, since there are far fewer possibilities now I am using set descriptions rather than the old dynamic ones. They will feel less stale and there will be noticeable changes after each transformation rather than a few altered numbers and adjectives. Unfortunately this does mean more work but it will feel more rewarding for players who try out different combinations of things. Most of these descriptions won't be accessible immediately as the items to unlock them are not available yet but I will write them anyway so that future updates don't take as long as this one.

It's so far, so far away

Started work on Sonia today, there are still some aspects of Christie's comments that I will have to test before calling her complete but there are a lot of branches and I feel that crowd sourcing may be more effective so I will leave her until post release and post feedback. I have too much work to do to worry about every little possible outcome. (It's scenarios such as you meeting Christie after multiple transformations have occurred that I am not sure will always make sense, this will likely be the case for many characters but will only affect a small number of players.) It's difficult pressing on when I know how much work is ahead of me, fortunately I can skip some characters as they have only one or two appearances in the game or at least reduce the number of branches and the minor characters don't need major reactions since you can't develop relationships with them anyway. Jenny might care if you lose your penis but Bob won't.

If anyone wants to get hold of me but doesn't want it to be public, my email address is: timandhisburntfingers@gmail.com
I will reply to all emails (unless you ask me not to) although since this is not my primary account I may not get your email straight away. If you are a member at TFGamesSite then you can PM me instead and I should be able to reply within 12 hours in most cases.

It's the little things

I had two hours to myself today, didn't feel like getting into anything major because of the strict time limit so instead I worked some more on the magnifying glass replacing 50 or so of the generic "you found nothing unusual or interesting" with object specific messages. It won't impact on the game or make the magnifying glass any more useful but if are the sort of person who examines and inspects every room and object in the game then it should make your experience a little more entertaining and rewarding. Most inventory items and furniture around your office now have such messages associated with them and I will continue to add more of these when I have small gaps of free time and nothing else to do, it won't interfere with standard productivity I promise. Speaking of which, I have to go into the job centre on Tuesday so I will have less time to work on Redus then. Not a big thing but I thought I might share. This is Tim with TEDB, signing off for the night.

Not sure if good thing...

Ooh aah, just a little bit

Not much done today as I had guests, mostly just bug fixing including one curious little blighter that kept ignoring the current room group and assuming it was instead in all of the room groups at once which led to several problems. I also moved around a few exits that I disliked the placement of. General things like that. I should be able to crack on with a decent amount of work next week but once again the weekend is looking fully booked up. The game file is now up to 71MB and this is looking to be the biggest update yet, not only in terms of size but the number of little tweaks and improvements is adding up and once I have the new transformation system complete I can begin adding more of the promised new content. I may have something to show around christmas or new years but if not 0.4 will almost certainly be ready by February. 0.5 won't take nearly as long, even if I don't get a new place by then as it will mostly be endings and bulking out existing content.

I wish I could just tidy up what I have now just so I could let people play around with some of the new features but with so many core mechanics being changed there is a lot of work ahead just to make the current version playable. Trust me though, it will be worth the wait when it is done.

The trees are moving!

That's the forest done, there's nothing to do there yet except explore, I will add a few things to do soon but all 45 rooms are created each with their own image and description. I have the layout of the forest sorted as well, it will take a few runs to ensure I didn't make any stupid mistakes but assuming I didn't all should be well. I just hope it doesn't have a significant impact on loading times. My testing has suggested not but every computer is different so I won't know until post release. I will not be releasing my map of the forest, if anyone wants to make one when it comes out they are free to do so but I would rather folks experience the location with a sense of exploration.

I've reduced the image sizes and quality as much as I dare but the game file size will increase significantly as a result of this addition. I apologize if this is an inconvenience to anyone.

The Road Goes Ever On And On

A fair amount of progress today, not what I wanted to get done as I got very much sidetracked but I had fun doing it and that's what matters right? Right? Please agree with me! Well anyway, I've tweaked the magnifying glass a little, changed a few things around the office including preventing a game-breaking sequence from taking place by adding another secret ending. Then I found some pictures and began work on a new area: The Forest. It won't play a big role in the game and won't have any significant impact on the story but it was a joy to work on (I'm about quarter way done with it after just a couple of hours but now that I'm into the rhythm of it the rest should be even quicker).

So why create the Forest if it serves little purpose? Well I intend for a number of locations to be revisited in later games and thought it might be a good idea to let players learn the layout now so they know what to expect, it is a bit of a maze in there so if you can learn your way around now it will help in the future. Plus I wanted to begin work on some Golden Star rewards and thought this would be a good place for it since it will be accessible in later games. I may also add a few hidden treasures in there if I have time as well but I haven't decided what yet. I will be splitting my time over the next few days between this and the character reactions so that I have something else to work on if I get bored. Otherwise I would just end up back on Terraria.

Everyday I'm Shovelling

Sorry, no work today. Terraria just got 200% more awesomesauce so I couldn't stand idly by hearing how much everyone else is loving the new additions. I had to play it, I had no choice. I'll try and get some work done tomorrow though.