Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim News

I can't believe it's been like 4 months. Apologies, things have been moving so fast that I've been perpetually putting off the next devlog by 'maybe a few more weeks'. With that, I'll cut the shit and present my big news.

Dialtown is now finished.

[h2]Yes, it's true! [/h2]
I'm working on polish, bugfixing and finishing up the cut content shown on the extras menu right now, but the actual game, and its five routes, are all working/fully implemented.

[h3]Yeah, it's all done. Every route, every ending, every scene.[/h3]

iOS and Mac support!

Yeah, this is something I'm very excited about. Dialtown is also coming to Mac + iOS on launch. A friend is helping me port the game to those two devices and while we're tweaking some things still, unless mr Apple-man (Stephen Job) is an asshole and specifically stops us (bastard), we SHOULD be able to get the iOS/Mac ports working for the main release, allowing for a Windows, Android, iOS + MacOS simultaneous launch!



Yes. A game about dating telephones coming to most modern kinds of phones. The irony's wonderful.

Dialtown's release trailer!

Here, a special re-cut of my Valentine's Trailer, complete with release date, platforms listed + Callum Crown design reveal :)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Dialtown: Phone Dating Sim releases on Valentines Day (February 14th), 2022.[/h3]

Coming soon on Window PC, MacOS, Android and iOS.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep y'all updated with future stuff! Thanks, have a truly doggly night!

Yours houndly,
Dogman

[h3]Howdy, folks, it's been a while, huh?[/h3]


First of all, sorry for the wait, I'm aware it's been a couple of months. This is honestly a weird point in development because at this point, every new scene I have, even still images, contain spoilers. This makes it hard to show what I'm actually working on off. But, I've been hard at work! Progress has been going well, and I'm excited to show you a few things :) Gonna make this a BIG devlog because you guys deserve it!

Meet Mayor Mingus!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Been a whiiile since I revealed a new character, so I thought I'd introduce everyone to Mayor Mingus Crown, Dialtown's corrupt and ruthless leader. This lil scene is from one of the routes. (Also, thanks to my cat Salvage for modeling for her! It's the head. It's HIS head.)


Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. I had an older build on mobile previously. But, the new build has fullscreen support, NEW ui with bigger buttons, bugfixes + more touch friendly controls, etc! A lot of work went into it, it's STILL experimental...

[h3]But if you wanna try it out, you can get the demo on mobile RIIIGHT over here![/h3]

Getting the full game on the google playstore would also (hopefully) allow Chromebooks to play Dialtown, since that can access the Play Store! Woohoo. I also updated the PC version with some shared code improvements, namely to UI. It's ALSO super experimental, so lemme know how it all works!

Alright, drum-roll please...
Yep! Progress has been good! While the jump from the last devlog mightn't look all that impressive, believe me, a lot of work has gone into the next scenes, so really, that yellow should be a light shade of green. They're (mostly) asset complete, but a decent bit of work is needed to complete them. If you've played the demo and seen the standards I set for the early routes, you'll understand why. Things do get picked up a notch.

Then, I have to finish the extras menu, and then really teesssssstttt the whole game out, lots of bugfixing, tweaking and testing. But, it's doable. A few of my developer friends said they're willing to give me a hand when the time comes. :)

I'm still on track for a 2021 release! Only reason I'd delay it is a release conflict or if a massive IRL calamity hit me. I have a realistic release date in my head that I'm aiming for. If all goes well, next devlog'll confirm what that date is! Otherwise, that's it for this devlog. I wanna thank you all for dreaming and hooting and hollering with me and such, and of course, for reading this devlog. Hope y'all are doin' well!

[h2]Stay Houndly!

-Dogman[/h2]

Hey, y'all! Long time no speaky, huh?

Apologies for not writing this sooner, simply put: I wanted to wait 'til I had something important enough to show y'all, something to warrant me writing one of these. This stage of development is funny in that since the end of the game is practically just a string of scenes that are RIFE with spoilers, I can't really show off much directly.

But, I DO have a lil to talk about! So, talk I shall. :)

The final route is coming along nicely. The first half or so of the route is fully finished. Since there are recurring locations exclusive to this route, and all of them have appeared already thus far, the second half of the route WILL be easier to develop than the first! Hurrah! Here's a few screens from the route:







I'd love to show more off, but the further you play into the route, the more spoilery it gets. Also, in other news: A pal of mine tested the first half of the final route. He found a few bugs (which I have thoroughly squished), gave a lot of positive feedback (promising!) and some really good criticism/suggestions on things to change/modify (thankfully, most of which I can do quickly enough). So, yeah, first half of route five shaped up nicely!


This wouldn't be a Dialtown devlog with The Chort. So, lemme whip it out.


You know the deal by this point. The flowchart shows most of the significant scenes/events in each route, with green stuff being fully done content. Yellow = finished script/some assets, code WIP. There was also purple for placeholder assets and red for completely unfinished material, but those have been removed fully from the chart. :)

Progress has been great lately, basically. 24/26 endings done, whew! Not been getting much sleep, but hey, [h3]That's Life![/h3]
[expand](Legal notice: Frank Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Enterprises, LLC (yeah, that's the actual name of the company, not kidding) nor the Universal Music Group condone Dialtown in any shape or form. In fact, if Frank Sinatra was alive, I'm sure he'd personally detest Dialtown with a passion and send goons to my house to beat me up or make me watch Shark Tale (now available on Blu-ray!) or something. But, he's dead, so like... Who's gonna pay for the goons NOW, Frankie, HUH? Haha, SUCKER.)[/expand]

I'm also mentioning this as an aside, I uploaded a new demo patch late last month, just to fix some bugs and junk. I also improved some assets, redoing Billy/Gabby's poses from scratch and adding many more poses to their pose-pools. Here's a direct comparison so you can see what I mean. :)



Yep! I added head turn variants for poses that made sense and added new body poses. Huzzah. Oh, and there's a new song on the OST. It plays during Oliver's route, and you can find it in the demo portion of his route right now! Here's a Streamable link if you wanna listen to it right now! (Temp link, will expire 3 months from now!)

[h2]Musac Heore.[/h2]

A lot of the code in the new update is experimental and may break anything and everything. But, so far, doesn't seem to have broken much, if anything. If it does, lemme know!

[h3]Release plans.[/h3]
Alright, alright, I thought the game was gonna release in Spring. But, I decided not to push for a Spring release (as the end of Spring approached), because while I could've just about made it, I really don't wanna rush the final release. I felt it was better to take the time to go back and improve some of the earlier assets, touch up the game just so the quality is somewhat consistent.

To err on the side of caution, I won't say what month DT is planning to release on in case there's set backs, but Dialtown releasing during the second half of 2021 is guaranteed. If I don't, fuck it, another video of me as a horse drinking hard liquor straight from the bottle. I'll even use a different Sinatra song (read legal notice above.) (But, no, I won't fail.)

This stage of development is always the hardest for me, to be honest. When you work on something for 2 and a half years (WOW,) it can be hard to see how good your game even is. Is it good? Who knows, it's just my weird mutant child who I kiiinda wanna ditch at the grocery store, y'know? But, I can say one thing for sure, after receiving feedback from my testers: [h3]If you enjoyed the demo/Randy's route, then the best is yet to come![/h3]

Thanks for reading and dreaming with me and junk! As always, I'm a fucking mutt. Goodnight, everyone!

Howdy, y'all! I've got a lil news!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Yep! It's... a clip from route 5! As you can see, I even (tastefully) censored a spoiler in the background, allowing you to see just a liiittle more of the tomfoolery going on (but, unspoiled!) Fun!

Woe, chort be upon ye.



Here it is, everypony, Dialtown's progress. As you likely know by now, this is a summary of every DT route/miniroute, all endings. Anything green is done and dusted (just needs retesting!), yellow means finished script, needs code and the purple stuff is like green (finished) with some placeholder assets a few artist friends of mine are working on!

[h3]24/26 of Dialtown's endings are now done, on my end.[/h3]

Not too shabby, eh? Overall, yeah, not much else to say, just wanted you guys to know that everything's going hunky-dory behind the scenes! I'll make sure to post another devlog next month (provided I don't die, have my arms fall off or get trapped inside a .rar file in my desktop, I guess.)

Thanks for dreaming with me and such, g'night folks!!!

Yours houndly,

Muttman