Infinite Stars - The Visual Novel News

It's Friday and it's business as usual! It's good to be back!

According to our word count, the project has increased by roughly 30K words since the last patron release, meaning Infinite Stars is roughly 160K words long so far, or just a bit longer than J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers! (I'll share exact numbers with the release, but it'll probably be a bit more by then!)

To those of you who have been keeping me company on the livestreams, thank you! You know who you are. It helps keep me focused and motivated!

I've also added some of the old, new backgrounds that I haven't had time to implement until now, as well as a bunch of entirely new backgrounds for the new content. You can see the examples below of how the new bridge looks.

(You can compare them over here!)

I've also added some of the previously revealed sprites to the game this week (Sonia, Lindi and Nikau)

If that wasn't enough, with the next release being around the corner, I've also added some new patron portraits that will be waiting for you in the roster!



As you can see, I've been super busy! I can't wait to share the new build with everyone! If you see one of our patrons in the wild, give them a pat on the back– none of this would've been possible without them! Infinite Stars is still a passion project, and I'll continue working on it even without funding, albeit at a slower pace. Their support makes it possible for me to justify spending a large amount of time on Infinite Stars!
I appreciate all of you! Have a peaceful weekend, stay safe and go do something fun to treat yourself!

Hey everyone! It's not Friday, but since I haven't done one of these in a while, I thought I'd share a midweek update.

Happy New Year to all of you! I wanted to thank all of you for your continued support. It makes such a difference– seriously, you probably don't even realise exactly what it means to me. It's been such a privilege for me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you!

2023 was a difficult year for a lot of us, (listening to some of the other members on the team, this isn't an exaggeration!) so may 2024 be much much better for everyone!

I'm officially over my burnout, and I've been working on Infinite Stars like crazy. (Just today we coded 10.5K words, or an entire length of Episode 1 on the live stream. That's roughly ¼ of the content that we're planning to add to the next public release.)

I've also officially added Lindi and Sonia's sprites to the game, and some new backgrounds. I still have several more backgrounds and sprites that need adding, and we're tackling them as we cruise through the script, adding them as we need them.

If you're not on the Infinite Stars Discord and would like to hang out during our live streams and other activities, come on over!

Have a fantastic rest of the week! And stay safe!

It's another Friday! And it's a long weekend in South Africa.

The past two weeks haven't been kind to me. We were without water for a few days, and we were back to being without power for 9+ hours per day, but that seems to be over now. We're back to having water, and the daily power cuts are down to the regular 2-4 hours per day, which I can deal with.

My day job has also been particularly busy, not that I'm complaining, as it pays the bills. We're working on some large deals, and I've been asked to be part of a prestigious upcoming event. I've also been meeting with some fascinating business individuals, which always leaves me energised and motivated! My only complaint is time. To quote Bilbo Baggins, "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

But the rest of our amazing team has been incredible with picking up the slack!

Crowbie has been expanding on my drafts and working on the content for Episode 4, Tae has done what feels like a gazillion new characters recently (The six aliens we've teased, four new side characters for the crew, the Spooktober outfits, and so much more!)

Stoffies has had some health issues from too much drawing, and he has to take it a bit slower, with some scheduled downtime happening from December. We snatched HiroDan, our other background artist, from a still unannounced project to step in and help out in the meantime.

Backgrounds always seem to be the bottleneck when it comes to new content, but we're still set on launching the next public release of Infinite Stars in November. At worst, we'll have to use some placeholder art, as I don't want to delay the release much longer.

I'm regretting the whole Spooktober thing.
I'm anxiously watching the deadline approach as I wasn't bargaining on the extra distractions. Even without the extended power cuts and increased day job workload, we were on a thin margin of available time. I've always wanted to participate, so we'll see it through!



Doesn't Reyna look enchanting in her Halloween Heist costume? A lot of you voted for Reyna to be dressed as a witch, and I can't wait to share the other costumes!

I still have a lot of day job tasks to get through, and I'm also hoping to get some more Infinite Stars work done, so I'm going to politely bow out and get back to work.

Another Friday! ::awkward dubstep moves::
We're all going with the motions, working together on Episode 4 and other content. There's nothing super exciting to share, and it's mostly "Yes, we're still working on it!"
That said, I can share some progress and insight regarding Episode 4. All of this is still unreleased...

Episode 4 - Writing:
Scene 01 - Intro: 1.5K words (DONE)
Scene 02 - Lindi: 1.2K words (Editing)
Scene 03 - Debrief: (Drafting)
Significant Branch 1A - Bug: 500 words (Editing)
Significant Branch 1B - Puzzle: (Drafting)
Scene 04 - Ceph: 1.5K words (Editing)
Scene 05 - Approach: (Drafting)
Significant Branch 2A - Elevator: 700 words (Writing)
Significant Branch 2B - Meetup: (Drafting)
Significant Branch 2C - Explore: (Drafting)
Scene 06 - Naaka: 1.2K words (Editing)
Scene 07 - Stealth: 1.4K words (Editing)
... It continues like this, and I'd rather not spoil anything by accident, such as the fancy new exploration features Trix has been working on!

Unreleased Freeroam Scenes:
Veera's Scenes:
6x scenes: 2K words (All in various stages of Drafting and Writing)
Khalil's Scenes:
2x scenes: 6K words (Editing)
Matthias Scenes:
2x scenes: 4K words (Writing)
Reyna Scenes:
1x Scene: 2K words (Editing)
Tabitha Scenes
1x Scene: 1K words (Writing)
Lebeny Scenes:
1x Scene 4.5K words (Editing)
... Etc

As you can see, it's pretty boring, but we have been working hard. Perhaps more exciting is the new characters that Tae have been drawing for Episode 4.
There are nine new aliens, with several more coming later this month. (You've seen some teasers of them)
There are also five new crew members whom you haven't met yet. (You've seen teasers of Lindi, but I'll share some more today!)

Stoffies is still catching up on redrawing the remaining older backgrounds, and once that's done, he'll start on the new ones for Episode 4.



The Tabitha Chef, Andreas. Casanova Extrodinaire. He can do things in the kitchen with sugar and fruit that will make your toes curl in pleasure.

Enjoy your weekend, and be kind to each other!

FriYAY!

Before I start, I wrote a whole devblog for last week, scheduled it, and never submitted it. Sorry about that.

As a reminder to all the new people, I consistently post updates every single Friday. On rare occasions I miss one, but that doesn't mean that we haven't made progress for that week, it just means I didn't write (or click submit) the devlog. That said, I do have a day job that takes priority over Infinite Stars, but I spend every (and I mean EVERY) free hour I have working on Infinite Stars. Sometimes we'll get tons done, and other times we'll have little to report.
That said, this has been a very productive two weeks!

A lot of it is behind the scene stuff that needs to happen, but doesn't look like much. This includes all the writing… We've been writing a lot. So much writing.

Lochem's MxM observatory intimite content has been added to the game, and the shower scene you all voted for is almost done! It should be ready by next week.

I've also added a Lochem friendship/flirt scene in the Mess hall as a precursor to the shower (or other) intimate scenes. You can chill with the best space commander friend there is, or you can– you know– very deliberately push your foot up against his thighs under the table. He loves it, but flusters easily. This scene is in the new patron build released today, but the facial expressions still need to be coded.

Other writing stuff that we've also been working on:
Episode 4's content, including an optional scene where your Mah'Abeu takes a ride in a VERY cramped, old and rumbling elevator with Matthias. There is a lot of brushing against each other, making Matthias very conscious of your presence which leads to some embarrassment on his behalf. Your Mah'Abeu can either ride it out innocently (hurr hurr) or lean into the situation (I make no apologies!) and "innocently" tease him all the way until, well, you both arrive (that's it! A hat trick!) at your intended destination.

Some of Lahkush and Lahkhadia's content, don't want to say too much about it.

The first crew interaction with an Uhlikti. Also spoiler hush-hush content, so won't expand on it.

Snippets of Reyna's arc
Snippets of Veera's arc
Some more Raymond stuff
Some additional Matthias stuff
Some Lindi stuff
Some Andrea's stuff

Yeah, we've been writing all over the place, and it's going to pay off in the not too distant future.

On the drawing side, Tae has been working on more Cephilusks, and Stoffies is busy with the new and improved bridge. (We're reworking the command platform, and I'm very excited for it!)



On the coding side, we implemented the framework for unlockable lore snippets as you progress/make different choices in the game. The unlocks are universal, across all your saves, and it might require a second or third playthrough to unlock all of them. The basics are there, and I love the freedom it gives us to expand on the already expansive world of Infinite Stars.

As a team we've also been spending some time exploring the lore and world-building, including how Cephilusks sleep. We've got some really cool ideas, but I'm curious as to how YOU imagine they sleep. If you want to have some fun and speculate, I'd love to hear your ideas. (We might even steal some of them or use them as a bouncing board for new ideas!) Let me know in the comments!

Oh! And we received the first version of our new trailer! Wooo! We just need to change some of the text and character sprites, but that should also be ready before the end of the month!

Patron's can go play footsie with Lochem over here. No android version this week (My Ren'Py was updated and I need to reconfigure the store keys etc)

Have a fantastic weekend! As always, stay safe, be kind and believe in yourself! You are worth it!