Infinite Stars - The Visual Novel News

It's Friday! Depending on where you live!

Another successful week is behind us! I've been so busy working on the new content that I lost track of time, hence the later-than-usual devlog post!

This week has been mostly about coding. We made some changes to the story controller, allowing it to be more flexible. I also worked through the spiderweb of branching choices, adding the logic and correct routing. (Without getting too technical, thanks to Trix, we can now seamlessly move from free-roaming to the story, back to the free-roaming mid-story and then back to the story again without hassles. We've also changed the way the scenes get prioritised. There are a few other functions we have yet to start using, but I'll talk more about them once we start doing so.)

We also added a few new locations onboard the Tabitha where these scenes occur. (In some cases, like the Hangar, we added a navigation button so players can go outside the main story!)



From a marketing point of view, we're ramping up for the release, and we have a few things planned that should delight you. The cat isn't out of the bag yet, but if you've played and loved all of the free sci-fi/romance/adventure visual novels on the market (there aren't many), you're in for a happy surprise when we launch!

That's it for me! I have a busy day ahead with a half-day-long meeting starting in a few hours, but I hope the rest of you have a relaxing and meeting-free weekend! Stay safe, be kind, and do something fun!

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!