Infinite Stars - The Visual Novel News

Another Friday. (It's crazy how fast the weeks fly by when you use something like weekly devlogs to mark the rollover occasion.)

All things considered, I'm well, and I hope the same for all of you.

I've been working my butt off (Almost literally, I think I need a new chair to work from) to get the next release ready, and it looks like we should have a Beta Test version ready by next week Friday.

Storywise, we've added Lochem's long-awaited intimate content. (Around 8K words), as well as a follow-up scene for Lebeny, Kiaria, Khalil and another hidden one. (Around 1K words each). We've also added the first of many true friendship routes for Lochem (Another 1k words - thanks to all of you who pointed out the lacking content for friendship routes). And then there is the episode wrap-up! (Another 3.5K words). Lastly, I've started to add some other feedback changes to the story, like the ones suggested by Nibblatious on Steam. This will be an ongoing process.



Artwise, we've added the new sprites for 16 characters. There might still be some weird expression issues in the older content, so if you come across anything, let me know so we can fix them! Tae has already started working on the new characters for Episode 4.



Background-wise, Stoffies, has steadily been pumping out new (and replacement) backgrounds, and some of you might even have caught one of his Discord streams and watched along while he drew.

(link to gif with another new BG since Steam and Imugr aren't getting along...)

Trix has been invaluable in helping me speed up the dev progress, and she's the reason why I'm able to have the Beta Version nearly ready for all of you.

What's next?
Episode 4, which I've already started writing. But first, player-made mods and content, and a taste of the free-form ship exploration!



Still a work in progress, but you can probably spot a few new locations.

A final shout-out to each and every one of my patrons and followers. None of this would be possible without you, and I love all of you to bits! Thanks for being there and for giving me a reason to continue creating Infinite Stars.

Have a fantastic, peaceful weekend!

Friday. Again. (Yay!)

I usually start of the devlogs with something personal but I'm going to take a break from doing so. It's nothing personal, but not everyone appreciates it.

Which means I now get to talk about Infinite Stars!
It was a productive week, with quite a few changes being made. We did some livestreams while we worked, specifically while coding Lochem's scene. It still has a way to go, but we're making progress!

Mayvheen, Lochem, Veera, Kiaria, Raymond, Khalil and Matthias' new sprites are in the game. I was hoping to have the whole crew done by today, but I'm still happy with the progress made.

I did code (and share on Discord during the livestream) a VERY cool scene gimmick in Lochem's route that I can't wait for all of you to experience. It's silly and simple, and yet– I wish I could see all of your faces when you experience it!

Things are slowing down on the character art side now that Tae has finished the crew, and she'll be returning to her regular schedule of chipping away at 1-2 new characters per month from the backlog.

The new Observatory is in the game, and it looks amazing. Stoffies is ramping up his backgrounds, and we should have some more to share soon.

And I've also reached out to the composer who created the amazing sound tracks from the Main Menu and Credits screen. He's very excited to be working on Infinite Stars again.

That's it from me. Have a great weekend! Be kind to each other!

Friday!! Yay! FriDAY! FriDAY!

As always, on the personal side, all has been well. The little one is healthy and growing and it's surreal to think that we'll have a new family member in a couple of months!
On to the main feature, Infinite Stars!

We've been struggling to get the optimised version of the new expressions working via the code, and as of earlier today, we had a breakthrough! It's working! With the blinking animation! Soon the whole crew will be blinking idly at you while you read their dialogue. It's not a huge thing, but it makes a difference. Just like the mid-sentence expression changes (which are a pain to script, by the way!), it makes the characters feel a little more alive. Special shout-out to Trix who has been amazing during this whole process!

It took way longer to implement than I thought it would, but now that it's in, we can continue scripting!

Lochem's scene is coded, as is the continuation after the cliffhanger, and all the side branches for the different love interests. All that still needs to be done is assigning the actual facial expressions.

The new crew member sprites are in various stages of being implemented, and now that the new expression system is working, they should all be in the game by end of next week. (By the way, I've uploaded some new emoticons of all the new sprites on our Discord server if you wanted to steal a sneak peek at the new crew faces!)

I know some of you are reading this and thinking "Cool!" before clicking away, but I'd like to put what we've done into context. When I launched Infinite Stars, we had a total of 6 expressions for each character. Later, we changed that to 9 expressions for each character. I don't know if you can recall this post from last year, where split the mouth and eyes of each character, allowing us to create 81 different expressions. By splitting the eyes and eyebrows for all the human characters, we've now upped the 81 expressions to 810 different expressions, not including the blush layer. (The characters can blush, which actually makes it 1620 different expressions each, but I feel that's cheating a bit, even if it's technically true. Also, some characters have an additional wink layer, which again ups the 1620 layers to... you get the idea.)

I've included a VERY large reference image of Katya's new expressions for you to browse through all the nuanced emotions she can now display. It's not perfect, and some expressions might still change, but here it is! (Another shout-out, this time to Odikeraz who created these images to help me reference/code the expressions faster!)

[image]

Lastly, I don't do a call to action like this very often, but if you want to enable me to create even more cool stuff for Infinite Stars and Draegan Herald, please consider becoming a Patron. I realise $3 or $12 can be a lot of money, depending on where you are in the world, but even a custom recurring pledge of $1 adds up over a few months. I love pushing the boundaries of what Infinite Stars can be, and with your help, the potential is truly infinite!

Have fun, stay safe and enjoy your weekend!

Friday! Is it me, or are the weeks getting shorter?

Not much to report on the personal side of things. Life has been busy, but nothing out of the ordinary, so let's get to it! Infinite Stars!!

Another busy, mostly admin and technical stuff week, which still felt productive. I've managed to hit my daily writing goals almost every day this week while surviving my day job!

Tae has been working on the Cephilusk crew, and the results are gorgeous! At the same time, Stoffies doesn't have much to report with the observatory, but I'm hoping we'll have some more progress by next week.

Here is a small teaser to show you the difference between the old and the new level of detail that Tae has been implementing...

[image on patron - no signup required]

Our other two members I mentioned last week have also been VERY busy, and I'm hoping I can share some of their work with all very soon.

Then: something that has been on my chest for a while now. Infinite Stars started out as a hobby, and you've all been fantastic with helping me grow it to what it is now (with so much more to come!), but I have to start looking at scaling. While I enjoyed my time as a solo indie developer, it's time to move on to bigger things. I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger yet, but in the coming months, you'll notice some changes on the Patreon and Discord branding as I move away from "James", who is creating Infinite Stars, to "James and the awesome team" who is creating Infinite Stars, amongst other projects.

I haven't figured out all the details yet. Draegan Herald will continue as its own separate project. I know there hasn't been a ton of Draegan Herald updates recently, but rest assured, I have been making progress. Infinite Stars will also remain as a separate project, with a small additional surprise for all of our Patrons.

Other plans for 2023, specifically relating to Infinite Stars, is getting an Android build on the Google Play store for everyone and opening up the game to some modding so all of you can write and share your creations with me and everyone else.

Can you believe it's Friday again??

Also, apologies for missing the earlier devlog from last week. You can read it here.

Thanks for everyone's words of encouragement over the past week! Mom was released from the hospital earlier this week and is back to enjoying her first full calendar year of retirement at home, and I felt my first little baby kick last night. All-in-all, a perfect week!

I'm still working around the power cuts, and it's becoming a part of life. All sources (government and private sector) agree that it's going to continue like this for the foreseeable future. Better get used to it.

I've added two contract team members on the art side since November. We briefly hit the $1K per month Patreon support in November/December, achieving the goal of getting some additional help involved. Right now, it's cutting into my savings while we're below the $1K mark, but there is no reason for concern yet. Once you see what we've been up to, you'll agree it was worth the investment.

But, on to the main reason you're here! Infinite Stars.
Writing and polishing have been going well. It has put me in an awkward position, though. I'm eager to get the next public release out that includes the new portraits, story and some major bug fixes, but the current content batch needs to be completed first to prevent running into a gameplay wall. I'm working as fast as I can, juggling all my other responsibilities (mostly my day job).

I did, however, manage to upgrade from Ren'Py 7.x to Ren'Py 8.x, futureproofing the project for the foreseeable future. This also gives us access to newer Python functionality that we might or might not take advantage of. It took some effort to update the code. The last time I tried it, the game would not launch, but that's been fixed now!

Atom, the program I've been using to code the script, has been sunset. I bit the bullet and switched over to Visual Studio before we run into any issues down the line.

Stoffies has been working on the next background that we teased in this design insight post, and Tae has been working nonstop on the character updates. (I'd like to clarify that Tae and Stoffies will continue working on Infinite Stars, but they aren't the two new members I mentioned earlier. They will be announced in due course!)

Seriously, Tae has been working nonstop, and she managed to finish the whole crew earlier this week. There are still a few minor changes that we'll be making, mostly expression-wise, before she tackles the Cephilusk crew. In the meantime, I'll share this new picture of our favourite brother and sister! (Seriously, if you love Mayvheen and Lochem, you'll want to check it out!)

Thanks for reading! I appreciate each and every one of you! You're all amazing people, and I couldn't have asked for a better community!