Leaving DNA News

[p]Just dropping a quick note to let you know I'm still working on Episode Five. I'm up to 1650 new renders and making good progress through the story. Compare that with Episode Four (3751 renders), Episode Three (1896 renders), Episode Two (2536 renders), and Episode One (1705). It's hard for me to predict how much more work I have to do, but there's still quite a lot left. Branching will be the main villain, as each of the four LI romance paths and the "dark path" each necessitate their own coding and renders. I thought this update would be much smaller than it's turning out to be, but I'm running with it.[/p][p][/p][p]Check out my latest public artwork in the community hub:[/p][p]Jamie[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for your patience![/p][p][/p][p]--Monk[/p]

[p]Hello Steam Community. This is a quick note to let you know that I am still working on Episode Five. If you haven't yet, check out my recent public art postings here:[/p][p]Aghavni[/p][p]Emmeline[/p][p]You may have heard that Steam is removing some adult games due to containing some content they don't like. These games are being retired, and games that are retired can no longer be purchased but can still be played by those who have already purchased them.[/p][p]I am hopeful that Leaving DNA will not be affected by this--we don't know yet if Steam is only taking out the "worst offenders" or if they will go deeper, but assuming you've already purchased the game then even if it is retired you will not lose access to it. In the meantime, I will finish development of the game and continue with the planned story regardless of what Steam does.[/p][p]Thanks very much for being patient while I continue to work on the update.[/p][p]--Monk[/p][p][/p]

Hello everyone. This is a quick check-in to let you know I am still working on Episode Five.

I still have quite a lot of work to do. Normally I do one scene at a time and work on the coding and renders for all variants of that one scene before moving on to the next. For Episode Five I've been focusing on each scene on Emmeline's path first, and I'm finished with about nine scenes. I'll go back to each scene to add the variants for the other LI's (as well as the "dark" path) when I'm finished with Emmeline's, as well as creating the handful of unique scenes that may only be available on a particular path. I'm not sure if this is an easier way to do things or not but it's what I'm doing.

So far I'm right around 900 renders for this update.

Thanks for being patient.

--Monk


If you haven't already, check out my latest special renders in the artwork section:

Jessa (MC's law clerk)

Dely (from the Ep.4 bar scene)

Hello friends. This is a quick check-in to let you know I am still working on Episode Five. Progress on this episode is not happening very fast, unfortunately, but I am slowly getting it done.

When I published the first demo of the game (roughly the first half of Episode One) back in July 2022, I had already planned out all eight episodes of the story and I had the first four episodes mostly written as well as a light draft of Episode Five. As I worked on each episode I made substantial rewrites as my writing skill improved and I made tweaks to the story. But unlike the previous episodes, I've scrapped my original draft for Episode Five and started over completely from scratch. I haven't changed the major plotpoints, but how I was getting to those plotpoints wasn't really working and I've had to do big restructuring of the episode.

Anyway, my report is that writing is slowing me down more than usual this episode, but I am getting the job done. Just a reminder that I have a separate full-time job and I work on Leaving DNA in my spare time, so I appreciate your patience.

Check out my latest special render of MC's ex-girlfriend Vega here!

Hello Steam community. I hope you have all had a chance to play through Episode Four and I hope you enjoyed it! I have started working on Episode Five. You were very patient waiting for Episode Four, which took a full year to produce. Please be patient again with Episode Five.

I think Episode Five will be shorter but wider, with shorter playthroughs for players on single paths but more divergent pathing. I don't want to make any predictions about how long it's going to take to develop. I believed Episode Four would be my shortest episode and it turned out to be my longest. So please be patient and eventually this thing will get done.

If you've never been in the art section of Leaving DNA's community hub, check it out now. I frequently post special renders I've done in that section, including one I posted this morning of Jamie who won the "Best Girl" poll for Episode Four that took place on another website.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who has purchased the game and thank you for being patient while I develop the next episode!

--Monk