VN Ren'Py Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

[neglection]

Summer's Gone - Season 2 - Chapter 1 - Dev Log #28
Hello,

The log is a few hours later than usual because of what always happens during release-weeks. (Not SG’s release.)

My sleep schedule keeps rotating during these times.

I had to take a step back earlier this week to reset my stress levels.

I can manage to work 14 hours a day for many, many months, but as soon as I get into a release window, I start to struggle with sleep. It becomes “a more pressuring matter” when I start losing weight.

At least I get shredded.

If I only do one or two things, I can work all day, but during release times, there’s so much more to take care of and it slurps me out harder than Vic slurps a juice box.

Add Steam and GOG preparations to this and we have bingo.

I think it’s worse this time due to the pressure I put on myself on getting the updates out.

However, I’m smart enough to recognize when I step over a red line, and I need to take it a little easier. I don’t want to fall back into what happened in 2020/2021 and get depressed/bibi-burnout.

In the past 14 days I focused primarily on animations, but later stopped, and instead did still renders for SG while also juggling postwork.

In the last few days, though, I focused entirely on postwork. I can do around 500 renders a day without losing my mind. It heavily depends on how many renders I find that I need to redo.

I’ve talked about what postwork does to me before.

I find it extremely mundane and it’s a drag… But I have special “requirements” that need “my eye” and manual work.

I decided not to create the big cinematic for Chapter 1, because it’s more of a trailer than an intro. It also requires work in Blender.

Instead, I’ll make a smaller one that I had in my head as an alternative. I have a great song for it.

I’ll make and release the trailer with S2 CH3. The song for it is a 10/Sasha.

Let me make a list of what’s left for Season 2 – Chapter 1 (There might be more)

- ~2000-2500 still images

- Probably about 25 animations for characters.

- ~ 12 animations for the intro cinematic

- Implement and code the new UI. (Main menu, gallery, etc.)

- Implement the Aurora App (I will give this to the freelance coder I previously hired for the chat app. Provided it’s not too expensive. Otherwise, I’ll try it myself.)

- Edit Ambient sounds and SFX in Abelton.

- Postwork for a total of 7000+ images

- Testing the game, especially the save porting. We have an awesome design for this that I’ll preview below.

- Add 5 default Starts for Season 2. Season 2 being its own game, it needs to be able to be played without a safe from Season 1. Not recommended at all. But I’ll provide a “Bella, Nami, Vic, Mila, and alone.” starting point. However, there are probably over 300 variables in Season 1 that will affect the game eventually.

- Optional collectibles. I’ll only do this if my mind is in the green by the end. Otherwise I'll add them with Chapter 2.

Save porting & continue screen:

View attachment 4684491

I'm not sure if this is the latest version of the design. I'm writing this dev log at an ungodly hour and my designer is asleep.

The past three days I really felt like writing. As most of you know, SG is completely written. But I will still make changes, and it was calming to just write for a few days. I had noted down some things I wanted to change and… well, did so.

The PC still renders every day, but it’s been exclusively animations. I have around 135 renders for SG in the queue, but I won’t render them until the animations for another project are done.

Render count stays at ~5100 rendered images.

To keep myself sane, I’ll now focus on one thing until it’s done, and that’s postwork.

I created a Chapter cover for S2 Chapter 1.

View attachment 4684492

I wanted to do something in Blender for it but I have an issue with Blender, to be more precise, ported characters on the new PC that I have to figure out first.

I just don’t have the nerve and time for it right now.

I licensed four great new songs. I think I have about 25 licensed songs for Season 2 now.

I have one song licensed that speaks to me on a level so deep, that I wouldn’t give up the license for five million dollars.

It’s for a Sasha cinematic later in Season 2, and when this one arrives, it will be my masterpiece.

It can only be done in Blender… But we’ll talk about Blender when I can think straight again and for that I need to get the updates out.

My old Workstation refused to start the other day. Turns out another SSD died. Less than a year ago I had one die on me before. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t a very important drive.

I didn’t have a backup for it, which makes me think it was an old drive from an older PC that I installed, but I was too lazy to take it out again.

No real damage done. But whenever stuff like this happens, I feel like MC when he touches a girl and gets close to a panic attack.

Preview
Here’s another NSFW preview. You’ll get another in the next log. (4K of all images attached.

This time Kate.

View attachment 4684494

Boring personal Germany stuff from here on. You can stop reading here if you only care about game news.

There are other things that worry me, I don’t like what’s happening in Germany right now. A lot of talk about tax increases. (Income tax from 42% to 47%) Capital gain tax from 25% to 30%.

And this is without the social taxes on top. Which also increase every year.

But the biggest worry is a topic that I've been eying for a few years.

The government’s plan to include self-employed people under 30/35 into the state pension. This is a black hole of death. What my generation puts in there, is GONE.

That system will collapse.

And soon they’re probably going to force me in it. Best case is 18.6% of my monthly pre-tax income on top of everything else.

I think it’s a cumulation of all these little things that worry me.

I’ve been thinking about a certain "move" for a while, and two weeks ago, I canceled the lease for my apartment, and I’ll temporarily move back to my parent’s house in order to plan ahead for the next Chapters, and to eventually leave the country in the next 9-16 months... But that's a big IF because of the exit tax.

Afterwards, even if I get forced to pay the pension for a few months, I should still be able to buy licenses, etc.

The move in 3 months will take a day and development continues as usual. It won't be noticeable.

Back to Bellchen.

• Ocean

the list of what’s left for Season 2 – Chapter 1 is for both games or just one of them? Christ, I don't think this game will come out this year

 

[SophiaMelinda]

THere should be a devlog today. Ocean's gone a bit ambitious and is doing aound 7000 renders plus animations for the update, he's roughly just over two thirds through doing those renders. WiaB (his other game will be updated sooner, then he'll focus on getting this behemoth out ...then he'll hopefully stick to 2500K updates so we don't have to wait as long.

The devlog coming sometime soon will be helpful.

Thank you so much for replying. The story is good and I am excited to see what is next.

 

[BobTheDuck]

the list of what’s left for Season 2 – Chapter 1 is for both games or just one of them? Christ, I don't think this game will come out this year

This is the list of what's left for SG. Wiab's list is much smaller, and is in the Wiab log. I think it will come out this year, but at this point, maybe once summer's gone into autumn.

Sorry not sorry.

 

[yossa999]

the list of what’s left for Season 2 – Chapter 1 is for both games or just one of them? Christ, I don't think this game will come out this year

For S2CH1 only. Remaining (2000-2500 renders + animation) is of size of the Chapter 5, which has 2220 renders

On a good note, according to previous dev logs, he's now doing ~27 renders a day.
At that rate, if he paused WiAB after the Steam release and only rendered SG, he could finish 2000 renders in 75 days, or 2500 in 93 days.

 

[imagica]

I can manage to work 14 hours a day for many, many months, but as soon as I get into a release window, I start to struggle with sleep. It becomes “a more pressuring matter” when I start losing weight.

Yeah, well. This is not healthy at all. He should change this if he dosn`t want to have some lasting damage in the future.

 

[byaaahh]

I'm just playing through WiaB again and forgot William was an author.

Wonder if the women of the book club will recommend his book, maybe giving an opening to Nika discovering who his dad is.

 

[Mamaragan]

Holy shit Kate is hungry as hell lmao. She really want to piss off Bella

 

[Mr_Mister]

I wanted to do something in Blender for it but I have an issue with Blender, to be more precise, ported characters on the new PC that I have to figure out first.

I just don’t have the nerve and time for it right now.

My old Workstation refused to start the other day. Turns out another SSD died. Less than a year ago I had one die on me before. Thankfully, this time it wasn’t a very important drive.

I’ve been thinking about a certain "move" for a while, and two weeks ago, I canceled the lease for my apartment, and I’ll temporarily move back to my parent’s house in order to plan ahead for the next Chapters, and to eventually leave the country in the next 9-16 months... But that's a big IF because of the exit tax.

 

[BobTheDuck]

I'm just playing through WiaB again and forgot William was an author.

Wonder if the women of the book club will recommend his book, maybe giving an opening to Nika discovering who his dad is.

Oh damn that's be hilarious! Especially if Adrianna is related to Ayua... I can just imagine what Katie would say to that choice of material as well ...wild idea!

 

[SpaOscar]

Sometimes an image makes you remember things, this is the case with the new cover, at least for me...

 

[The Krogan Dude]

Boring personal Germany stuff from here on. You can stop reading here if you only care about game news.

There are other things that worry me, I don’t like what’s happening in Germany right now. A lot of talk about tax increases. -

 

[imagica]

Kate definately became more bustier. What are they eating over there?)

 

[HarryDubois420]

Kate definately became more bustier. What are they eating over there?)

Helen jumped into the water supply.

 

[Mamaragan]

Kay, Now Ocean HAS to make Kate a LI ffs

 

[BobTheDuck]

Kay, Now Ocean HAS to make Kate a LI ffs

Not being a LI doesn't mean no sexy time, it just means no ending. So in that sense, I think there will be plenty of Kate content, and this seems a pretty clear indication of that. I'd say the lewdable side girls are side girls because they're part of someone else's main path (in this case I'm guessing Kate's part of Bella's path).

 

[Mamaragan]

Not being a LI doesn't mean no sexy time, it just means no ending. So in that sense, I think there will be plenty of Kate content, and this seems a pretty clear indication of that. I'd say the lewdable side girls are side girls because they're part of someone else's main path (in this case I'm guessing Kate's part of Bella's path).

Still, a girl this hot shouldn't be a side piece on a specific path.

 

[Orgitas]

Unless Ocean decides to make a scene where Nika goes off to the chemist to pop a few viagra, I doubt there will be many side girls for Nika to have his way with. They will, likely, try and seduce him and he will be his edgy emo self and burst into a bullet for my valentine song, or something.

 

[yossa999]

Not being a LI doesn't mean no sexy time, it just means no ending. So in that sense, I think there will be plenty of Kate content, and this seems a pretty clear indication of that. I'd say the lewdable side girls are side girls because they're part of someone else's main path (in this case I'm guessing Kate's part of Bella's path).

I think for some, not being an LI means ruining the ending for someone who's real LI.

 

[chamillionaire]

Ocean's biggest enemy is himself and German Tax.

 

[RNasc4444]

"As most of you know, SG is completely written. But I will still make changes"

Hope he does eventually gtfo of Germany though. That would solve half of his problems.