It's been a while!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

First, let me apologize for the long silence. I know it’s been quiet on my end, and I don’t want to leave anyone wondering what’s going on. The truth is simple: I’ve been working a lot, and maybe… maybe I aimed just a little too high. (Just a little. Don’t look at me like that.)

I wanted the visuals to look even better compared to the last update — more lively, more expressive, more polished, more everything. And it does look better — a lot! But I also realized something very important along the way: if I keep doing absolutely everything at this level of detail, I’ll be releasing updates every time a new ice age starts. And that would be pretty sad. ( ._. )""

So, I’m learning to balance things. Not sacrifice visuals, but work smarter. I already found the sweet spot, don’t worry — you won’t notice the notch being lowered even a bit.

Now, let me show you what all this time has gone into:

New UI effects

To make the game feel more dynamic, expressive, and lively, we have been working on new UI and text effects!

Names, tones, character moods, dramatic moments — everything gets a sweet improvement. Everything to make you enjoy, and hopefully even draw a smile in that pretty face of yours.

Here are some examples, hope the gifs work as intended here (ó﹏ò｡):

Visual upgrades

I’ve improved the way I create scenes YET AGAIN. Characters, structures, lighting, bodies, poses — everything has become even more pretty. I’m genuinely proud of how it looks now. (⸝⸝⸝>﹏<⸝⸝⸝)

Unfortunately, as I said, I may have flown too close to the sun... Making scenes at this level of detail takes a lot more time than what I want for each update.

So I’ve tuned the process slightly — not the quality, just the workflow, to ensure updates won’t need the lifespan of a turtle to release. (Edit: I made some adjustments, and with some help of the community, I've found a nice spot. Icarus would be proud)

Translations

Yes… translations.

I really-really respect any developer who does them. I truly didn’t know what kind of journey I was getting into. It's way more interesting than I thought.

I fix one line of code, and break two somewhere else. It felt like sealing a ship leak with my finger, only to hear pshht behind me. But I'm almost there. The languages are getting polished properly and cleanly (hopefully (ᵕ—ᴗ—)).

Why the silence

While you only see bits and pieces, the groundwork for the big systems — exploration, relationships, and more — is being built behind the curtains. A strong foundation now will save tons of time and pain later.

At this early phases of development, most of the work isn’t the kind of thing you can show in a screenshot. And I don’t want to tease you with 100 lines of code that look like an alien crossword puzzle, with the face of a child showing you their drawing of what is supposed to be a tree.

I’m ambitious. Very.

And even if only some of the progress can be shared visually, trust that the rest is still happening at full speed. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll be stuck with me and my questionable creative choices for a long time. (..◜ᴗ◝..)

I’m committed to this project. You’ll have to deal with me and my antics for a while.

Here, sneakos, for you

Here are some sneakos from the update. I am unbelievably proud of how it looks now:

The update is looking amazing — and I can’t wait to place it in your hands soon.
(￣^￣ )ゞ

— Vorpal, Still Chewing But Not Choking Yet