Category: Uncategorized

First of all: Public Release will be this Friday, the 18th.

For the past few months, I’ve felt increasingly tired over the course of the day. It has affected my work. I wake up exhausted and unable to sleep any longer. Then usually by the afternoon I’m falling asleep in my chair, and it’s hard to think let alone be creative when engulfed in a thick fog of constant exhaustion. By the time night rolls around I have trouble falling to sleep again and I toss and turn for up to an hour. I only manage half a workday at best lately, and after catching up on emails and coordinating with the rest of the team, that leaves only a couple hours of game dev. I hate this, it sucks, and I want it to stop.
Back in August, when I first noticed a change, I saw my doctor and she started putting me through a diagnostic process. I’ve seen a couple specialists by now, including that sleep study I complained about a couple weeks ago, and here’s what’s going on:
-Most likely what I’m experiencing is some form of severe sleep apnea. I’ve had the study done, they’re processing the results, and maybe I’ll end up using a CPAP machine or whatever.
-A second possibility is that I have a gastrointestinal bleed that’s constantly leaving me just a little bit short on blood. It would explain the sudden change in my sleep better than apnea, although apnea fits my symptoms better. That’s getting tested for in January.
-A remote third possibility is, well, the “big C”. It’s unlikely (there would have been a much bigger impact by now if it was, but cancer’s kind of weird and can be unpredictable) but if that is the case, they’ll see evidence when they do the gastrointestinal stuff in January.
I know the updates have kind of sucked lately, and I just wanted to share with you some details as to why.

Last night I had a sleep study taken. It was a spur of the moment thing, I’ve been on a waiting list for an appointment since last August and there was finally a cancellation last night. And it was awful. I got barely any sleep, what I did get was even more fitful than normal, and I had to take the bus home with a face and head covered in electrogel bukkake goop. If you have to do one these things in the future, my advice: get a ride home and take the next day off work.

While I’m still picking away at in between naps, but that’s why there isn’t a more substantial update today.

Just a real quick update this week. It’s raining cats and dogs outside, the power keeps flickering, and it’s supposed to continue on like this until tomorrow evening. Which is partly why this blog update is so late and short- my internet is more indecisive than an anime character with multiple love interests.

So, I’m done the character-design-y bits of Ulania and the Phantom Knight mechanics, and I’ve started in on her quest. It’s a weird feeling… by now I can tell in advance if I’m going to get angry emails about a particular bit of content or not, so I’m half tempted to make this dungeon even more annoying just to bother people since I’m going to catch flak for it anyway. Oh well, I’ll try to restrain myself. Despite the angry emails, I think it’ll turn out to be a cool dungeon.

There’s a lot of new faces in the next release. Bronwyn’s new faces, of course, plus Ulania, (hopefully, finally) Diadira, a “brainwashed” face for Yeon (also finally), possibly that Westcastle shopkeeper, possibly faces for all the miscellaneous guards. My mouse hand will never forgive me.

Uh, other than that things are proceeding pretty smoothly.

Remember to check back on Saturday for this year’s Halloween pin-ups!

Same Harem Place, Same Harem Time!

October Changes

NOTE: Bronwyn’s face has been removed due to avoid a potential copyright issue, and couldn’t be replaced in time. Please tolerate this for now- I am very aware that a huge amount of Bronwyn’s appeal has to do with her face set, I just need to head off any potential problems and will replace it as soon as possible.

ALSO NOTE: I made a last minute decision to extend the quest “Cannibal Corps” (as detailed on the blog) because I thought the end of the quest was kind of limp and deserved more player involvement. Please don’t think of this as a half-finished quest, simply a quest that was finished that I decided to add more content to later.

ALSO ALSO NOTE: Last week for some reason I didn’t receive any email notifications of new blog comments, which is why all the new posters didn’t get approved until just now. Sorry for any inconvenience, it wasn’t an attempt to censor anyone or control comments, and I’ll be more diligent about comment approval in the future.

-You now need a $65 Season Pass to access Harem Collector Multiplayer.
-There is a new backer sex scene! You can view it with the code “Bwjfnc” or add it to the random scene queue with “Bwjfnc2”
-New music for the Northmarket Wealthy District and Eastfort Military District.
-Abandoned Fort is re-visitable with a handful of daily encounters there.
-A bunch of new banters, added code for Yeon banters
-Trophy Traders are now available in Southport and Westcastle!
-Therese’s weapons no longer gain the Radiant element. She does gain a “Smite” Technique that deals +20% Radiant damage on hit instead.
-Elaiya’s Stealth and Ready, Aim statuses both confer increased chances of a critical hit. And they stack!

So far, the release is looking pretty good. Got music today from PeaSea- the new music for the Wealthy District and a legit voiced pop song he wrote for when Diadira gets introduced that’s going to knock your socks off. On top of that, one of the new bosses has a piece of incredible art for him from GusBus… but you had your preview already.

Unfortunately, I was surprised this afternoon to find that a couple of previous commitments I made are coming into play a day earlier than I expected, so I might not be able to get the test release out to all the testers by tomorrow- though I might be able to pop on long enough to get a link on the official tester’s forum I very much doubt I’ll get the mass email before midnight. Just one of those things. Things will be on track for the Backer Release the following week, though, unless there’s some kind of Hall Monitor from Hell-style complete fuckpile.

Anyway, I hope you’ll all enjoy the new content when it finally gets into your hands. Until then, so long and happy fapping!

Alright, so I totally dropped the ball yeterday- I was totally intending to write a blog post on time but then I started playing video games and for some reason I thought it was Monday… sorry.

Anyway, in a rush to have a topic, I’ve gone ahead and delivered on a promise I made last summer- a tour of the new office.

Okay, so here’s the view from the door- doesn’t look like much, does it? We’re still unpacking- a a combination of no personal time and needing to replace a bunch of old Ikea-type furniture that fell apart in the move- so this isn’t the final state of the room. Some highlights- you can see Nekochan’s drawing stuff on the right of the desk, next to my file folders of legal/tax/business docs. On the floor is a mismash of stuff- that’s my Senhime statue still in the box, our collector’s edition Catherine box, and a Diablo II strategy guide with a bunch of boxes. On the extreme right of the photo, you can see our CD rack- firmly establishing Nekochan and I as 90’s kids- and you can also see that I was in the middle of painting a mini when I realized I needed to do a blog post.

You probably also noticed the cat, because this is the internet. She hates being alone, so the cat tree is in here so she doesn’t lie down on my keyboard or notes. You can also see my backyard which is currently an overgrown jungle filled with spiders.

This is my Figma waifu harem, cheering me on as I work. I’m kind of a hipster when it comes to figures- Figma only, thank you, unless there’s no Figma for a particular figure (like Senhime). Can you name them all?

Right now this is not only my office, but also my minis painting zone. I’m making a serious effort to finish my enormous backlog of unpainted minis, and it’s actually helping me get more done on HC as I do a little bit of work while waiting for a mini to dry, or taking time to paint and chill out when I hit a wall while working. The office is going to be multipurpose- in time, we’re also going to store our lego here, and it’ll also be Nekochan’s sewing room.

This is the other corner of the room, to the left of the wide shot above, where the drafting table and sewing table will someday go. That corkboard is probably going to be hung up soon, as I like using the corkboard to keep track of my notes while I work. The lockboxes there will be moved into the office closet sooner or later, and they hold our more rare and expensive video games and memorabilia (Earthbound, FF3, Chrono Trigger, an autographed copy of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep….) Uh, please don’t rob me. I just wanted to brag.

Anyway, that’s it. Uh, enjoy!

Sorry that is post is covering a few hours late. I recently started a throwback 2nd edition AD&D campaign and the nostagia feels it’s been giving inspired me to find and play Neverwinter Nights again, which is why I didn’t remember that I needed to do a blog post until I was too tired to think straight.

It’s weird how things get left behind in popular culture’s wake. Once upon a time most PC gamers I knew as well as pretty much every gaming magazine was salivating for NWN (as well as others, in one of the earliest examples of compensated endorsements from internet personalities). Now, despite it being a pretty awesome game, doesn’t make anyone’s PC RPG top ten lists, and has been basically forgotten. Easy come, easy go, I suppose.

There are all sorts of things that were huge but never stood the test of time. Anyone remember the Zoop craze of the late 16-bit era? There was a version of Zoop on every available platform at the time, and was subtitled on the Playstation as “America’s Largest Waster of Time”.

Or ask yourself, when was the last time you heard about Myst? Hard to believe these days that a point-and-click puzzle game with virtually no dialogue or character interaction was the best selling computer game for nine fucking years.

This extends to more than just video games, too. Younger anime fans would be shocked to learn that before Sailor Moon and Dragonball Z popularized anime in the West, the biggest anime around starred a gender-bending martial artist and his unlikely number of fiancees.

If you know of any other weird blind spots in pop culture, please share them in the comments. I’d love to heard/be reminded about some of the detritus on pop culture’s roadside.

(Psst! Just so you know, Nekochan and I are running a poll this year to see who will be a Halloween pin-up on the blog! Check it out here!)

Movin’

There aren’t any! Shortest blog entry ever.

Okay, I guess I should explain.

This weekend Nekochan and I are going out of town for awhile. Then, when we get back, we’ll be taking control of our new house, overseeing renovations, and the finally moving by the end of June. Exciting stuff, but I don’t know how much this is going to affect my ability to work day-to-day.

Basically, I’m not making promises I might not be able to keep.

This doesn’t mean that no work will be done- I’ve already put together the extended dungeon for Finishing Unfinished Business, plus I already have music to put in from the new composer- it’s just that I can’t predict with any confidence what I’ll be able to get.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I have a vacation to pack for.

Okay, so there totally wasn’t a blog post today.

In my defense, it is a) pre-release crunch time and b) Daredevil is one hell of a show.

That is all.