Not-So-Sudden Side-Quest

I am back! This last week, I worked a little on TOTDC 2: I was trying out some "technical" stuff, to see if I could add new hair colors to Celeste's model within Ren'py, without having to add more work for my artist, and I think I got pretty good results, but I'll probably need more opinions on that before making it a final addition.

Working on it inspired me to try something I was considering for a while, especially now that the game's size reached itch.io's limit for uploads. I tweaked the gallery script so that it doesn't use duplicates, but takes the image from the regular image folder instead. It's been a bit painful (I found some ways to automate parts of the process, but it still took a good couple of days to sort things out), but now the game is 250 MB smaller.

I was reluctant to try this earlier, because I generally don't love messing with third party scripts, but I think it ultimately was worth it. One possible downside, is that the loading time for the gallery might be longer. It was already pretty long, so it's probably not overly noticeable, but I'll have to hear from the people that use it to get a better impression of whether or not that's bad. I assume the considerable size reduction still makes it worth it, but I'll be listening to you guys. As a result of this, I also didn't work much on the walkthrough, but hopefully I can get something done later on this month.

Other than that, I did some minor edits and work to wrap things up for Sole and Luna (specifically, the carillon scenes after the party at your new house). Now the carillon disappears as it should, and training with the two girls gives a really small scene, whether you decide to dance or have fun with them.

I am thinking about giving players a bonus for getting better at dancing too, so you could earn more at the Red Dune, but that should be it for that side of the game.

In the next few weeks, I should get back to the Golden Leaf quest. Hopefully inspiration doesn't fail me, and I make good progress this time. I'll be reporting weekly on this as usual, so look forward to those.

That's about it for today. As always, have fun! ^_^