(For those worried about spoilers, as always I'll do the general info first, then warn before going into the spoiler/more specific stuff.)

So, here we are again. Been a while.

For those new here, hello, I'm Bitshift, I'm making a five part game series. Part one and two are complete, and the third, currently just referred to as Chapter 3, is in development. Up until the fun little adventure of this past week progress on Chapter 3 was continuing at a decent pace, and I'm now, finally, returning to the dev process.

Before I get into the game itself, I've just uploaded an update for both CS and GT, that adds two things. First, something I've spent a little time on in-between mapping: tweaking the lighting engine for the games, with some pretty dramatic results. I won't bore you with all the testing, but on a stress-test map with a huge amount of lighting objects, here's what resource-draw for the game exe looked like on my system originally:

cpu usage: 32%

memory: 310 MB

fps: 2 (yes, really)

And after:

cpu: 22%

memory: 300 MB (I've seen as low as 265, this seems to vary for unrelated reasons)

fps: 60

This should make the games much more playable for those on older systems; In the past, some even had to resort to disabling the plugin entirely. Again, the update is live now. Give it a try if you're on weaker hardware, and let me know how much it helps.

Second, you can now load a game directly from the pause menu, rather than having to back all the way out to the title screen! This has been driving me crazy for a while now, but I wanted to add it cleanly without using a plugin that added 20 other things. Now it's in! Enjoy.

Now then, on to the Chapter 3 news. In my last update in April, I had finally finished with the non-scene art assets and was staring in on "mapping"; basically all the game stuff that isn't scene art and scene writing: actual mapping, lighting, ordinary dialog, scripting, etc. At the time, I had hoped to be done, or mostly done with mapping by this update. Unfortunately that is very much not the case. These things as always are difficult to estimate, but I'd say I'm somewhere between half and 3/4 done with the mapping process. On the one hand, I'm probably close to the 3/4 mark on the actual MAPS. On the other, I still have most of actual battle system to work out the details of, program and test. This won't be THAT complex, I've done it before and I'm not trying for cold fusion here or something. But it will take a bit. So somewhere between that 3/4 and 1/2 mark on "mapping". On the third, it's hard to say, because I'm at the point where I'll be working on the really "meaty" map areas, and those may expand or contract quite a bit depending on how things flow.

The good news, at least in a sense, is that this means that at the absolutely most pessimistic, I am at least halfway done with the game at this point. Possibly more like 60%. And while the mapping has been slow, it at least has been going well: what's ending up in the game is, while never ALL of what I wanted, a pretty good translation of what I had in my mind for these areas. I'm enjoying what I've got so far, and I think you will to.

So what have I made? Back in April I was working on finishing up the Haven content. As of now:

-All of Haven (for first release) is complete

-All of the first area you explore after Haven is complete

-90% of the SECOND area you explore after Haven is complete (might have been 100 if it hadn't been for this last week.)

These first two areas are roughly equivalent to the barrens section: no sexy stuff (till the tail end) but more story setup. Before anyone murders me though:

1. Unlike the Barrens, there's no combat here, so despite being longer physically, I don't think they'll take that much longer to play through.

2. Chapter 3 is more dependent on atmosphere and tone, so a little time has to be taken to establish that tone. It's also a bit removed from the ordinary setting of CS, so again, a little time is needed for that transition.

3. If Mezz is corrupted from the boars or (eventually) the hyenas going into this chapter, you'll at least get plenty of filthy stuff to do in Haven before you leave.

So what's left in mapping?

1. Finishing up the second area

2. One last very short transitional area

3. The area you'll actually spend most of the game in, fighting, running into trouble etc as you try to progress

4. A small area or two for the final boss fights.

3 is the big wildcard. I do my mapping, and writing "straight through" for the most part: I have a general idea of what's going to go where, but the specifics kind of just fall into place as I put together a good tileset, start trying things and mapping process..."speaks" to me. The little underground crossunder, the host club and a bunch of other things in GT are just there because they showed up organically during mapping. I don't anticipate this being QUITE as involved as the same section in GT because for example I won't be doing the jobs system, but there will be other things, some planned, some that develop as I go. We'll see.

And then of course, after mapping is finally complete I still need to do the scene CG and write said scenes, which I plan on taking about 4 months.

All of this leads to a revised release date estimate of March for supporters, April for general release. Which is...painful. But I can only do what I can do, and try to at least be transparent about progress and completion estimates as they change. We are now at the one year mark since work on Chapter 3 started. The fact that it could potentially take slightly over a year and a half total to complete sucks for something I had originally hoped to pull off in 13 or 14 months. On the other hand though, I have to remind myself that while I DO have a responsibility to my fans and supporters, this isn't a kickstarter I've taken millions of dollars for or something. If it takes a year and a half, or even two years (hopefully not!), that's not the end of the world.

I will also reiterate, for what it's worth, that one of the reasons for the time taken is that this is...a lot more dense, in terms of storytelling but also horny stuff. The boar scene in Haven in GT for example was one encounter, on a map that already existed, one little scene, and the revelation of a small secret area. The boar encounter in Chapter 3, as you'll see in the spoiler section below, is...quite a bit more.

All that said, that's the main update. If you're not interested in spoilers, you can stop here. Otherwise, you've been warned.

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Alright, let's continue.

So, new boar content first.

One of the general ideas of the CS series is that your misadventures in being a dumb fuck toy will have ongoing consequences across games. This happens via the DataCrystal.js file, which is written out at the end of every game storing a few key variables, and can then be inserted into the next game to carry over that info and potentially unlock new content. The idea, generally, is that if you give in too much to the enemies of any game, they start showing up in Haven, first in secret, than more and more out in the open, gradually taking it over. For reasons of scope creep, this was cut back to JUST the boars and Hyenas, but the flip side is that it will indeed progress each game if you let it. For those who play (mostly) pure, an alternate route where you get to date Scratch will be unlocked instead. So yeah, LOT of content in Haven now. For initial release, just the boar content will be in, but even that's...a lot.

(Right-click ---> "Open image in new tab" to see any of these in fullsize btw).

For a refresher, this was what the boar content looked like in GT:

One encounter on the map that already existed for Haven.

In Chapter 3, after a little "detective" work, Mezz finally manages to get into the hidden basement lair of the boars in Haven. Which looks like this:

Those stocks (among other things) are animated by the way. Are you starting to understand why the release date keeps slipping?

Also, this is in the editor so I can show the whole map zoomed out, and is thus "fullbright". It looks way better with lighting:

As you might guess, there's a lot that goes on here. I don't want to get hopes up TOO high: fundamentally there's still only one illustrated scene (with multiple stages), and one...extra fun bit that's also illustrated. But there are mini-scenes as well, done in text but with simple sprite animations. I think people will have a lot of fun here. Mezz certainly will.

But it doesn't end there. Following up on the boar "case" isn't forced, it's entirely voluntary. But if Mezz DOES insist on sticking his nose in where he shouldn't, things progress, and Haven becomes...a little different:

Now then, on to the main story. Without giving away too many details, Scratch apparently needs another part (what a surprise) and sends Mezz to dig it up in the crumbling remains of Everdale Shopping Center, a mall complex buried deep underground beneath layers of ruins, sealed off years before the collapse of the city in general for unknown reasons, and only recently unsealed by scavengers. It's too large to show off in a meaningful way zoomed out, but here are some in-game shots of various areas:

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After some exploration, and a series of events, Mezz finds himself forced to take a passage to a third location. A very...odd and unsettling one. But I'll leave that reveal till the game is out.

That's all for now. I continue. Filthy bunny games continue. It feels good to finally get back to them again.