Do you want a link to the Spotify playlist I use to help me focus on making this thing? Here ya gooo. u_u <3

So I got a lot of stuff figured out between the previous version and this one, including but not limited to:

Right out the gate: New character models. The ones I started with for Luke were a bit stiff for my liking, so I consulted a friend and took the character models to a new level. I like the new models, they def feel more like they have my signature style to them. They feel more lively and toony if that makes any sense? I'm pretty pleased with what I've managed to put together for Luke alone, but Lexi. Lexi's swiftly become my found fam's problematic fave, and part of me wouldn't have it any other way.

Speaking of text boxes, I made just that--a new text box that I use for character thoughts! I wanted to distinguish inner monologues from outer dialogues so I did just that--by making a whole new "character" for each of the characters in game. In the future, I'd love to have conditionals or something that would automatically select whichever textbox and style based on if the character's talking, thinking, etcetera. It's definitely something I want to workshop in the future!

I added an entirely new scene (with many more to go) and even started experimenting with camera movement. Which...by the way...I think I'm going to go back to Lexi's intro scene and incorporate some camera movements and stuff in there. 

With all of that comes having to plan! For backgrounds! That work with a panning camera in mind! I'll admit I'm a bit stumped on how to figure something like that out, but I have faith I will!

...after a lot of trial and error and crying into pillows.

I've also simplified my workflow a bit, going from having lines...and lines...and lines of code just to change an expression to being able to just kind of...do most of that inline. A lot of that was thanks to nomnomnami's tutorial on setting that up, which I appreciate beyond words the fact that they've shared this knowledge with the world. I PREESH YOU. TwT

It's hard, but it's so rewarding when you get things to start working the way you want them to, it's so satisfying. T-T <3

To elaborate, I went from the staggering:

in the first example, to:

In the second. (Also oh dear god why is making a table so tedious on this editor)

The other part of this was thanks to Feniks's advice on attribute swapping, which provided shorthand for switching up character expressions. I wanted to be able to have a flexible "system" where I can mix and match character's different facial parts like eyebrows and mouths to create an entirely different expression.

For those of you who are curious, here's Fen's response that helped me figure out what to do--I had to use config.adjust_attributes.
Thank you, Feniks, for just being super helpful and patient about it too. I wish I could tip you like billions of times over.

On that note, I think I've arrived at some kind of...idea. For like...in the event that someone enjoyed the experience and wants to leave a tip or something, I want to keep the game free to play and experience for everyone, but also create a mini-...micro...something-zine with all the concepts and commentary on how all of this is coming together? Call it wishful thinking, but I don't want to put this thing behind a paywall. So I think that's the idea I'm gonna work with!

Anyway, thanks for reading my rambles. I'm going to continue working on the kinks and etceteras so that I can get to version 0.5! My wife set a deadline for me to get a working beta of Act 1 ready before October 21st of this year, so I am...UP FOR THE CHALLENGE!