REC/REW dev update #20

So... the new update of REC/REW is finally out. Version 0.2.6... downloadable version only. The web version will have to wait for chapter 2 to be finalized because of... well, lots of reason having to do with that 1000 files limit itch poses to web games.

That said... with *just* some 6 weeks delay with respect to the original timeline - and a couple days delay with respect to the (already delayed) release date I had set upon myself.

All things considered, that's not bad... well, not too much. Four months ago, back when my PC (nearly) died... well, I honestly didn't expect this project to survive.

... That'll be the stuff for another post. A boring one. The kind of posts nobody would ever care about.

Back to the actual scope of this update:

- REC/REW now sports a 265k words script (roughly.. Lint says I'm somewhere around 264 thousand-and-something words). By no means "big" equals to "good" (I'll repeat that as long as I have a mouth), still that's just a measure of the effort (blood, sweat and whatever) put into this project... Anyways! That cold, impersonal number translates to 14-22 hours worth reading (should you ever try getting every single line, that is... which is actually impossible because of - well, reasons). So... a lot of stuff, yeah.

- This update toys with a lot of in-game variables, therefore I highly recommend starting a new game (it won't actually be "from scratch" unless you physically remove the "persistent" file in the game's saves directory).

- Two "paths" (out of three) to Mika's chapter have been completed & released. They lead to 2 "good" endings (those that actually allow the story to move forward... once the next chapters are added, that is!), and 2 "not-so-good" ones (both coming in two slightly differently flavors)

- Other than that... our hero is starting to have dreams. They are meant to act as "dejavus", in the sense he'll recollect stuff occurred in previous playthrough... as well as things that are yet to happen - if you remember one of the characters saying something in the lines of "everything happening at the same time"... that's the catch! The fact you've yet to read about it does not mean it's yet to happen! I also added teasers referring to the epilogue by the way, so expect to be taken off-guard.

- Having complete paths available also means, other characters' awareness of the looping nature of the game world will start to become more and more evident. It may be a brief moment of hesitation, or a smile when you'd expect a frown... or an outright attempt at stopping you from doing something stupid (such as dying). Characters will react to the choice player has made... earlier. At times they'll succeed in forcing you from doing whatever he wants - life is not just about us having our way over everthing and everyone after all, isn't it? Rethorical questions se aside, I encourage you making the same choices twice. The results may be different from what you'd expect.

- A lot of backgrounds have been completely reworked - pretty much everything that was based on real (open source) pictures was re-made from scratch. The result is something which might not be outright "beautiful", however what I'm looking for is... consistency. Yep, I finally opened my eyes and realized that having mediocre graphics that all look as if they came out of the same place is definitely better than coupling "nice" stuff with things that make you wish you were born blind. As a "proof of concept" of sorts, the same workflow has been applied to a few backgrounds generated using Koikatsu. There's also an entire scene and a set of sprites that underwent the same kind of treatment - that's to give an idea of what REC/REW is going to look like - eventually. That's another thing in my "to-do list". But - hey! It's going to happen! Just wait and see... and have faith in me. A lot of faith.

- Last (but perhaps not the least, it depends on what you're looking for) a second sex scene (third if you consider "being raped to death and then brought back to see as she rapes your corpse" as a sound sex scene, uh) was added. Additional R18 content will have to wait for next chapters (I will have a few scenes here and there, but this is not turning into a fapping game, uh...).

Well... that's pretty much all for this update. I'm already working on the last part of chapter two, expect to release it by late spring - early summer (I'm proof-reading and updating stuff to make it consistent with the rest of the script, and it's already around 6-7k lines so yeah, that's going to be yet another tour-de-force).

Once I'm done with that (and after a bit of R&R) I'll start working on the web version, bringing it on par with the downloadable version. This will likely require the afore-mentioned rework to the graphics, as the 1 thousand files limit on web version still applies and - well, using Koikatsu to generate sprites and scene is VERY dispersive.

Then... woah, chapter 3 is going to follow... someday. I'd love to put *something* online in 2025 and... who knows, I might even be able to stick to a deadline - for once.