Happy New Year everyone!

I hope the holidays have gone well for all of you and that you're looking forward to 2022. We've got 365 new opportunities for success this year, so let's do our best!

After an unreasonable amount of time spent in a car going back and forth across the country, I'm finally back from my trip and am already back to work! 

For all of you who have read Chapter 28 by now, rest assured I am full throttle on Chapter 29. We're snowed in here in Seattle which unfortunately means the IRL work plans I wanted to get done have to be postponed until we thaw out (which they're saying could be another week).

Fortunately for you, that means I get to go 100% on OoT! I won't give any hard deadline yet for 29 besides February, but on a technical level it should be simpler than 28 which should hopefully keep the renders flowing steadily for the next few weeks.

And when 29 does release in the near future, that'll be a big milestone for us. Volume 2 of OoT will be complete just about a year after Volume 1 released on February 1st, 2021.

 I'll post a much more in depth retrospective when our 1st anniversary comes around but suffice it to say I'm delighted to be able to still be working on this project.

So for an update on our current design schedule and priority list:

1) The Combat Rework

When I decided to launch Chapter 22 without the new combat system, I wanted to have a working test version implemented by Chapter 29's release. 

That's not happening. The long and short of it is that Android is taking more time than anticipated for a variety of reasons and there are literally thousands of people waiting for an up to date Android build. I don't want to take Snow off of finishing the Android port for a second until it's in a testable state that I can hand off to our patron testers.

As important to the soul of the game as I think the full and finished combat system will be, I realize you guys are here because of what OoT is now and not necessarily what it will be in the future. And that's completely fair.

So Chapter 29 will be released as just a VN chapter, as will every chapter going forward even once combat is implemented. I don't want to force gameplay onto people who have been following this project as a VN for so long, so there will be a VN-mode for OoT that skips over gameplay sections and replaces them with rendered and/or animated scenes. 

Of course, that won't change how important combat will be once it is finally ready, as that's how I really think the game should be played, but in my mind there's just no harm in implementing something so simple as a VN-mode. 

2) Android

Speaking of Android taking forever, here's Snow and his big Christmas post about the current state of it:

"Hey everyone! 

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, or whatever you prefer!

 I just wanted to take a minute while I'm at my desk to give you guys an update on Android content and why it's taking so long. First I wanna explain the development process for me so you guys can see exactly how far along things are. 

Keep in mind this applies to work on the game's code and not the writing/render work. 

The steps I typically follow are as follows:

 1. Choose a code structure to use

 2. Create framework dummy code to be filled in later 

3. Fill in said dummy code one function at a time. Sometimes this involves having to stop and go back to step 2 if I realize I need something new. 

4. Once-over everything to make sure I didn't miss anything(happens more than you'd think) 

5. Test the code in the Unity Editor(Or in the case of android, using a dev build pushed from the editor to my phone) 

6. Make a proper build to give to Anon to have renders etc added. 

7. Get inevitable bug reports from our patrons who test my code more exhaustively than most major companies bother with 

8. Fix the above bugs and return to #6 until no more critical bugs remain 

9. Push the build to public.  

So with that in mind here's where we are with Android now: I'm stuck at step 5 because Unity decided to forget how to use android build tools properly. 

With the help of Lo, I've been able to determine that the issue is local to my PC(and that the build would not have worked properly anyway). 

Typically steps 1-4 take me the most time, several weeks or months, because there's a lot of research and retooling involved. Once we get past step 5 the remainder takes typically only about 2 weeks unless something major goes wrong.  

As it is now, I've got to figure out how to fix the issue I'm having, but it should be the last major step(along with some quick refactoring to figure out typos that are causing Lo's build to not work). 

Once this works I should be able to get the ball rolling again and you guys will have a proper game in short order after that. 

We've been asked a few times if Android content has been abandoned and the answer is definitely a resounding NO.  

Well there you have it. Android is coming soon™️. And in the meantime, I hope everyone has a great rest of the year!"

So that's about it for now, as always my DMs are always open here and on our Discord (And if you're not on our Discord yet, why not?!) for any questions. 

Until next time, take care!

Thanks again,

Story Anon