Progress Update on Build 0.10

Hi everyone! 

I'm so happy so many of you are enjoying the latest build of Bound by Night. I've been really fortunate with the exposure from the mission with Santino in Ranli's SpaceCorpsXXX, and another one is coming in a future update. So, huge welcome to the new followers/players and an enormous "thank you" to Ranli, who is very much the spiritual godfather to Bound by Night as it was SpaceCorps that inspired be to try making my own VN.

Now, what's been going on with BBN?

A. New Content

Since Build 0.9 when into Early Access for Patrons and subscribers at the end of July, I spent most of August writing the next update, which I've decided to put into it's own chapter. There were a few times when I had some writer's block, as this is a major scene with just Alex and Mayhew, with some big reveals on Mayhew's backstory as well as his personality and why he's so interested in Alex. But, it is about 95% written. The remaining 5% is where I ran into some more writer's block, and I decided to set those few parts aside while I pivoted back to renders. (I'll let those parts continue to percolate in the back of my mind.)

As for renders, there are a couple of new sets you'll be seeing in Build 0.10 and I've included some WIP renders of those scenes below. But with August taken up mostly with writing, September has been working on renders and the first set of renders I needed to complete was for the final option Alex had with his "surprise" at the end of Chapter 12. That scene alone is now at more than 100 images and I'm doing the final QC on them now. With that done, the next step is renders for Chapter 13. I expect these will go relatively quickly, as these are pure dialogue and those images (without a lot of touching and finicky lighting) go faster than explicit scenes.

B. Technical Updates and Fixes

In addition to the new content, I've been getting some really great feedback and making some adjustments. These include:

• Fixing an error in the image gallery where certain images weren't unlocking. -- These images were included in animated sequences and, as a result of that different type of code, were not automatically unlocking in the gallery. I've found a solution for this, courtesy of the BadMustard who created the gallery template I'm using, and this will be fixed in Build 0.10.
• Modifying the choices to in Chapters 8 and 10 to improve and clarify whether you're opting out of explicit scenes with shifted werewolves. -- It was possible before to skip the conversation with Connor in Chapter 8 in which you said you wanted to see these scenes, and it was also possible to opt-in during that conversation and then accidentally opt-out with Nick when he said he didn't want to take a peek at Ronan during their escape. I've updated both sequences and this should be more clear now.
• Unlocking the bottom-for-human option at the end of Chapter 12 for those who have opted-in to shifted werewolf content. -- As it was coded in Build 0.9, the two bottom options were mutually exclusive and depended on whether you had opted in or out of werewolf content. I had some logic for this at the time, but it was stupid game design, so going forward the player's decision on werewolf content will only lock or unlock the scene with a shifted werewolf; the human option will be unlocked for everyone.
• And fixed a ton of typos courtesy the fresh eyes some of you are putting on the game.
• Finally, if I have time, I'm going to add more images to the image gallery.

So, that's about it for now. Thank you all for your interest in BBN. And, as promised, here are the WIP preview images for the two new sets coming in Build 0.10.

Mayhew's Private Art Gallery

Mayhew's Private Sky Lounge