So close. The last scene we’re working on (not the last scene of the chapter—just the most involved) is almost complete. Frankly, it’s kicking our butts. We’re hampered by two things: a low-light environment, and Xfinity. Xfinity shut our broadband connection down for a couple of days while they “improved” our local service. Do they know that they disrupted our livelihood? Oh, yes. Do they automatically prorate our monthly bill in response? No. You can run the gauntlet that is “customer service” to request a refund. Good luck. After spending about 90 minutes on the phone with “customer service,” they told us that the way they calculate refunds (leaving out all sort of fees, taxes, and sunspot-related nonsense) means we’d only recoup a couple of hours of time at most. Wasn’t even worth the time we spent on hold listening to Muzak’s Greatest Hits.

The other thing affecting us is the lighting of this last scene. Much like taking a photograph in low-light introduces a bunch of graininess to an image, ray-tracing (which uses the same light-bouncing principles) with dim light sources produces a similar, noisy result. Renders that would take 1,000 to 5,000 passes in regular light can take up to 30,000 or more in dim light. “You can use noise reduction software,” we hear some of you saying. Yes, and we do, but unless you want the skin of your models to look like Barbie dolls, you have to make the extra passes. “You can just render in better light and adjust the exposure in post,” is what the other half of you are saying. Yes, and we do. It’s just that it makes scenes look unnatural if the underlying render was too bright. All of you have seen scenes in movies that were obviously shot at high noon, but adjusted with filters and exposure levels to simulate night. It just never looks “right.”

So, bottom line, we aim to finish chapter 8 this coming week. If you’re interested in beta testing (and can honestly devote the time necessary to do thorough testing), please drop us a message. If your only goal is to see the chapter early, just wait a bit longer. There will be bugs found, to be sure. And it’s not just a matter of continuing from your last save–we need whole routes tested, meaning that you’d have to start the game from the beginning a number of times and make different choices than you might normally make. Especially in the coming chapters, there is a ton of conditional dialog and scenes based on your past decision history. Some of the conditional dialog changes are subtle, making references to past choices and influencing the way some things are said, and given that we live with the game 24/7 it’s not uncommon for us to gloss over these while we’re testing internally.

Welcome to our new supporters! We really appreciate it—you’re the reason we keep doing this. If you haven’t already, please join us on our Discord server and say hi!

Hark! The results of our fortnight’s labour are here, two images for your delight and wonder!