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OSAS Devlog #10: Extended Demo Delay Announcement

Extended Demo Delay


It is now November, and although we intend to get the extended demo done by early next year, there have been some developments which will set back the completion of it.


As we’re sure you have felt, the events of 2020 have been a trial—we completed the initial demo with a delay of about two months after Covid-19 flared up in spring. We had already padded our schedule with an extra month after our original completion date, but that date was determined in January, before the constant ups and downs of this year really began. After the demo's release at the beginning of August, our optimistic estimate was, at first, to have the extended demo completed by mid-November. We then padded that with a month and then some, pushing the release to early next year.

With the below reasons taken into consideration as well as other factors to account for the looming unknown, we plan to release the extended demo by March 2021.

These technical difficulties and life events have impeded our progress over the last few months:


Music


Our composer, Martin, who composed the first three soundtracks and had a fourth in progress, is unable to compose for the foreseeable future due to sudden loss of a proper computer setup. He’ll be focusing on his studies instead, and said that it may be a year until he’s able to compose again. We have loved his work on this project and his echoed enthusiasm in working with us, so although it’s a shame that he won’t be working alongside us as we continue onwards with the demo, we have extended an invitation to him to return to our team once he’s able to.


Many dev teams don’t commission music until much later into the development of their games, or even until the completion of their games, so we aren’t concerned about not having further custom music yet. We will be using free-for-use or Creative Commons music for the rest of the Extended Demo, and the funds raised from our Patreon will be focused towards artwork.

 

Artwork


You may have noticed our social media presence has been quieter than it has been over the past few months, and this is because lead artist/project manager/producer Ingrid has been a bit overextended—dialling back our social media presence means more time for her to continue with game assets and promotional art rather than dividing her already limited creative time between that and marketing. We would love to bring on a social media manager in the future, but we will need funds to do that further down the line.


Our background artist, Nia, also recently made an international move (during a pandemic!) and is still dealing with all that entails. She is currently working on a background for us, but it understandably will take a while.

 

Funding


With commissioned music and art presently on the back-burner, those of you who follow our Patreon may be curious to know where your funds are going at the moment. Currently, the funds from the first few months of our Patreon are in our company Paypal, waiting to go towards new assets.


Rest assured, we are still hard at work writing and drawing for Of Sense and Soul!

2020 is simply not the most hospitable year for… well, living in general. We will continue being transparent with you about the progress we’re making and any developments that may affect our output. Thank you all again for your belief in and support for our project!


Now, on with the rest of the devlog:


 

Life Updates


AKA


Hi all! October was a fun month here at USA HQ, filled with apple picking, sweater knitting, and NaNo prepping. (I'm working on OSAS -- as well as a couple of other projects, because I am a rebel and rebelling is what I do -- for NaNoWriMo this year, but you'll hear more about that in the November devlog, of course!)


The weather is definitely starting to get a bit nippier up here, and that, of course, meant that it was time for the annual Over the Garden Wall re-watch, a tradition my wife and I have held since we first started dating. If you've never seen OTGW, I highly recommend it -- it's not too late! While we consider it a Halloween tradition, it can of course be watched at any time of year, and totally should, because it's amazing. This year, we actually lead up to watching OTGW on Halloween proper by having a weeklong Halloween movie marathon, which I've decided to term the Hallow's Eve Film Festival. This year, we watched The Addams Family, Sean of the Dead, Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, and Rock Horror; all of those were new to me except Rocky Horror, so it was a fun chance to explore some classics and cult faves I'd never seen, as well as getting my spook on! (You may notice that none of those are, like... actually scary at all. This is because I'm a weenie. I just happen to be a weenie who loves Halloween. It's a curse, honestly.)


Besides, Sweeney Todd is Victorian, so like... that probably counts as OSAS research, right? Right???

 

Ingrid


The past two months have been a bit difficult on my end--seasonal depression affected me more than I'd like, and I've mostly been focusing on my own health and maintaining a regular sleep schedule. Things are looking a lot better now that we're well into November, which means I'm going to be hustling a fair bit to get more done!


As mentioned above, I've been cutting down on how much I post for OSAS on social media because that eats up a lot of the time I could be spending drawing. That'll keep me plenty busy along with my graduate school applications, which are now nearing the point of completion a just need a few extra adjustments! I hope to get them done by the end of November so that I can go into 2021 with my focus solely on making for OSAS (as well as finishing off outstanding commissions, eek!)


I've also been baking and cooking more! Although Hong Kong's weather is still deciding whether it wants to be summer or fall, I've enjoyed baking treats like sweet potato muffins and coffee cake, and boiling up soups (that I can only eat indoors when the air conditioning is on.) My next endeavour is to make a pie all by myself.


I have a more optimistic outlook on the rest of the year as well as the next one (and for more reasons than a certain country's election results) and I think what remains of the year will be much better for my productivity.

 

Production Updates


Writing


The first act of Seamus' route is being written, with AKA hard on the grind between script writing and fanfiction with the NaNoWriMo challenge. The first scene is in its second (and final) round of edits, and the rest of the act is planned out.


Art


We have been working on sprite art, still! Cornelius and James are not yet finalised. Ingrid is currently working on birthday art for Seamus (whose 168th birthday is November 15th) and earlier in October posted some Halloween art of our two protagonists.

 

That's it for this month's devlog! Next month, we'll be covering our progress over the course of November.


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