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WiAB - Chapter 1 Beta
🕑 Added 2021-11-20 15:16:52 +0000 UTCHello,
EDIT: Now available for Lovely Latinas + Android link.
Well, here we are.
Chapter 1 and an entirely new beginning for WiAB. You can completely forget about the old Chapters. The story flow, personalities etc. have completely changed
You can find the download links right below. While you download, you may read the rest of the post.
Warning! It's a long-ass post and if you don't care about how things went down, you may just ignore it.
So, as everyone here knows this update took an enormous amount of time.
I want to be completely transparent with what went wrong, the mistakes I've made, and sometimes things that were out of my control.
1. The beginning (Aug - Oct 2020)
2. The Chapter 3 fiasco. (Jul - Dec 2020)
3. SG Chapter 3.5 & WiAB Chapter 1 (Feb to Aug.)
4. The last weeks
1. The beginning (Aug - Oct)
With WIAB 0.6, which was released last year I came to a point where I realized that WiAB wasn't what I wanted it to be.
I grew as a writer and artist and when I began, I developed my passion with WiAB.
As soon as the WiAB rework was announced, I had big plans. I wanted to jump into the cold water and release WiAB's rework in Blender.
I kept quiet about it because I wanted it to be a surprise. While I was learning, bug fixing, and experimenting with Blender, I also started rewriting WiAB.
Meanwhile, I was working on Summer's Gone Chapter 3 and had a part-time job.
As you can see, my day was full.
An important fact is, that work doesn't always end up in content. I spent a lot of my time learning and improving.
I vastly improved my Zbrush skillset to the point where I started to use it in animations.
And then life got to me and slapped me hard. I wasn't ready to develop an entire game in Blender yet.
Blender isn't like Daz and takes a lot more practice & knowledge.
The quality was not nearly as high as I wanted it to be and I didn't have the time to spend day after day on it.
Summer's Gone was waiting for an update and I only had one render capable PC. I did a back and forth between SG and WiAB Blender.
While I was making some improvements in Blender. (Thanks to Oz and Domiek.)
It was already October and I had spent months building up my skillset. But it was not nearly close to release quality.
That's when I made the decision that Blender would be used in Season 2 and I would use the time 'til then to build a serious skillset.
At this point, I just got a second PC, which started to develop Summer's Gone Chapter 3, and the other PC focused on WiAB.
2. The Chapter 3 fiasco. (Jul - Dec 2020)
After 0.6 I was working on SG Ch3 and it was the worst development I have ever had. Working on all these things mentioned above for 10-14h a day started to take its toll.
While WiAB was never really financially successful and it also didn't bother me much, I took the risky step to abandon my part-time job and focus on development. (SG at that time had around 500$ support.)
This added a burden of future anxiety to me. While being bombarded from all sites why it's taking so long, I was barely making enough to pay rent, healthcare, etc.
But the biggest problem was my work/life balance. It was simply not existing. I spent almost every hour working on the games. No healthy sleep schedule, etc.
I felt like I wasn't progressing at all. I saw the render count go up but it felt like I was stuck.
Then in October/November, one of my GPUs broke, leaving one PC utterly useless.
Don't get me wrong. While Chapter 3 SG was a terrible experience healthwise. It was an amazing learning experience.
Then we enter January 2021 and Chapter 3 releases.
I felt absolutely wrecked and physically sick.
After the release, I couldn't open Daz for another two weeks.
I was at a point where I thought: "Before I go through this again, I'd rather quit."
And that's when I made the decision to change something.
In mid-January, I started to work on the full version for Chapter 3 and after its release, I took two weeks off.
I got my priorities straight and started to form healthy habits. Development is a marathon, not a sprint.
And thankfully, Chapter 3's success lifted a huge burden from me and I was able to sleep again without worrying about paying rent.
3. SG Chapter 3.5 & WiAB Chapter 1 (Feb to Aug.)
We enter a new development cycle.
While I still felt like crap during Feb/Mar/Apr I started seeing significant improvements in mood, health, and general wellbeing by May.
My new habits were paying off and developing Chapter 3.5 was a joy.
I kept working on my abilities and Work/Life balance. It was still far away from perfect but already a huge improvement.
And now we come to the tricky part. I was working on WiAB during SG but found myself working more on SG than WiAB.
Back then I didn't realize it but I maneuvered myself into a devil's circle. Nothing ever seemed good enough, I kept redoing renders, animations, etc.
Technically, quite a bit of work was done daily but it doesn't matter if you move in a circle.
Just thinking about Chapter 1 felt like a burden. I didn't really like it and I said more than once that it falls off in comparison to Chapter 2 and beyond.
Which just made it worse. It felt like working on something that you knew was about to be spit on anyways.
But it was just my own insecurity about the Chapter and my own expectations.
Just stupidity. But we're all flawed.
While there were times where I was making great progress with Chapter 1, discovering so many new and exciting things, I always fell back into the circle.
Then Chapter 3.5 SG was released.
And I started to utilize the momentum and for the last time redid some renders and said "Fuck it."
No more of this bullshit. And after Chapter 3.5s final I went straight to the end of WIAB. Redid 95% of the cinematic, 70% of the lewd animations, and half the update in less than 2 months while also doing 600 renders and a 1:50min cinematic for Chapter 4 SG.
I can't stress enough how important momentum is. Not just from update to update but also in your daily life.
And the 8000€ Workstation I bought a month ago helped me a lot with it.
4. The last weeks
Around a week and a half ago I got infected with Shingles. Apparently, people who had chickenpox can be infected by it cause it's sleeping in your nerves.
My Doc said it was most likely caused by stress and well... I assume my subconsciousness was plagued quite a bit by the fact that I kept running in circles.
The update would've been out a week sooner but Miss Shingles and her dagger with +10 electric damage and chain lighting thought otherwise.
Anyways, no more bullshit like running in circles. I'll do it as I did with SG Chapter 3.5. A render that was rendered and is not totally crap, goes into the game.
No more overthinking and a much healthier approach to development.
I really want these games to be finished in the most quality way possible and I can't let my own ego get in the way of it.
I apologize to everyone. It was never my intention to make you wait this long.
Anyhow, let's focus on the future. I will take it easy until the shingles are gone and work on Chapter 2 will begin right after the Ch1 full version.
Thanks to everyone who kept supporting WIAB even after all that's happened. I'll make sure it was worth it.
- Ocean
Comments
Michael Østrem
You do great work. Some of the best out there!
me and my friends thanks you creat such a good things in this world.keep safe and care yourself.
Thanks and glad the games got you hooked like that! :) Take care!
Thanks a lot, Wolfy!
JB3
SG and WIAB are the 2 of the best games i have played since getting into this a year ago. They are a movie, book, VN everything wrapped into one. Both games have me hooked and i wait weekly for updates. hope you feel better and keep on kicking ass you the man
Honestly your work is what got my interested in VNs and I can't think of any other artists I'd rather be supporting right now, keep up the good work and thanks for all the hard work that you do!
StintBypass
Ocean, I'm back. I didn't want to leave in the first place, but now I'm in a better place. This release of WiAB captivated me from the first render. Amazing work! Thank you for sharing your experiences. I completely understand, and shingles to boot? Holy buckets. I'm getting my vaccine doses for that before it hits. I saw what it did to my Dad, and after hearing what you went through it makes a ton of sense. It affects everyone differently, and never fun. Keep getting your mojo back. You're an amazing talent. Remember, the fun is in the journey, failure should be welcomed as that's how we all learn and kick it's ass next time around. I'm still stunned at the quality of every detail, expression, and prose. Thank you!
Thanks MooMoo!
Moon
One of the best games I played Ocean, having said this, no amazing game is worth your health brother. Wishing you a smooth recovery, and immensely proud of you establishing healthier habits 👍 I know more fantastic things are to come 👍
Not needed for this version. I will write one when choices start branching
walkthrough?
