Hey lads!

Long time no see, I know. A lot has happened over the past month, but I'll try to be as brief as possible!

Firstly, I won't be calling the game UiTC2 anymore; it will now be UiTC:R. Calling it "2" made many people think I was making a sequel while UiTC is nowhere near finished, causing confusion. It's hard to explain what I am actually doing - Remake? Remaster? Reboot? I believe the closest term would be a remaster because I’m keeping the original idea and concept behind the game and re-using what I can while updating, changing, or remaking the stuff that really needs it, and adding new features that are finally possible to add. So, the naive girl moving to the big city, unique characters, background art, soundtrack, backstories, traits, choices, and the 2D sidescroller aspect will all stay. However, the game will still get a lot of changes (for the better).

I started writing a really long post about the plans for UiTC:R in the last few weeks, but instead I started posting them one by one on my Discord in the form of threads so you can comment on each separately and tell me what you think. It’s also easier for me to post short news and sneak peeks there, as it’s pretty quick and straightforward. I know not everyone uses Discord, and it would be unfair to keep you in the dark, so I’ll try to summarize the stuff once it's more fleshed out in the next progress report.

https://discord.gg/GRDCf5rfh5

The Steam release date is set for July 31st. It will be the same version as the public release, but you will have access to auto-updates (like with every Steam game) and, in the near future, access to Steam Cloud and support for Steam Deck. Aside from that, Steam and non-Steam public game versions will be the same content-wise, though I'll need to make some edits, such as removing any promotion of non-Steam websites or links. I'll charge a mere $0.99 to test how selling the game on Steam works with all the regional pricing settings, discounts, etc., in preparation for UiTC:R release in the future. If you don't want to pay, no worries, you can download the game from my Patreon/SubscribeStar or itch.io as always, but I doubt that $0.99 with regional pricing should be an issue for anyone. I will have to register UiTC:R on Steam too, but it's still too early, as I hardly have any concrete info, not to mention screenshots.

Next, v37b will be released on Monday (July 15th), and aside from a few bug fixes, it will add one more event. There were supposed to be 2 events, but I'm moving the clothes shop event to v38 as I won't have time to script it:

• BJ version of the hobo stress relief that ends with either cumming in or out, and swallowing or spitting out if he comes inside. The existing HJ variant will also be extended with it.
• Continuation of the clothes shop event, making Jane cum, which ends with either HJ or BJ, cumming in or out, and finally either swallowing or spitting out. (It will be added in v38, sorry!)

For v38, there will be another 2 events based on July's poll (the 4 top votes went for Park, Clothes Shop, Slums, and Albert):

• Albert sex scene in 2 variants (vaginal or anal) in the clothes shop.
• Hobo sex scene in 2 variants (vaginal or anal) that can happen either at the park or slums.

So, 1 event for v37b on July 15th, and 3 events for v38 on July 30th.

The majority of existing events are vaginal sex, which is why I wanted to add something lighter or different. Recently, you've seen more fondling, HJ, and BJ events for this reason. Yes, we lack animations, so you will see reused animations in the upcoming few months, but the events are designed with UiTC:R in mind. This means porting them later won't require a lot of extra work.

Now, on to the progress on UiTC:R:

After turning off, rewriting, or removing multiple things, I managed to start the game on Unity 2022.3 LTS (Long Term Support) without any errors. Initially, I wanted to go with Unity 2023.2 or even Unity 6, but Unity 6 barely got released in beta, and from my experience, a lot of things won't work on it for years (I believe Spine isn't even supported yet). The situation with Unity 2023.2 is much better, but it's common knowledge among Unity devs that if you want to work without being a beta tester or if you don't need new features, you go for LTS, as it's much more stable and assets/tools have had enough time to add support. The latest LTS is 2022.3, so here we are. From what I've seen in Unity 2023 and Unity 6, there's nothing that could break my project, so I should be able to easily update it in the future if the requirement arises. This means no more huge engine updates or game remakes in the future. Feature remakes might come, but that's why I want to take care of as much as I can now and do things properly to avoid issues in the future. After all, multiple core aspects of the game weren't designed with a big or long-term project in mind.

There's some bad news - my UI tool is no longer supported in the new Unity versions, so I'll have to remake the UI (which I had planned anyway, but not quite like this). I've already started learning new UI tools, and from what I've seen so far, they are much more powerful and easier to use once I get the hang of them. So it shouldn't be too bad, but I still need to learn them, which is quite annoying (especially given my "love" for doing anything UI-related).

Right now, I'm mainly learning the new UI tool and exploring what I can achieve with it because, as mentioned, I have to remake the whole UI from scratch. Here, you can see the Save/Load window, which I've based on RPG Maker games because we're all familiar with that format, and I think its concept is nice. The main game menu with all the settings will be accessible from the game normally, so you'll be able to see an animated menu by pressing escape, or adjust settings like volume or resolution before creating a character.

Regarding saves, we now have three windows. The left one detects all save files in the folder and displays the save name (which you will be able to edit) and the date of save creation. It supports both mouse and keyboard. The top right window shows a screenshot taken at the moment of saving (I used an existing random screenshot temporarily). The bottom right window displays some data from the save, like the player's name, location, money, day, etc. It's all not finished yet, obviously, as I'm focusing on the game logic for now.

If you want to see a video instead - https://mega.nz/folder/SrYDnbCA#8dvs-0TThFxsrpMXnYYNoQ/file/L7wXQByI

Just a small preview of dicks, as NPCs will still use random dick sizes, but we have much more freedom to tweak them now.

Another thing I'm working on is changing how locations are loaded and events are triggered.

Locations will be merged based on their themes. For example, Main Street will become a single location instead of being split into three parts. Merging locations will require changing the background art perspective to orthographic, ensuring seamless connections and avoiding issues when moving and animating characters in the environment. I want Jane to walk freely around her flat without triggering any loading screens. Changing main locations will be instant (theoretically), such as moving from Main Street to RLD. This will be the case if you turn off waiting for the art files to load. Even with art loading enabled, it should be much faster than it is now in UiTC. Modern PCs and 64-bit Android devices should handle this easily, but it will still require various optimization tricks to work smoothly. Just a small test below.

Currently, 95% of events trigger upon entering a location while meeting its requirements and passing a successful RNG roll, while 5% are triggered by talking to someone and choosing the event dialogue option. In UiTC:R, events will be triggered by talking to NPCs or moving to the correct spot (e.g., getting near the diner's counter so an event triggers and a man approaches Jane from behind). Most events will have a 100% chance to trigger, focusing on being in the right place at the right time to ensure they occur. However, some random events (designed to be truly random) will still happen. The whole idea is to reduce save scumming and the overall annoyance of being hindered by RNG, while making gameplay smoother and ensuring events feel like an integral part of the world.

We are going to expand The City with new locations so there's more freedom in doing quests and positioning NPCs. For example, you can meet Jack in more places than just the diner. It becomes easier for us to create events for Marcus if there's already a police station, even if it's just a bare-bones structure. Each NPC will have their own schedule rather than being spawned solely for the purpose of an event. Here are some previews of the upcoming locations:

The eastern part of the Old Town, from left to right, features the Town Hall, Police Station, and Prison. You won't see anything particularly interesting there for now, as restoring UiTC content is our utmost priority.

And here's a bonus location in the Slums with a hole where someone might get stuck if they try to get in for some weird reason.

I believe that next month we might have greater previews, as we are currently dealing with core features, like making the game work at all, so there's nothing really cool to see for now.

P.S. In May, I mentioned that I was waiting for the results of my gastroscopy examination, and I have some great news - everything is fine. They suspected esophageal cancer, but it was a false alarm. That's why I was a bit down at times and didn't want to mention anything without making sure. Huge relief, one stressful thing less to worry about.

And since we're on the subject of my health, I haven't had a single kidney pain since the start of June, so I guess the new meds seem to work? Yes, they are experimenting on me, but I agreed. I have a check-up in late July, and I will get to see if the new meds are working as intended and if they can stay.

Also, I need a proper name for UiTC:R, and I'm thinking of something like UiTC Revisited? Reimagined? Anyway, if you guys have any good name suggestions, please let me know, and I'll bestow eternal glory upon thee!

Cheers!