The Academy game series : An update
Added 2022-01-16 16:11:37 +0000 UTCThe Academy project started all the way back in 2016. The original concept was to create a five part story released over the course of about one year.
I'd based this schedule on my previous experience creating the Tara series which was released on Vdategames.com.
If I'd stuck to my plan of around 800 images per episode then it would probably have been wrapped up in that original time frame.
However, the creative process can rarely that planned or predictable.
Over five years later the project is still ongoing. The main reason being that a game with around 4000 images was just going to be far too small to fully explore all the narratives, themes and sub-plots that developed as I started production.
I've also been learning and improving my coding and rendering skills along the way.
Part one had just under 1000 images when originally released. By the time I released part four, I was up to an 1800 plus images per episode.
Then came the often misunderstood 'Date with Bridgette' games. These were a chronological advancement of the story, from the end of part four to the much anticipated part five. Very much a part of an expanding story.
'DwB' added about another 10,000 images to the story with the most recent part released in March 2019, again over on Vdategames.
To give a sense of scale, around 16,000 images have been released up to March 2019.
This figure takes in the eight parts which make up the Academy series, including the four which make up Date with Bridgette.
So the original plan, quadrupled in size, took about three years and still isn't finished.
What's next?
Anyone who has followed and supported my work over on Vdategames, probably knows that I haven't been seen for a while. Rumors of my untimely demise are greatly exaggerated though.
For the past couple of years I haven't stopped working on the Academy series.
There are in fact another two full episodes which are complete, and one of these is the first half of the long awaited part five.
I fully intend to complete the second half of part five during 2022.
There is much to tell about what will happen in the meantime.
Please become a Patron to support my work and find out what's next.
