It feels extremely surreal to be writing this, but...

...THE FINALE IS FINISHED. WHICH MEANS I CAN FINALLY GIVE A RELEASE DATE.

🎉🎉🎉THE FINALE WILL BE RELEASED ON APRIL 5TH🎉🎉🎉

That's right. FINALLY. AFTER... NEARLY 3 YEARS(???). THIS GAME. THIS GAME THAT HAS OCCUPIED EVERY SINGLE PART OF MY LIFE. THAT I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON LIKE A BAT OUTTA HELL.

WILL.

BE.

COMPLETE.

Insert vaguely celebratory image here.

I am still in slight Shock and Awe over this factoid. But I'll refrain from going on a wild rambly tangent for now (I'll save that for post-launch perhaps LOL). Instead, I'll simply go over some FAST FACTS about the finale so you can be RRRRRRRRRRREADY for this thing to RRRRRRRRIP its way into your life in a few weeks' time. SOUND GOOD? Good. Let's get started.

THE COLD HARD DEETS

• Around 35k new words

Word count-wise, this thing is about the length of every other arc (or arc part, in the case of Arc 5) I've put out. So it does fit quite nicely as the final third of Arc 5. Tbh, I'm not sure how it is that every single time I always end up about the same length when it comes to these things. I truly do not plan this. It just kinda happens. HOWEVER. The finale is the only part where the routes will play more of a dominant role, so you won't be ~ experiencing ~ all of these new words on a single playthrough. I'd say a single run only covers around 22k or so of those words, so it'll probably still feel a bit shorter overall than some of the previous arcs. (BUT THEN YOU CAN GO BACK AND TRY TO UNLOCK/PLAY THE OTHER ROUTES YEAHHHHHH.)

Which brings us right to our next point...

• Four different epilogues

I talked a bit about the routes in general in the previous dev log, so feel free to check out it out there if you missed it. But tl;dr, there are four different "routes," though the routes are not completely different from each other, only in some areas. The main story and main ending are the same no matter which route you're on; however, depending on the route, you'll have a different special scene towards the beginning of the finale, and then you'll get a different epilogue at the very end (and also a few small differences throughout the path leading up to the ending). Each of the main "love interests" for lack of a better word has their own route, and then there's also a neutral route. But you'll need to have gotten enough affection for an LI throughout the game in order to unlock their route!

• 109 CGs

WTF.

WTF ME???

109 CGS???

Yes. Yes, there are 109 CGs JUST FOR THIS FREAKING FINALE. I honestly could not tell you how I managed to draw this much in so little time. It was as if someone lit a fire under my butt and I literally could not stop it was so intense. A lot of these CGs come from the cutscenes, because there's a good chunk of those. There's also a lot of CGs for the ending and epilogues. Since there are four different possible epilogues, that required four different versions of the final CG sequence, so... yeah... just... a lot of art overall... BUT HOPEFULLY WORTH IT (??????)

• 3 animatic-style semi-animated cutscenes

Ofc OW would not be complete without its cutscenes!! Mostly because I am a little bit unhinged and need The Big Scenes to all play out exactly how I imagine in my head set to music. And because this is literally the finale of the entire game, ofc it would have some cutscenes!!!1!!!1! Two of the cutscenes kinda meld into each other, but because they're separate in my head, I'm labeling them as two different ones. I hope they will be as epic for people playing as they are in my head... weep.

• 15 new music tracks

You all know me, I love me my soundtracks. And the finale has a lot of new bangers!!!!!! 

• A ton of new sprites!!!1!!!!!! (and also some updated sprites)

I don't even want to take the time to go try and count up all the new sprites, but there are a lot! Also, as I mentioned in the previous devlog, I've redone a few sprites that I didn't like anymore. AND there's a ton of new sprite variations, particularly in one flashback-heavy sequence.

Iggy channeling my tears as I wept profusely while finishing this up.

Now then, because this is the finale, this ofc means that the game will be completely finished! So let's take a look at the numbers for the complete game:

• 288k words
• 520 CGs
• 7 semi-animated cutscenes (just counting actual cutscenes set to music, even tho there are a few cutscene-esque sequences I'm not counting)
• 128 music tracks (wtf)
• 470 sound effects(wtfffff)
• 12 optional deaths (+4 non-optional deaths LOL)
• Countless loops
• Countless tears
• Countless moments of pain and suffering (especially my own)

WOW THAT'S A LOT!!!!! I'm not sure how I feel about this!!!1!1!!! Dang!!!!!!!

At any rate, there's never been a better chance to play now that the full game will finally be out so you can experience this atrocious monstrosity from start to finish.

And with that, I don't really know what more to add to this release announcement, so I suppose I'll end it before I start rambling about irrelevant things. I'll ofc include any additional details and the new CWs, etc. on the actual release day. And in the meantime, I'll be finishing up testing and working on the launch week art and all that fun stuff. In my head, I had imagined setting up like... some kind of big fanfare celebration... thing... for the finale release, but...

I'm just...

So tired LOL

That and I don't really know what I'd do. And I just wanna get this thing launched so I can stop worrying about it and people can play it.

So I'll just be doing my typical release countdown.

Until then!!!!!

A farewell dance or something to sign off this devlog.