Helloooo and welcome new followers, it's been 2 weeks since the last update so here's part 1 of how things are going this month of May! :]

Firstly I want to say a big thank you as there's been a recent influx of ratings being given towards the [Extended Demo], this really helps the game behind the scenes!! Noah's birthday post for his Spotify playlist also did really well on itch.io which is very awesome given Noah's views towards his birthday! :,,,]

I'm going to go through the last few things that needed some clean up before going straight to the cabin! I mentioned before that I had some CG's and 2 more endings that needed an update.

I'm not sure if I gave these unique names so I'm going to call them downpour and marsh:

The Downpour:

Sadly I can't post any of the screenshots here since they're animated but you can see them on my tumblr [Here!]

This one was tremendously fixed and upgraded.

To sum it up, even though this ending is similar to one that happens in the [Extended Demo] it plays out in a different area and has two animated sequences instead of one. A animated CG I had for another ending was placed here which gives it a better immersive experience. It took some time to get it to work correctly but I think this ending might be a good 2nd/3rd favorite of mine, specifically for the beginning of the game. :[]

The Marsh:

This one got a fairly large update as far as the dialog goes and there are new CG's that happen here.

I don't want to say too much but Noah and the player(Y/N) react differently towards each other in this path due a continuity issue I came across when going through this. I'm also still in the process of cutting out stuff that isn't as necessary as I originally thought it would be and calming down on the habit of over-doing things.

**I also went through and updated a lot of the animated sequences that still had old code attached to them which makes it easier for me to read and stay organized. In even better news, I was lucky enough to find some old CG files that I needed to bring up to date with all that's new in the game and fix an issue with one animation having a small bug that turned out to be a typo. After I fixed up all of that I adjusted/removed more 'dialog fluff' and fixed more SFX's that weren't in the correct places. :[]

Outside of needing to test through everything etc, I can now confidently say that the start of the game up to the cabin is 100% finished!! Woohoo! :D

Once I update the [Extended Demo] in the future, it'll have a total of 7 different endings specifically through the beginning of the game up until the player(Y/N) and Noah reach the cabin.

IT'S FINALLY CABIN TIME OMG?!:

In really great news I found a way to keep up with everything I create for this game moving forward and I've been pacing myself. To give a bit of back story, I've written a ton of stuff for this game however, the old way my saving method made it hard for future me to find everything I did. Now that I'm getting better at organizing things I've been adapting as I go.

A lot of dialog and choices have been fixed from this, nothing too crazy but I did switch certain responses from the player(Y/N) around depending on your closeness with Noah.

That being said, I found a lot of continuity/balancing issues specifically regarding a certain path/route in the game that's more on the negative side. To be fair, this is probably one of the weakest parts of the game right now since I never really had the chance to expand on it after I uploaded the [Extended Demo] and much has changed since then. After going through more of the script, I feel more comfortable keeping this one just a bit more linear(??) instead. I have no idea how to explain this without spoilers being involved. :,]

Anywho, In great news I managed to get all the way to the 5 choices you can make at this part once Noah goes back to his room.

Playtester's advice + Updated choices:

So on and off for the past few weeks I've been talking to both of my play testers about the cabin section and this specific scene. After the recent polls I created, I was having writers block which made it difficult to progress since the "Talk to Noah.", "Look around.", "Go to sleep.", and "Continue to wait." stem from very old and outdated code/routes that contained spoilers, weak writing, etc. I expressed ideas on how to move forward with the choices and they gave feedback when I was struggling. :,,,,]

"Talk to Noah.":

I managed to find a decent idea on how to go about the "Talk to Noah" choice. This one used to progress from the players(Y/N)'s choices but all of this was cut due to early spoilers/over-doing it and a lot of it isn't canon anymore. This had a unique CG too but since I want to be careful on file size/optimization I might re-use a previous CG instead since I plan on redrawing it. There was a continuity issue I came across too but I think I might've found a way around this. I was debating on how the story will progress from this choice but as I was typing this, an idea came to mind! Woohoo! :[]

"Look around.":

I'm going to be vague but I was lucky enough to find a decent balance with the "Look around." choice. I was really surprised from recent polls that this choice was picked the most so I do want to focus on this one a little more. This option used to have a different situation happen but I don't think I ever got that far from the outdated code and when I came back to it, all of it isn't canon anymore. I have a interesting way in progressing the story from it which will help certain parts of the game get more shine! I also plan on re-doing the CG at some point now that my drawing skills have improved! :]

"Go to sleep.":

I won't have to be too vague with this one but there was a new route intended for this choice. I don't think I ever posted any screenshots from this one specifically because I started working on the [Extended Demo] surprise update back in late 2023. Out of all the routes I wrote up, the strongest ones story-wise were the "Morning" and "Afternoon" route. At some point I'll have to go and find the route for this one.

"Continue to wait.":

I won't be vague with this one too since a lot has changed but to give some backstory, this choice actually led to a completely different route as a sort of "Wait...THERE'S MORE? :[]" situation that I think I posted screenshots from but I'm not sure. As I started working on the [Extended Demo] surprise update, everything that happened here got put on hold since it wasn't strong story-wise.

Much has changed since then and I've been talking with my play testers on how to progress the story from this choice since this sort-of put a wrench in things since I don't want this pick to line up with the "Afternoon" route. Some ideas have been swirling around in my mind on what to do but nothing is 100% confirmed yet. :,,,]

There's been a lot of stuff I've been working on behind the scenes which involves adjusting a lot of outdated variables, failsafe situations, etc. but I'll talk about all of that in the next game development post! :D

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi! All donations and tips help tremendously while I continue to work on the game. Thank you to those that optionally bought the [Extended Demo] on itch.io. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah ! :]

**Some asks won't be answered if it contains spoilers but I do appreciate what I receive.

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/new/ask/zombeebunnie" rel="noopener" target="_blank" ]<here]<="" a=""></a> or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I enjoy hearing from you guys!

This is part 1 of 2 of the update so I'll stop here. Thank you guys for the continued support and influx of ratings for the [Extended Demo]! I really appreciate a whole bunch! :,]