Hello!

Two weeks ago, I released Chapter 2 of Not Going Back. After over a year of hard work, the reception I've received for the update was almost  overwhelming, really. Chapter 1 had been positively received generally, but I was a bit concerned that over a year's wait for the release of Chapter 2 would naturally lead to less interest. However, it's certainly seemed like that wasn't the case, because it's been amazing seeing so many new people discover the game, and so many people in general play and enjoy the new update. Some of the comments I've received have made me even more proud of what I'm creating here, and, trust me, I believe things will only get better here as I improve and take on the constructive criticism I've received as well.

With that being said, I am working on a few quality of life things for Chapter 3 that I've seen requested a fair amount. Hopefully these will all be implemented with Chapter 3, but coding isn't a strength of mine so we'll have to see how things go. The first thing is small in-game character profiles, to allow people to keep a better track of who is who, and with a little additional information about characters. Nothing here will contain spoilers, but because the cast of characters is pretty big it was a feature request that seemed smart to implement. Second, a scene gallery. This, like in most AVNs, will allow to replay scenes from the game after you unlock them. It won't, however, show you who or how, so it may still take a little playing around to unlock everything. Unless, however, you use the third thing I'll be working on, which will be a walkthrough/guide. This will be a separate download for those who want to make sure they're not missing anything. I'll detail what each choice does (so far in the game) without spoiling future chapters, but giving instructions on how to unlock scenes etc. It'll be there if you want to use it, and if you don't you can ignore it completely and play the game completely your own way. Initially these were three things I didn't include in the game, for various reasons, but with enough requests I've decided to work on implementing them for the next update.

Speaking of the next update, work on Chapter 3 is well underway. At the moment I can't really ballpark how big it's going to be. Chapter 1 was around 1400 renders, but Chapter 2 was over 3300. I've got the whole chapter mapped out, and most of it written, and it'll certainly be closer to Chapter 2 size than Chapter 1, but at the moment I have no real inclination as to whether it will end up being a bit smaller, similar size, or even bigger. What I can say for sure is that there will be significantly more branching and decision-making in Chapter 3 (particularly with regard to relationships). Chapter 2 already contained some consequences for actions and different branching paths, and Chapter 3 expands on this. It's a little overwhelming to keep track of at the moment, trying to make sure everything remains consistent and that there's no continuity errors anywhere. I'm going to have to do a lot more testing before releasing Chapter 3, that's for sure. But that's also way in the future.

Lastly, I want to offer a sincere thanks to those of you reading this. And to anyone who has given the game a try. It's strange, really, because this game has been a big part of my life for over two years, now, so having it out there is kind of an odd experience, knowing that people are now playing it. But, as I mentioned before, seeing the positive response I received for the new update made the last year of work all absolutely worthwhile. Reading what people have had to say about the game and the characters is one of my favorite things to do now, especially now that people have two chapters worth of information to talk about. So a thanks again to everyone who's played it, and a special thank you to those who've offered you opinion. It's truly appreciated, and one of the best parts about creating something.

I'd love to say I've got some previews of Chapter 3 to share with this first dev log, but that'll have to wait for next time when I've got a bit more variety to show.

Also, I'm going to try and keep dev logs more frequent this time around. Thank you all for reading