Introduction
What's up, ODers? (OUTDATEDers) Corthon's here again to briefly update you on how stuff's been progressing while everything's under development!
This isn't going to be anything new for the people that are in DDFH, this devlog is mainly just to reformat my recent inane rants that I've been going on in my project-designated channels into something more comprehensible & professional for everyone to see. I'm hoping in the future I take it upon myself to skip the deranged Discord rants in my server, and instead just post everything here like an orderly person in charge should! >:D
DDFH
Oh shit, yeah, some of you might have missed this!
In case you guys didn't see the last devlog (or didn't look at it too closely), this mod technically has a Discord server to its name! It used to be run by the co-owner of the more infamously known Monika.EXE mod (You know which one I'm talking about.), but after a certain point they grew tired of running the server and decided to hand it off to yours truly!
If you wish to get in touch with other people also interested in DDLC X FNF content & see more sneak peeks for updating OUTDATED stuffs, be sure to check out DOKI DOKI FUNKIN' HUB! You can join either by clicking on the following link or in the gamepage description: https://discord.gg/yajcaCND4E
I've been thinking about making some renovations to the server in the future so that I can truly call it mine, so be on the lookout for when that happens! This is my first time running a large public server so unfortunately I can't say for sure that I'll be good at managing it. (I'm really shit at it, actually)
So, what's been going on?
Nothing much, honestly. Development's still be going slow. :(
We managed to get new coders, fortunately, but catching them (as well as myself) up to speed has proven to be a tough job. Getting them to work in unison has been a bit of a task, and I'm still not sure how to go around it.
Outside of the ongoing "coder synchronization issue", a good chunk of the team unfortunately still remains missing in action (although the anniversary fortunately did help bring an artist or two back to the mod). Because of this, I've taken it upon myself to reassign & withhold tasks from people that haven't been working recently, whatever the reason may be. I don't plan to kick the more inactive members out (although I may be forced to do if the problem continues persisting), nor will they never be able to work on said task ever again, all they'll need to do to be reassigned their original task again is to get in contact with me saying they're ready to get back to work (that is if their task doesn't get taken up by someone else in the meantime).
I'm not going to blame all of the lack of progress on my coworkers, though, that'd be in bad taste. Truth be told, I haven't been getting much progress done myself: checking in on people to make sure they stay on task is a tedious job and I often forget to maintain such a duty. I haven't been able to do art for the mod, either, nowadays my drawing tablet has either placed under lock and key (metaphorical, I promise) or I'm too swamped in academic work to be able to get to this mod. These past few weeks in particular has proven to be a very unique as well, and to be honest? I'm tired! I'd like to take another break, this life shit is hard!!!
Not being able to draw for OUTDATED (among all of these other issues) has made me a little antsy for progress, so to prevent myself from adding a shitton of characters to the Already™ Finalized™ Cast™ to satiate my impatience I've been chipping away at secret side projects of mine in the meantime, most of which exist outside of FNF. (Let's just say I've been having a lot of fun making pixel art recently...)
I'm hoping that we can get this mod back on track eventually and crank out progress at a consistent at fast rate at some point. I'd like to have a lot more content to tease by next anniversary, haha!
April Fools 2024 (Grubble)
For April 1st this year, we decided to reveal the upcoming remake of Giggle, made by tempotastic! Except, um...we didn't.
(Credits to fl0pd00dle for donating his voice for Karkat & Milo008 for making the beginning visualizer! Give them some love, won't you?)
Instead of Giggle V2, this April Fools special swapped the song out mid-way with Grubble, a joke song where MEXE faces a certain grey interloper that we made in record time for the occasion. I find it to be a funny joke and I'm proud of what we managed to make for it, so I thought it'd be worth mentioning here!
FYI to everyone, though: Giggle V2 is most likely not going to be implemented as a playable song for the mod's full release. As much as the remake may be more appealing than the original to most, I personally find the original song to be more iconic, and the team currently runs on a strict-ish policy that any songs cannot be remade further once they are published. Giggle V2. at the end of the day, started off as a one-off red herring that somehow ended up on the mod's wiki page, and I hoped that with Grubble I could provide closure to that false facet.
There may be a chance for the full Giggle V2 to still appear in the mod as an extra, though...you'll see what I mean by that eventually.
Demo Talk
The original plans for April Fools 2024 were that Grubble would have been released inside a playable build along with some tweaks to the menu to give off the illusion of the build being legit. The team unfortunately was not able to synchronize efficiently in its current state, and as a result the mission had to be minimized.
I still plan to release the Grubble demo, though! Without the looming threat of a deadline above our heads, we now have the chance to polish things out the way we want them too without having to worry about getting it done as soon as possible. Plus, this gives us the chance to add more content relating to the Full Release that isn't specifically MEXE-related!
What does this mean then, exactly? To spell it out for you all in a consumable manner: Demo 3 is something that we will be working on!, featuring Grubble, the polishing of certain assets for artstyle consistency, a playable version of Heartz, a revamped main menu & some tucked-away extras to keep theorists on their toes. We might even include some cutscenes, too, if we're feeling cheeky. ;)
Sneak Peeks
But of course, a devlog isn't a devlog without some sneak peeks! (debatable)
While everything wasn't able to get done on time, obviously, that doesn't mean nothing was able to get done! We managed to make a couple of assets for Grubble before the deadline, and now that everyone knows about our little jape we thought it wouldn't hurt to show what we made!
Playable MEXE
Surprise! Contrary to what most people would have believed at the time, Grubble actually has MEXE as the playable character rather than Karkat, meaning that we'll have to make more assets for her (ie. miss poses).
Take a sneak peek at what our new artist/animator (skibanana) has made for playable MEXE thus far!
I opted to have her expressions be changed significantly for Grubble, given the context.
Don't worry about there being two left poses for now, it's not as important as you think it might be. Or is it...? Feel free to theorize about it, hehe :3
This One MC-Related .GIF
Yeah there's not much to be said here I think. Check out this cool WIP made by @SerifOS 
This animation would be for when Karkat disrupts MC's performance in the events leading up to Grubble. Karkat hasn't been implemented yet, nor has MC here been finished, but we plan to get to that eventually!
(Scrapped?) Nutsucci
For those that aren't in the know, Nutsucci is a scrapped character of mine that also operated on parodic elements (similar to MEXE). Originally planned to be in the Full Release of this mod, she was swiftly scrapped after a post about her ended up getting majorly mixed reception, which in turn made me feel very unconfident about her inclusion.
I've thought a couple of times about bringing her back in the mod in a clever manner, though, and behind the scenes I was writing a more grounded iteration of her character while still maintaining the non-serious aesthetic that made her likable to my audience in the first place. I eventually realized that the effort I was putting into her probably wasn't worth it, though, and so I'm going to be putting this plan to the side until further notice. Here's a concept related to what I had in mind:
I'm not explaining any of this just in case I decide to return to this idea in the future. Figure it out yourselves LOL
I feel like what really doesn't make me super excited about this iteration of Nutsucci is that it mostly retreads on common concepts/tropes already present in the mod (and some outside of it, too!), something that I am trying my best not to do no matter how different I could make the execution. (We already have a Faker-type character in the mod and I think everyone is kind of beginning to get sick of those in general.) Unless everyone ever starts collectively begging on their knees for this, it's probably not likely for her to come back to the mod, much less this iteration specifically.
Conclusion
So, let's recap: What exactly did we go over in this devlog?
A brief shoutout to the official Discord server
A status update regarding development. Progress has still been going slow amongst the team, so I've been beginning to take more drastic measures to get the more inactive team members out of the way.
A brief explanation on this year's April Fools joke (Grubble)
Demo 3 is coming!
Teasers related to Grubble's art
Nutsucci(?)
And hopefully more to come in upcoming devlogs! ^u^
Grubble was a fun song to set up, and I'm glad that I'll still be able to work on it past April 1st, however I think this might be the last April Fools joke that I plan to set up for OUTDATED. It's not that we don't have any ideas on what we could do for next year, it's just that the team in this state is currently unable to support any side projects right now, so until progress starts becoming consistent again we'll have to lock in and attempt to get the main shit done by any means necessary.
Farewell, ODers! Until next time!
Corthon
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