Daybreak Redux – August Update

There wasn’t any planned milestone for August in the Daybreak Redux project, but given the lack of activity on the blog recently I felt the urge to post an update.

The good news is that progress is continuing to be made in good pace. The realistic news is that the initial rush of progress has slowed down. The sheer number of chapters I’ve pushed out in beta has also put a big burden on my beta-readers. It’s why Eve Chapter 13 still hasn’t been released… I still haven’t received enough feedback from them on it.

As of this point:

• Daybreak(re) Volume 1 has finished beta and editing. General consensus has been it has maintained all of the excellent pacing of the original volume 1, but with sufficiently more politics and world details injected into its scenes to give a better idea of the intense political focus of the story. There is still a lack of hard military aspects in volume 1 and, despite scratching my head, I’m not sure this can be changed easily without significantly twisting the focus of some chapters — which is not really desirable. Nevertheless, a few notable changes for example are:
  • The gunpowder issue is first raised in Chapter 4, during the first Kaede-Pascal dinner chat.
  • The problems of education system vs talent pool is brought up on multiple occasions.
  • The Kaede-Cecylia discussions on differences between the two worlds in Chapter 13 are significantly expanded, including an introduction to the behavioral traits of Samarans (something I skipped for far too long originally).

 

• Daybreak(re) Volume 2 is completed up to chapter 9. This should include all the completely new chapters (4, 6-9) that I had to write from scratch instead of rewriting old scenes and recycling old content.
  • Since Pascal doesn’t get thrown straight into a war this time, these chapters focus heavily on the early relations between the main character trio.
  • Edith, Vivi, Alistair, etc. all get introduced to the story much earlier this time. Should hopefully resolve some major vol3/4 issues.
  • I hope progress will pick up again after this as much of the second half of volume 2 will be based on the old volume 2. My goals are still to begin publishing before October 1st, but that requires volume 2 to have finished beta-reading/editing up to chapter 9 at least so, we’ll see..

 

August is also my busiest month at work, since I’m in the education industry and this is when all the school districts are preparing for the new semester. Needless to say, unlike most people, the pandemic has made me more busy and not less, which has not been a great combination with all the stuck-at-home stress. Perhaps as a result of this, I’ve actually started playing my first mobile game, and guess what — it’s a dress-up game! (xD). I fully anticipate this being leveraged in the near future for all my character designs and art, because this game is great for that.

For example my favorite suit from the game. I so want to make a Kaede art based on some of the parts from it (っ｡╹▿╹｡) っ

Author's Comment
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