TL;DR: Update has been expanded, systems needed to changed to make this happen, no firm ETA but one more small update before Cyberia.

So development for the Cyberia update has been pretty productive so far, and we've actually been expanding our goals towards it. Initially it was going to be a bit smaller, but we realized we really wanted to go all out for the newer content. So these past few updates to the game have been focused on fixing core issues throughout, and also slowly building the foundation towards what we'll be talking about today. The Cyberia update is going to bring some very significant changes to the game besides overall content, and we wanted to go into a bit of detail on what we've working on to make this happen.

New interface streamlined to remove any of unnecessary buttons and make the game feel a lot more cohesive

The current version we've released to patrons has been focused on completely uprooting the UI, and fixing a lot of the issues with overall interface cohesion with the previous versions. Each of subsequent updates have been on making sure the UI was working as intended, as well as streamline the experience to feel a lot more enjoyable. One big aspect was removing all the extra buttons, and consolidating them into 4 total buttons for the screen. We now have a dedicated Settings/Pause menu in the top left, and on the top right we have the Map button, Inventory button, and finally reworked Phone button. 

Phone can be accessed over gameplay without going to a whole different menu. We'll be expanding this with new apps in the future too!

The Phone is actually a much more expanded feature than before, where previously it was only used to buy a single item. We've added a proper interface which includes a few highly requested features. The Objectives Menu now has a new interface and allows for easier access during gameplay with proper descriptions and information for each objective. The Pinup Gallery is a whole new gallery devoted to each of the pinups you collect throughout the game. And finally there's a Scene Gallery which can be used to replay the NSFW scenes throughout the game. We're most likely going to be expanding this to include more than just the NSFW scenes, but we wanted to have an easy way for people to repeat them. Finally we now have a proper shop interface which allows you to buy items with the money you get from doing work for Junky, and will be used for a lot more fun stuff in the future (like outfits to buy for the girls). 

Even though it looks the same, it's actually built entirely with the new system which is much faster and responsive. This is also the newly reworked Everie sprite in action!

One of the biggest issues with the game has been the dialogue system. When the initial reboot happened we had switched to Naninovel, and though it had a lot of benefits, we realized the Adventure Creator tool was a much better fit for the game. However, because the Nani tool was still the game and used for a lot of the dialogue it wasn't as simple as just removing it. So we went back to the drawing board a bit to figure out a method to completely remove it from the game. In a great bit of news with that is we've finally figured out how to do so, and we're currently focused on converting all the older scripts to get the game ready to remove it. This has been a bit of a greater endeavor than we were expecting though, and we have figured it out but it's going to require rebuilding and remaking the sprites for each of the characters.

An example of how we're working on the new interaction dialogue and what you can expect in the interaction update.

Since this will take a while and we're still working on the art for the Cyberia update, we've decided we're going to have one more smaller update to increase the amount of interactions throughout the game. These new interactions will be built with the new dialogue system, and pretty much every interactable object in the game will finally be able to be clicked and have dialogue. This is actually doubled when you include using DD-9 as an item on stuff, and we're going to try and make a lot of fun dialogue with the characters to expand the game. Since this will be built with the new dialogue system you'll be able to get a preview on how much faster it feels, as well as get a preview on what we're aiming for.

The landing area is one of three backgrounds for the update but it's actually more than double the size of any of our previous ones to work with the new panning tech

We're also going to be updating the Newgrounds/Public versions the stable version once the Cyberia update has released. We wanted to create a staggered release schedule for at least all of Chapter 1, and let people experience new stuff with the option to see more if they subscribe. If all goes according to plan we might have something playable next month with unfinished art, but we want to make sure you guys are well informed before that. We still have a lot of work to do but we think this update is gonna be a pretty dramatic improvement overall. That's it for today, and we'll be adding a character preview for Elsie for our Cyber Owl tier patrons in the next few days.