Development Update – August 14, 2026

Whew! Now that V.0.94 is out for public release, it’s time to start focusing on the next chapter of The Office Wife! I have the next release completely plotted out and have already begun working on one of the major scenes—poker night with Paul and his buddies!

Before diving too deeply into new content, though, I spent some time tackling a few important structural and technical improvements to the game.

First, I’ve updated the game’s core engine (nw.js), which should resolve many of the video and audio issues that some players—particularly those on newer Windows 11 builds—have been experiencing. It should also help the game run a bit more smoothly overall.

Second, I finally figured out how to drastically reduce the game’s image file sizes without sacrificing visual quality. RPG Maker normally relies on PNG images, which can be quite large compared to newer formats. With more than 8,500 images in The Office Wife, those files were by far the biggest reason the game had ballooned to nearly 8.8 GB.

I’ve now converted the game’s images to WebP while still allowing RPG Maker to read them properly. The result? The game has gone from roughly 8.8 GB to about 4.4 GB—essentially cutting its size in half!

That’s a huge improvement and should make downloading, storing, and distributing the game much easier going forward, especially as I continue adding new content.

The third major change is something I’ve implemented in response to the mixed feedback regarding the AI animations.

Starting with the next release, players will have the option to turn AI animations off and display a still image instead. This setting will be available from both the main menu and the in-game options menu, so you’ll be able to play whichever way you prefer.

For the record, I personally really like what AI animation brings to the game, and I do plan to continue using it. I also want to clear up one misconception I’ve seen occasionally: AI animation is definitely not a shortcut that eliminates the work involved.

I still have to create and render the source frames, set everything up in ComfyUI, run the generations locally or rent remote GPU time, and then repeatedly regenerate animations until I get a result I’m happy with. It’s not unusual for me to run an animation ten or more times, with each attempt taking anywhere from 5–20 minutes depending on the length and resolution. A single finished animation can therefore represent several hours of rendering and experimentation. I then load it into video editing software to refine it, do any color corrections that are needed, and add audio.

That said, I absolutely recognize that some results have been better than others. As with every other aspect of the game, I’m continuing to refine the process, improve character consistency, and work toward more natural and convincing motion.

Personally, even the imperfect AI animations are much closer to what I want visually than the choppier DAZ animations I was previously creating. But I also understand that not everyone agrees—and that’s exactly why I think giving players a choice is the best solution.

If you like the AI animations, nothing changes. If you don’t, you can turn them off and enjoy those scenes using still renders instead. This option will only apply to the AI-generated animations; the older DAZ animations already in the game will remain unchanged.

With these technical improvements largely out of the way, I can get back to what I really want to be doing: making V.0.95!

That’s it for now. As always, thank you all so much for your continued support. I’m excited about what I have planned for the next chapter!

J.S.