HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FRIENDS. I hope everyone is having a rootin' scootin' day.......... BECAUSE SURPRISE I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT ARC 5 IS GONNA BE RELEASED IN TWO PARTS AND THE FIRST PART COMES OUT IN THREE WEEKSSSSSSSSS.

OK back up.

Calm yourself, Carrot.

Context.

It's a good thing.

SO. A few weeks ago. A month ago? A certain unspecified amount of time ago. I made a thoughty-thought post on The Twitters about how I was entertaining the idea of releasing Arc 5 in two parts:

So I'm reaching the point where Arc 5 is getting... LARGE. And by large I mean double the size of previous arcs (I'm at 40k now and only halfway). Which has helped me realize why I've felt much more overwhelmed💦 So I've been entertaining the thought of releasing it in two parts. pic.twitter.com/i0DQpMZyHu
— Carrot🥕 (@CarrotPtchGames) February 7, 2023

Actually, tbh, at the time I was already like 98% sure that I would, but I wanted to root-scoot-toot the idea out there, perhaps to gauge reactions, or perhaps just so that it wouldn't come as a  ~ c o m p l e t e s u r p r i s e ~.

WHY WOULD I RELEASE IT IN TWO PARTS,,,,,, you might ask. Well, I can sum it up in one neat-and-tidy giant-ass header:

THIS FREAKING THING IS GETTING SO FREAKING LONG.

Yes, Arc 5 is growing into a monster. I suppose it makes sense given how much I have to wrap up,,, so perhaps I should not have been so surprised. Past arcs have each ranged between 35k and 45k words. But I got to 40k words with Arc 5 and I was only (approximately) halfway. Thus explaining why I've started to feel so overwhelmed and why I keep feeling like I'm falling behind and not doing enough fast enough—because I'm essentially making two arcs in one.

Probably about as overwhelmed as Iggy is here...

Once I realized this, and also started to feel even more overwhelmed, because in my mind, the launch date of Arc 5 was getting further and further away and the amount of work I still had left to do was growing and growing... I had a revelation! I could release it in two parts!1!1!!!11 Because honestly the end of this first half is already quite intense and there's a whole heck of a lot happening and so it would make for a nice halfway point anyway. This appealed to me for multiple reasons:

• My raging guilt could be assuaged a bit.
• I wouldn't feel so much constant pressure—something that I think had been affecting my motivation a bit.
• I'd be much less likely to skimp on making this arc how I wanna make it. (e.g., no cutting stuff due to the aforementioned pressure).

This last part feels particularly important to me given that SO MUCH of this arc is QUITE INTENSE and thus requires A LOT OF WORK from my side. Like,,, because this is the final arc, each scene needs to be the "uLtImAtE vErSiOn" of the scene in question, so to speak (at least in my head). And because of this, I've spent a ton more time on writing, scripting, and arting up the wazoo. AND I DON'T WANT TO SKIMP ON THAT? BECAUSE I FEEL IT NEEDS IT??? I-I need to finish this story in a way that (hopefully) lives up to everything that came before it, after all...

SO YES.

Two parts. That's the deal, Neal. With each part being about the length of each of the previous arcs. Note that this is just a split for the purpose of launching—once I do release the entirety of Arc 5, it won't have the split anymore in-game (Arc 5 will play out as one single gargantuan arc). It's really just to clean and wrap up what I have finished now into a neat and tidy package that people can already be traumatized by experience as I dive into the hellscape that will be the final half of Arc 5.

Now that I have explained myself in approximately 665 more words than necessary, let's actually get into the deets!

I'm so glad you asked.

• 40K WORDS, bringing the current running total up to about... 223,000 words... my god...
• That should be about 2-3 hours of playtime depending on your reading speed or something
• LIKE 56 CGS?/??/????? Th-that's more than any of the past complete arcs... what can I say... I told you things got a bit intense...
• 25 new songs, because apparently I just have too many scenes that need the exact right song ig
• There's a bunch of new sprites... ehhh... some brand-new and some edits...
• MORE IGGY DOLL SPRITES THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT (this will make sense once you play, I promise)
• WAY TOO MANY NEW SOUND EFFECTS???? I don't even want to count them...
• Lots of new BGs... lots of ridiculous scripting... idk... I really went to town with the scripting this time... at one point I have like 8 sprites on the screen at the same time doing stuff if that gives you any indication...
• A (hopefully) very epic finale hohohohoho
• SOME VERY CUTE AND SWEET SCENES?
• SOME RIDICULOUS SCENES THAT HAVE NO PLACE IN A HORROR GAME???
• SOME SCENES THAT HIT VERY CLOSE TO ME AND MADE ME WANT TO WEEP AND CRY AND WHEEZE AND DIE???????

OK let's cut it with the list before this thing gets outta control (too late). There's a couple little other things I'll probably push out with the update, including a new censored mode you can turn on that will pixelate the gorier bits (for anyone that might wanna play the game for the story/chars but is a bit squeamish when it comes to gore), and I also wanna optimize the sound and music files a bit (in the process of converting everything to opus and I've already dropped like 100 MB off the game???). I had mentioned that I also wanted to do a bit with the GUI, but I think I'll wait until the final Arc 5 Part 2 release for that, along with the CG gallery that I keep telling myself I'll get to eventually,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 💦).

Did I mention some of these scenes are really ridiculous?

At any rate, I am very ~ e x c i t e d ~ to finally be able to share everything I've been working on for the past months. I said before that Arc 4 was quite personal to me—but Arc 5 is, too. For a variety of reasons. None the least of which is the fact that this is the end of My Great Big Story™. But also because so much of myself went into these chars and seeing some of the ways they grow and the things they experience is just really hitting me hard. AND I'm just pretty happy with how a lot of it has turned out. BUTIHOPETHATPEOPLEWILLLIKEITORIMIGHTCRYBIGSALTYTEARSOTHERWISE. Anyway. 

Friday, March 24th!

That's the date! Unless something unexpected and horrible happens to me between then and now fingers crossed. My mental health has admittedly not been great the last few months. So I didn't want to make this announcement unless I was sure I could make the date. So everything is basically ready to go besides a few last bits and testing, etc. HOWEVER. Sometimes you never know. BUT STILL.

When will the second part of Arc 5 come out? I can't tell you. But I'll start working on it once everything is ready for the part one launch. A lot's going to happen in it (for obvious reasons), so I'm looking forward to start teasing new bits in the coming weeks teehee.

And that's about it!

I'll see y'all in three weeks for the release!

CARROT, OVER AND OUT.

Whoops, how did this get here.................

G-god I love them so much..........................

HELP I'M HAVING A MOMENT.