Dawn Chorus v0.50.5 - September build

Hi folks!

As announced before, this month's update doesn't yet start Day 5. We've focused on things we wanted to tackle but didn't have enough time for when working on new chapters. Here is the full list of changes:

- A new, rewritten intro
- New set of front-facing expressions for Rune
- Fixed side-looking pose for Rune
- A short new scene for Klaus (his route isn't finished or shelved, don't worry)
- A brand new replay gallery, currently a few scenes, by Sqee
- New illustration for Mikko's Day 3 scene with instruments, by Deffie
- New illustration for Torulf's Day 1 sex scene, by Haku
- New illustration for Torulf's Day 3 cinema scene, by Bakemonoy
- Animated illustrations added to the gallery
- Various bug, grammar, and typo fixes
- Several new backgrounds

The biggest changes are the two reworks: the intro and Rune's expressions.

The new, reworked intro took a lot of fine-tuning, reading and re-reading, rearranging the text, adding breathing space where needed, and cutting things short when they slowed down the pace—but I'm finally happy with the opening section. It's a bit less slow and atmospheric than the previous intro, but that's intentional—now the action picks up earlier, the intro skips several lower-quality backgrounds, and puts much less emphasis on the dream that used to open the VN. I always considered that part a bit wonky, as it made Rune look like the intended route, while there is no "canon" one. Things are a bit more in harmony now, and screen time is more balanced.

If you don't feel like going back to check out how it looks now, no worries—it doesn't change anything later in the VN and mostly rearranges the sections and polishes the text for better pacing and a better first impression.

With Rune, we aimed to give him back some of the old sprite's charm, and so decided to make him mostly front-facing, with side-facing head left only for a few expressions, and redraw the expressions in a softer style.

Lake's sprite rework is, for now, shelved.

That's all for now! Soon I'll be starting Day 5, and I'll be closing the last open threads with Broken Harbours in parallel. The sooner it's out, the easier it will be for me to focus fully on the first Dawn Chorus update. But, as usual, be on the lookout for a longer devlog mapping out the plan for October!

Thank you all for your support,

- Keo