Hi everyone! 

I’m back again with another devlog update. This one is going to be a bit short, to be honest, because there’s not a LOT for me to talk about like in past devlogs. As I mentioned in the last devlog, I’ve been getting to work on Chapter 2, specifically on scripting. I had said I would like to have most if not all of it finished by the next update, and I’ve made quite a bit of progress on it, if I do say so myself!! 

Regarding scripting, I only have one scene to complete and then the free time component, which I’m super excited to bring to life. Right now, I’m working on getting the scene completed, and once I finish that, I’ll start to also work on things like art (i.e., sprite expression, backgrounds, CGs, etc.). So we’re pretty close to starting to see some visual progress, which I’ll be excited to share :D I’m also going to start to code the script into the game!! Right now, the script is... quite large for Chapter 2 lol aka it’s currently sitting at over 18,000 aha... 

BUT - and this is a big but - you will not be reading all 18,000 of these words. As I mentioned before, I want this game to be quite immersive and I want people to feel like their choices (things like who to romance, personality, etc.) actually impact the game. So when people play through this upcoming chapter, it will most likely feel closer to 10,000-15,000 words because you will only be accessing certain scenes at one time. The “routes” haven’t been incorporated yet in that you are still open to romance whoever you want, but you will be getting choices that determine which LIs you’ll be interacting with in this chapter! I’ve written it in a way so that you won’t be missing any plot content regardless of the way you play the chapter, it will moreso be a different experience because you’ll be interacting with different LI’s. Some of them you will have a choice and some of them will be based on choices you make in Chapter 1. 

If you’re worried about not being able to interact with your top LIs, that’s where free time will come in! So even if you interact with specific LIs in this chapter, you can still romance whoever you want through free time. And it’s also important to remember that your personality choices also give you affection points, so even if you don’t see a specific scene with an LI, you can still gain affection points with them in indirect ways! 

If this is all confusing, that’s alright. I think once I code the Stats Meter into the game that shows affection and personality points, it will be much easier to follow :) But I’m excited that the personality feature will already start to impact the game, even in small ways, and you’ll all be getting a free time component as well! 

Regarding the free time component, I’m still working out the kinks of how I want it to integrated into the game, but if anyone has ever played games like Danganronpa, Nameless or even Tokimeki Memorial Girls Side: 3rd Story, I want it to be something like that. You’ll have a certain part in each chapter where you get “Free Time” and  you can choose how you want to spend it! This will allow people to choose which LIs to romance as well as “date places” to go to. Right now, I’m going to keep it simple so it’ll be most similar to Nameless and Danganronpa where a location will be tied to a specific LI, but I am playing with the idea of doing something like Tokimeki where you can choose a location AND the LI you want to ask out. If I decide to go this route, it’ll be something that won’t happen until either the full completed demo or the finalized version of the full game since it would require a lot more work. But I think if I have the time and resources to pull it off, it would be super fun! 

Anyways, as I said, a lot of this is groundwork type of stuff right now with Chapter 2 - mainly conceptualizing things and doing the script so I know what I need to create visual for the game. But we are almost past this stage and will be moving into the more concrete parts soon! Hope you’re all excited <3 

As always, if you’d like to support the game, feel free to donate at ko-fi, follow on either itch.io or Twitter, or download the Chapter 1 Sample if you haven’t done so  yet! On my Twitter, I’ll be posting daily updates throughout the month of October in honor of #devtober so if that’s something you’d be interested in, feel free to follow c: