Hi everyone!

Another month has flown by, and we are already entering the month of September soon! It's crazy it's already Fall......... Hope you all have been doing well <3

Since we're getting into the latter half of the year, I wanted to sit down and talk to you about the usual monthly progress as well as do a check in on where Alaris is sitting. This is a longer one, so without further ado, let's dive in, shall we?

Writing

We continue to move forward with writing. But it's extremely refreshing this month since I've Finally moved into Etza's route! Already, the route is feeling relatively different from the past three routes I've been writing---not necessarily because the past three routes are repetitive, but moreso because Etza's route (and the Fae ones moving forward) is very different regarding plot content. I can't say much more than that because then we start getting into spoiler territory. But it's been exciting since Etza, Kuna'a, and Aisa have always been the "final stage" of writing for Alaris to me.

I'm aiming to have Etza's first draft done by the end of next month. We'll check in next month to see my progress, but that's my goal at least! I also wrapped up the finishing touches for Druk's route this past month and moved his onto developmental editing, so we are just moving into New Stages all across the board yay!

Art

Most of my attention was actually on art this month though! Specifically, on finalizing Kickstarter merchandise so I can ship it out. I finished the updated Mermay prints as well as the character postcards.

I will have some extra prints that I'm happy to send off. Obviously, you will have to pay for them LOL. But if you're interested in any, I'll have an extremely limited stock. Patrons will get first dibs, so if you are interested but aren't subscribed to my Patreon, I'd recommend getting on that for this upcoming month since I will not be restocking the Mermay prints ever again!

We also continued to get backgrounds from Vui. These are spoiler territory, so I will not be showing them this month teehee. But they're beautiful per usual Vui fashion!

Check-In

Now that we're in the latter half of the year, I wanted to talk to you all about overall Alaris progress and some more specific parts of development.

As of right now, we have about 210k written for Alaris (including the demo). And the end estimate is about 350k. For art assets, we have 20 CGs out of an estimated 48 CGs finished and/or sketched out. For BGs, we are on background 18 out of 25. The GUI is for the most part finished, save for some small finishing touches. And we have 6 out of 8 original tracks completely done.

If it's not clear, Alaris will definitely be a 2024 release rather than an end of 2023 release, which may be disappointing news for those of you eager for Alaris. But realistically, even if I make absolutely cracked progress on the assets from now until the end of the year, I would still need time to polish the full game, especially considering how long it took me to polish intertwine for Otojam, which was significantly smaller. And that's excluding my team members, who I don't want to force into a crunching position. All that being said, I hope to get some playable content to you all before the end of the year, namely the updated demo and maybe Kayn's beta build!

I wanted to take a moment to mention one thing concerning the updated demo. As you all may know from past devlogs, I've updated many of the assets for the enhanced demo. Initially, I had wanted to release the updated demo quite a while back, but there was one set of assets that ended up getting held up in production. For full transparency, since I've talked about the updated demo for a while but haven't been able to show much more progress beyond that, I wanted to touch on (generally) why it's been held up, mainly because I don't want you all to think I'm just Not Delivering on it!

My GUI artist is the same person who made the Alaris logo (re.Alice). She's wonderfully talented, which is why I wanted to work with her for the Alaris GUI as well! As many may know, sometimes life happens and so without getting into any specifics, this is what has been holding up the enhanced demo since I haven't been able to update and code in the new GUI.

Based on recent updates from Alice, I'm hopeful that I'll be receiving the new GUI this upcoming month, and I'd love to release the updated demo (T e n t a t i v e l y) in October! Of course, when the September devlog comes around I'll be able to update you all more concretely. But I wanted to communicate where things currently (and have been) standing since I've been wanting you all to experience the updated demo so badly but didn't want you all to feel like I've been forgetting about it/dropping the ball on it/etc. etc. etc.

Thank you, as always for being so patient and supportive of me! As we head into this final half of the year (jesus), I hope the progress I've been making behind the scenes for Alaris will start to come to fruition through the enhanced demo and some playable beta builds of the individual routes <3

Market Research

I did ~some~ market research this month, but it's honestly been pretty sparse, mainly because my usual market research time was actually replaced by Jam Time this month.

Specifically, if you didn't get the chance to check them out, I helped with two games this month for a 10 day jam. I think they're both pretty top-notch if I'm allowed to humbly brag since the teams behind them were very talented!

The first is Oblivisci Memorias

After receiving a mysterious request, you create a potion meant to erase memories. But the process is a grueling one, and as you add ingredients to your potion, you may find yourself reminiscing on memories you thought you had long since suppressed.

And the second is Titan Arum

Alone, you find yourself catsitting in your family's new house as they traipse through Europe. But incidents slowly signal to you that something's... off about this house. What story exists behind its walls? And more importantly, are you brave enough to uncover it?

That's it from me. Stay safe and see you all next month! 

P.S. Thank you for 300 ratings on intertwine. that's a crazy number to see!! Also, not to be ~pathetic and desperate~ but alaris is so close to 200 ratings, so if two people liked the demo and have it in your hearts to rate it, i would send you all my virtual kisses and hugs!!