HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope the holiday season and the new year have been treating you all well <3 I've been hard at work this past month to get the revamped demo out to you all soon, so let's jump right into things ^^

This past month, most of my writing has been focused on the revamped demo, finishing Etza's first draft, and Druk's developmental edits.

The revamped demo is FINISHED w writing edits!!!! That honestly took way more time than I thought, but because I wrote the demo basically two years ago at this point, a lot of my writing style has changed. So while some people might think it is an unnecessary time sink, it was important for me to rewrite the scenes I could so that it felt like it accurately portrayed how the routes are looking. And, because my writing skills are better than basically 0, which is where I was starting when I first wrote the demo, I can better write a script that's closer to my vision of the game.

....So THAT ended up taking a while!!! BUT I finished that this month, which was a huge accomplishment to me and I feel much happier with the Alaris script than before, where I kinda... well, hated it. LOL

In-Game Sneak Peek: New Choices HEHEHE

Etza's draft is making good progress. I'm JUST ABOUT done with their first draft YAY!!! As I mentioned before, writing for the full game routes will be a bit slower for now since I'm now balancing more game stages than before (like coding, sprites, etc.). But I was pretty happy with Etza's progress this month since it does feel like the finish line is pretty close for their first draft ^^

And then Druk's edits are just about wrapping up!! Wudgey and I have been having lots of fun with Druk's route, and it's shaped up to be a personal favorite just because of how enjoyable the editing process has been, so I hope you all are excited for it!

For art, I've gotten some more backgrounds commissioned from Vui for the full game. I also decided to update the prologue art for the demo and commissioned dear friend @saffein-e for some prologue art and..... WELL..... SHE'S STUNNING. I'll let the prologue preview speak for itself HEH

In-Game Preview: New Prologue feat. New Art and Fade-in Text Effect

I'm so happy with it, and in general seeing the demo come together with all the new assets has been RRRRGGGHHH!!!!! I've coded most of the screens by now, but I don't want to show them all quite yet. I'll show one preview of the new communicator screens.

First is the texting screen, and then I also updated the phone call screen! The sprites now not only emote (kinda like video call vibes), but they also auto-highlight based on who is talking!

Most of my miscellaneous stuff has to do with coding the demo. I've been doing a LOT of backend coding to make the game more polished. First is the example above with the communicator phone call feature. Without getting too into coding jargon, it basically is like a new version of the normal sprites so that it feels more interactive, with seeing the characters emote while talking to you, and has the auto-highlight function so that it is clear who is talking during a phone call!

I'm adding more camera work to the demo, more vfx/sfx to make things more immersive, and overall just adding a lot of polish to the game. It's been a lot of work, since it's involved adding alternative textboxes, cleaning up old code, revamping things (like sprites and other images), etc. But it's been worth it to see everything come together!

I'm hoping the beta demo can be done by the end of this week or next, so if you all would like access to it, please feel free to subscribe to my Patreon for this upcoming month! Highest tier gets access to beta builds for $10 <3

Finally, In other news, I DID release Intertwine: Another Life this month LMFAOOO

If you haven't gotten a chance to play it, please do! There's almost double the amount of script content. I've been doing an awful job of promoting it since I've been in the coding trenches. But I do appreciate the reception so far!! It was honestly bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm always so grateful for everyone's support ^^ Very happy you all liked the extra bit of content with Van <33333

For market research, I didn't do anything this past month. I DID play Date with Death in December and had massive brainrot from it. In fact, I made two fanarts of little Grimmy LMFAOOOO.

I'm sure most of you have played it, but if you haven't this is your sign to go play it. It's a free game and the amount of polish and features in it are crazy, so please show the dev team some love!!!

Hoping to have the revamped demo out soon, and the beta demo out even sooner. Hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you soon! <3