u know its hot girl summer bc we have been COOKINGGG IKTR

THE PEAK OF HOT GIRL SUMMER IS HERE AND WE HAVE BEEN DOING THINGS

We did a lot of things this month but before I get into ANY of that, we have to make sure we wish one last happy birthday to Fenir before July officially ends!

Now.... let's get into the Exciting News

Gotta be honest, not a lot of writing progress this month chief LFAJSLDIFJ. Mainly because I've been focusing so much on the Early Access beta (which was worth it and which I will get to in the next couple of sections). I anticipate this next month now that EA progress is slightly slowing down, I'll be able to get back into some writing and get Kuna'a and Etza's routes Locked In !

I DID finally write out all the codex entries needed for the game. While there weren't a lot of lore specific entries I needed to write, there were a lot of easter egg ones heh. Something I love doing is adding easter eggs as visual novel shoutouts, since it gives me the chance to drop little hints to other visual novels I'm a fan of. Some are more explicit, like I'll list the VN title, and some are a little bit sneakier. I try to have fun with them, especially if I'm close to the developer.

Here's an example, heh. SURPRISE BABE @ravenstargames

Art...... I'll be honest. I missed art, but these past two months I've been in the art mines for so long that I've started going crazy FOLJSLDIJ.

Exhibit A is the fact that I made an extra CG for Fenir because I somehow counted wrong and so spent an ungodly amount of time making him a new CG that I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO MAKE.... It was worth it though, I'm really happy with the new CG. To compensate, I am releasing this CG that will no longer be in the game into the wild.

cutie patootie

In general, this past month was dedicated to revising CGs that I wasn't as happy with and making all the CGs look consistent across the game, from colors to contrasts, etc. And I'm Really Happy with all of the new and improved CGs!

I've also been adding sprite expressions to our lovely LIs to make the game feel a bit more lively and dynamic, and I'm pretty satisfied with the results ^^ Honestly, I can struggle with sprite expressions. One of the cons of drawing all of the assets yourself is you are limited by your own experience and I'm still not quite the artist I'd like to be. That said, I think I've finagled a good enough combo of sprite expressions for our cast so that they feel more expressive <3

and if you dont believe me, believe one of the beta testers

Aside from art and polishing everything off for the EA release, I also did A LOT of coding this month. Now that all the assets, from the script, to the art, have been completed, it means I can finally code EVERYTHING in!!!

While coding the actual script didn't take too long, since we had a foundation from past beta route releases, there were a lot of features and small things that I have been wanting to add to the game as Little Enhancers for the EA release, which included the Updated Gallery

gotta show the kuna'a one since his is empty LAFJSDIFJ

For the Central Gang, they will show all 9 CGs here. Since Kuna'a currently only has one, only one shows up. But because I make my CGs slightly bigger than the game's default dimensions, I have always wanted a gallery where you can open up the CGs and kinda zoom in and move around and stuff on the image. And I FINALLY got it coded!!! Now with all CGs, when you click on them and open them up, you can zoom in and out to your heart's content to look at little details or zoom out to see the full image ^^

Now that all the Central routes are Officially coded in with the final personality choices and normal choices, I also put in the final affection checks to get the good or bad endings for the LIs. You'll be able to track these in the Affection Screen

I'm playing on God Mode because I'm literally Crescence so they all love me LFJASDI

Example screenshot of what affection can look like and how the description can change based on its level! There are lots of ways to increase affection with LIs, whether it's an affection related choice or personality choice, so rather than having to make specific choices, you can play around and as long as you have enough affection by the Ending Branch, you can get your desired ending <3

Finally, in what might have taken the most time, I also finished revamping the Communicator!

sneaky peeky

It's looking a lot more like a phone right? HEHE. *smacks the side of the communicator function* This baby holds so many Crescence tears LFIAJSDILFJL.

In this New and Improved Communicator, you can have simultaneous conversations with different LIs, and on the side, you can see a preview of your conversations. The character's name will also light up when you have a new message from them! Also now when you respond, it'll be through a choice menu, very similar to how many other messenger-sim games are (e.g., Bloomic, ADWD, Killer Chat)! It feels a lot more immersive and I'm really happy with how it all looks and feels now ^^ I hope you all like it!!!

And all of that coding leads us to the MOST exciting development this past month, which is that we FINALLY entered beta testing for EA!!!!!

It's been Extremely Crazy to have finally reached a point where you can play the game in its almost final form. While there are two routes that will be added later, there are so many features, functions, and assets that have finally come together in a way that's close to my vision for the game and it's just CRAZY BRO.

If you'd still like to play the beta, it'll be up for a while longer! Remember to sign up for the Hydra tier if you'd like access <3 The feedback so far has been amazing, and much appreciated since some of the beta testers have already spotted small bugs.

FINALLY. The last thing we've been working on this month is VA lines. I've always considered VA to be one of the Final milestones in game development, so the fact we have already entered that stage (and gotten some lines back!) is so exciting! I can't wait to get these into the game since that really will feel like the Final Asset <3

Not really market research, but I did want to take a moment to touch on the NSFW changes that have been affecting itch and Steam. If you haven't seen the news about the censorship changes and their ties to payment processors, I highly encourage you to look into it and take action against these policies. These (1 | 2) are some statements by fellow devs that capture my own sentiments about the situation.

Please consider ways you personally can help the situation, whether it's boosting devs that have been impacted, sharing the news, calling payment processors, etc.

That's all for this month <3 I hope to bring some exciting news in our next devlog!