It's almost November huh? Next thing we know, it'll be 2024... 

BUT! ALSO! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!


So, progress time!

Progress Report
Currently, I'm still focusing on writing, so unfortunately I can't release an extended update just yet... and unfortunately (again-) I'm quite behind schedule, as I was hoping to have started the romance routes by this time already. Chances are, I'll have to push back the estimated release frame, but I do plan to complete this project by 2024.

Still! There's progress on the common route that I sadly cannot show just yet.

Sneak Peek?

So as I've mentioned, I was supposed to focus on the writing... but I ended up drawing some sprites that I don't need yet since their scenes haven't even been written yet (oops?).

One is pretty much finished and the other is still just a lineart-in-progress and only appears in one of the two routes🤭

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Furthermore, I'm hoping to implement a difficulty option for this game.

(Difficulty option screen subject to change)

What? Difficulty option for an otome? Yes. How does that work?

For now (subject to change) the plan is this:

Easy Mode:
Plays like an ordinary visual novel. As long as you save before choices, you can avoid bad endings. You are also given more leeway to your choices. Savescum is your lifeline. Recommended for those who just wants to read the story.

However! This will lock out certain features and gimmicks for the game...

Normal Mode:
The intended difficulty for the game. The demo is currently at this difficulty. Please choose this🥺

Hard (Survival) Mode:
This is hell you're walking into. Don't do it.

You can get choice-locked, meaning, if you made a bad choice in a far far away past, no options in a certain future may save you. There might also be QTEs, and certain choices that make proceeding easier may become unavailable. Certain hints will also be omitted.

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Honestly, these options are rooted from my desire to make the game harder... but then saw that some people are already struggling with Normal mode (oops?) and unable to decide on how to proceed... why not do them all?😈

Note that this feature won't be implemented for the demo.

Dev Corner
Just to make this devlog more interesting, let me just talk about some design choices for this game!

If you have played the demo, then you would know that I've made mouth flap animations for the sprites.

(Video credit to Otomeaddicted cause I'm too lazy to record)

This choice wasn't just for aesthetics, but also as a signifier on who is currently talking.

When I started releasing VNs, specifically with Three Princes and Adarna, one of the feedbacks I received from my tester (aka brother) was that it was difficult for him to tell on who was talking, especially when the screen gets crowded with characters.

I know that another option was to just highlight which character is talking, but if you've noticed, I do tend to let other characters in the background react to certain things currently being said even when they aren't the speaker... so I wasn't really fond of that option.

So... yeah! Now you know why there are mouth flaps.

Maybe next devlog I'll talk about in-game choices.

Next Update
I really hope I can finish the common route before December, then I can finally dive into writing the romance routes!

I'm so excited to get to a certain part... but scared at the same time. For certain reasons. Not gonna say more about that.

Once I've gotten good progress on the romance routes, I'll be polishing the coding for the common route to prepare for an extended demo release for those who donated for beta access.

As I've mentioned before, I won't be running a Kickstarter for this project, but if you'd like to support this project, you can donate here!

For the list of perks, you may refer here under "Q: Do I get anything for donating?".

Well, that's it for now. Hope to see you next time!