Hello everyone! 

This month was a bit crazy in some regards and very still in others.

TLDR: Sacrarium Pario's anticipated release is delayed further due to issues with the world right now. The Woeful Rose & The Bitter Crow is around 75% programmed with multiple W.I.P.s rolling in. Project I.C. has an official artist and is slowly rumbling to life. I have a new non-game dev job that will be eating into my dev time, but will also provide me the steady paycheck I need to live.

Let's now break it down bit by bit:

Sacrarium Pario

As you all know, the world is kind of on fire in multiple places right now. Things are going down, and Rian's country in particular is experiencing a lot of things with bleak headlines. I will not be disclosing where they are from (obviously).

Why am I bringing this up? I have not been able to reach Rian in any capacity since February.

What does this mean? Obviously, I care more about Rian being alive and safe than I do about releasing a VN. Right now, I'm trying multiple channels to verify whether or not they are okay. I have been unsuccessful at present, but I intend to keep trying.

What does this mean for Pario long-term? If I cannot establish contact with Rian by the end of May 2025, I will release what remains of Pario as is. If I am ever able to reconnect with Rian again, perhaps we can go back and finish the CGs, but if not, there will be no ending CGs. Rian really wanted to do Pario's CGs themself, and I am going to respect their wishes no matter what.

The Woeful Rose & The Bitter Crow

I have successfully gotten the solo routes programmed (minus SFX, pop up codex, and CG code). I've gotten in some delightful WIPs, and the current ports seem stable.

Obviously, Rian was intended to be the sprite artist for this game. If I cannot establish contact with Rian by the end of May 2025, I will search for a sprite artist to complete their work. This was already something we posited doing if necessary to keep things on track.

Sacrarium Contego

The first 30k words of the script have been written and programmed in. They have also been programmed in with the placeholder backgrounds. This section has been playtested, and it works as intended! So yay!

I've also switched GUI templates to get one that works better. The previous one did not work that great (especially on android).

Once I am done with the bulk of WRBC's programming, I will obviously return to writing this.

Project I.C.

An artist has been selected, and they have agreed to work on the project. They've sent some delectable W.I.P.s that I will share one day. I will give you all one small teaser about this project though: there will be a character creation screen ;3

I will not be posting anything in mega detail until after we have more solid assets, and I've got at least the first two bits of the story written (not just outlined).

Updates on Kiss themself

My neck has mostly recovered from me straining a muscle. That was a hindrance throughout most of March (I'm talking working one hour a day, could only sit at my computer to game dev for about 2 hours a day (slowly got better), couldn't drive, on meds that made me sleepy as balls). Right now I still get the occasional bit of pain, but I can drive again.

That last bit is super important because I have a new job! I am now a cubicle gremlin weekdays, 8-5. This will impact my dev progress. Obviously, working 8-5 + commuting reduces how much time I have at my computer. Thus, I won't really have Tuesdays or Fridays where I just sit down and dev for like 6 hours. I will still have weekends of course, and I don't intend to neglect deving Mon-Fri. It will just be a lot more managed and slower.

Still, this new job will allow me to pay my bills and save up for assets for Project I.C. So, woo!

Conclusion

So yes, a whole lot of things happening in some places. A whole lot of nothing in others. I'm sorry I don't have a more cheerful update, but it is what it is.

Thank you so much for your support thus far!

-StygianEyeDev