Posted July 12, 2020 by Parival
Hey all, sorry for the silence. I had to take a mental break from this game (and from reading comments), so I guess you could say it was kind of like a silent hiatus from writing updates. It seemed like something would happen after every update (to me or someone on my team) that affected releasing the side game, and I honestly was having a hard time with people saying I was just making excuses (I have thin skin ok). I tried to explain as best as I could each time about the 'personal issues' not only I was having, but also the people on my team, without revealing too much of our personal information/lives. It just seemed like a lot of people were taking it as if I was stalling for no reason or using my real life as an excuse. I'm not saying y'all can't assume what you want, but please understand that other struggles are actively in our lives that are not associated with COVID, and they take priority over everything else. I'm not asking for everyone to understand or forgive the delays, y'all can make your own opinions and assumptions and that's totally fine. If you have lost your patience with us and no longer want to support us, I understand as well and thank you for your support thus far. For those who continue to support us, we really do appreciate you.
Anyway, onto the update!
August 1st. Probably in the afternoon.
Why is it in August? Honestly, if shit hits the fan again for whatever reason, I want to have enough time to at least try to fix any issue. At this point, it's all coded, I'm just going to be running a few more tests to make sure everything is to my liking. At release, there may be a few typos or occasions where sprites may be over each other--if you do find something like that, please let me know so I can have my coder fix those issues. I try to test every choice, but sometimes I miss one or two since there are like 6 prompts per route with 2-4 choices each. That's a lot of iterations so sometimes I lose track even with taking notes of what I've already covered.
What to expect:
-cost of $10
-roughly 50k words total
-12 endings (3 per route, CG being in the good end)
-4 CGs with variations (total count is 34 without the censor)
-Partially Voiced, mainly for sex scenes (may eventually be fully voiced) *enabling the censor will mute the lines
-New soundtrack
-Stories relate to their relationship post-main game. Each route shows an insecurity of Rei's or the love interest, it's your job to navigate through each of the prompts to get to the good end.
Preview Prompt:
Scene [Aiden surprises Rei with a hot springs vacation! Rei's been wanting take one for a long time, but hadn't had the chance because of school and work. However, Aiden's been working nonstop to be able to relax with Rei for a whole weekend--no work, no fighting, no criminals--just the two of them. How do you think Rei likes the resort?]
Aiden: "So, what do you think?"
Might be hard to read from the preview, so here are the options in text form:
1) "It's fine, I guess."
2) "Not as romantic as I thought."
3) "I love it."
4) "Perfect to lock ourselves away."
Now remember, you're playing as Rei, so some of his responses will be tailored to his personality. Some of the naughtier ones may garner you more points than just the straightforward answer. Point values can be anywhere from -2 to +2. Make sure you keep a total of your points to know how well you're doing.
Our BG artist just recently finished all of the backgrounds we've requested so far. There may end up being one or two more, but the total right now is at 41 (71 with all the variations). So, as you can probably imagine...it's gonna be a massive game. Like--I don't think everyone realizes its scale yet. Aside from that, we're still working on fixing up the script as well as all of the CGs. Right now, the CG count with variations is at 77 and we've got A LOT more to go.
Other than that, I've been looking back at my art of the sprites and I'm not really satisfied with them anymore. I feel like I've grown a lot as an artist since I drew them, so I'm kind of considering redrawing them again in my current style. They'd obviously retain their same clothing and hairstyles, they'd just have a more up to date look. The way I drew them in the past, they also aren't drawn how an actual sprite should be, since the positions of the arms only change when they change outfits, so I was going to draw them as actual sprites with adjustable arm poses so that they'd have a little more expression to their characters. On top of that, each character also has 20+ facial expressions (Rei's being like......40 at this point), so those would also be redone. Sometimes I look back and hate the way they look so I was going to redraw the expressions a bit anyway. But, feel free to let me know your thoughts, I might keep them as is, but I don't see why I can't give them an upgrade if needed!
I'm going to be starting our Patreon back up in August. The tiers are going to be reworked again as cheaper tiers--most likely just $3, $5, and $10 as the main tiers, and $25 being if you want to really support us (and see a NSFW art of the characters). I was getting a little stressed out when I was doing Patreon on top of school and work, but I think I can handle it this upcoming semester since the workload should be a little lighter. The tiers are going to have non-spoiler rewards, with the $25 tier having a NSFW art of the characters of the month. A poll will be held the month prior and will have multiple options to either have the regular couples (Rei x Love interest) or have random couples (ex., Minami x Twins, Aiden x Jun, etc.). There will also be another poll for the theme of the NSFW scene. So, you may end up with something like Aiden x Twin, theme of master x servant(s).
I'm going to start putting together all the rewards that can be sent currently. I'll be sending them out in August/September. Physical rewards such as the poster will be sent out in August. If you have changed your address, please send me an email so I can update it in our records and make sure it is sent to the right place. For digital rewards, the ones that can currently be sent are the personalized thank yous, which will be redone accordingly. If you would like to change the character that says 'thank you' to you, please email me. These lines are custom and will include the name you used for the backer report, so it's not just 'thank you' lol. Hopefully that makes sense. The wallpapers were already sent a long time ago. Everything else will be given when the main game is released since most of it is the OST, CGs, etc.
I'm going to be posting an update every time there's a big update rather than just like "here's a teaser". The updates will be more text focused about what's happening during the process--like a new music track, sprite rework (potentially), etc. So the updates will be longer, since they'll include more information, they just won't be too often. I'd say probably once every month to once every other month until we can get into the meat of fully completely the script and getting to coding it. This will most likely take a while, coding such a big game will take a lot of time and will require many hours of testing.
I will be posting another update a day or so before we release the side game, another update a few days after it is released, and another update when it is posted on steam. I've said before, it will first be posted on itch, and then on steam a few weeks later.
I'll be posting the winners of the giveaway from a while ago in the update before we release the side game!
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If you have any questions, please email me at parivalgames@gmail.com