Version 0.5 - Steel your heart

Hello! 

Turns out, I am alive, and still working on the game!

Today I've launched the first part of the 0.5 update. This update will most likely come in 3 parts.

0.5 - The main overlaying story, as well as Mike's route. The one uploaded today.
0.5.1 - Charles & John's Routes will be updated to reflect the chapter. This is most likely sometime next week.
0.5.2 - Polishing things, after feedback.

In short, this chapter has had to be rewritten a few times, and for now it'll be entirely Mike's route. The other routes will be added shortly, as they need more polish, but I needed to get something out for now.

Honestly, there are still parts I feel aren't up to par. But, I'd rather get the story out there and polish as it goes. What I'm trying to say in short is; If you find something that feels weird, I'll most likely be polishing that part in the coming week.

Aside from that, this update also brings the start to NSFW content, so make sure you check your toggle in the preferences if you don't want to see NSFW content.

As for the change log it, it's been so long I won't be able to remember everything for a proper one. But here's an attempt at a summary.

Story

Originally, I had written over 50k words to get put in. However, I scrapped most of it as it just didn't work well. I expect this chapter to get back up to that number once Charles & Johns routes are more polished.

A few notes;

There's not the same level of science and theories in my mind for this update; As they tend to be focused more on Charles & John's routes. Don't worry, they'll be back soon.

Nick is a hard character to write, as he's a bit of a blank slate. He gets formed by the story, not the other way around. This lead to the decision of cutting him out of the story for now. He'll be back once the story has progressed further, and I'll update the chapters to add him back in when it is time. This also opens up the possibility for adding new routes. *cough* dragon *cough*

 The Memories function is now active. As for Mike's route, this is what needs the most polish out of the entire thing.

Music

Camazule has now looped all songs for smoother transitions.

There are a few new songs added to the game.

Songs now take up less space, so you might notice this download being smaller.

Art

An extra mention to Bara-Diction - itch.io for his help with some specific art changes in this update. Much love.
Do go check out his games, they're all amazing. (My Time at Etheria is my absolute favorite)

There's a lot to say here. 6 new characters. Outfit updates for most existing ones, with a large focus on Mike. I hope to be able to give all the characters the same treatment in the coming weeks.

There are also now proper CGs in the game. 

There are a lot of new backgrounds, made mostly by Cheetah, and a couple with help from Shin.

As for characters... Yeah, there's a lot. I don't remember all of it, but hopefully it all just looks cleaner, while still remaining the feel it had before. There are no major *reworks*, other than outfits being polished and a small edit to Mike. 

There are a lot of new animations, these are also attributed to Shin. 

Code

This is where most the optimization has come in, from changing formats of files, to overhaul of the syntax I've been using, to adding memories and the credits function, to moving from images of text to pure text...

All in all; Next devlog will be more structured. This one had a bit of chaos, but there are improvements everywhere.

Thanks for reading. 

/GruntSteel