Posted May 23, 2025 by Swirly Glasses Games
Hello again! I'll start by saying that, sadly, the obligations that come with being a functioning adult are kicking my ass right now (in a good way). That's right, I'm currently doing an internship. I have a job (for three months)! Yipiiiiieeee! This is good for my CV and my wallet, but really bad for the development of a visual novel. But I haven't spent these months doing nothing. I made a lot of progress on chapter 3, and even though I still have to make some adjustments to the scripts of chapters 2 and 3, thanks to the feedback of my beta readers I know I'm on the right track. And I made some fixes to the game's presentation! The text is bigger now, and while it's a small change, it helps a lot with readability. I also tinkered with a plugin that makes automatic pauses when it detects punctuation (this plugin!), which is also going to be a huge help with writing (and will make my code easier to parse, too). And I also added a chapter select screen! There are still a few graphical adjustments I want to make (namely touch up some sprites and change many of the interior backgrounds since the pictures of my crappy student flat can only do so much). Right now, I'm in the middle of writing the rough draft of chapter 4, and, if the key scenes of this chapter come out right, it will be a really enjoyable chapter!
...But development is still gonna be a bit slow. Not only am I doing an internship these months, I'm also helping out "los muchachos" from Remulla Games with the development of KACHIN!, a narrative game of which I hope we'll have a playable demo soon. And speaking of narrative games that required my time these past months, I was in charge of translation editing for Balefire: Ashes to ashes, also by Remulla. If you're looking for another visual novel to read, go check it out!
My goal is to have Lanú fully written by the end of the year (without accounting for the translation, but I don't think that will take me too long). There's a chance that, if I see development still taking too much time, I'll make an updated demo with chapters 1 and 2, but we'll see. But I swear that I want to finish Lanú, someway or another. As long as I don't give up and keep on working, even if at a snail's pace, I'll consider that a win. So I'll be seeing you in two or three months with the next devlog. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to proudly announce that I made loads of progress. I'll keep my fingers closed.
Lastly, a few nice screenshots of chapter 3:
I can't wait for you all to find out about Layla's very normal thoughts about having horns
Something malicious is brewing...
Here's the chapter select screen! Also a small teaser of things to come