Hey! Thanks for checking in :3
It's a weird sort of situation really in that, on my end, I've not worked on it at all in terms of getting it put together in the new engine, but there is work going on. I haven't posted about this, but I did mention it briefly in a reply to a recentish comment. Basically, I've teamed up with an absolutely amazing artist who is redesigning all the sprites in her style + drawing CGs for this version of the game :3
She's already finished full-colour CGs for all of the student route and they're absolutely gorgeous! I would post something as a little preview, but I'm not sure what I could post without spoiling anything too much, haha. Even her sketches for the rest of the CGs and the sprites blow me away :D Also, since the game isn't particularly close to completion, I feel like posting stuff now would maybe be too early? I'm not sure. I'm not very good at anything related to promotion and social media >.<
Maybe I should change the status on itch, but then it is still technically in development x3 It's just fairly slow-paced right now. I still need to finish CiQ since that's supposed to be my main project. I had planned to release that before the end of this year. The problem is, my friend and I had hoped to run a Kickstarter for it, but due to my lack of activity on social media (and possibly because folks just don't care for it as well xD) we just don't have anywhere near enough eyes on the project to bother trying one. It would just fall flat on its face because no one would know it was running >.< Considering it's a game of a similar length to SR, and that a young artist from Japan redrew all the sprites and they now look gorgeous, it's quite disheartening to think that I'll likely end up releasing it only for it to go completely unnoticed. I didn't even want to pay myself with a KS. I just wanted enough funding to be able to afford a CG artist and to get voice acting in there.
So yeah, that has me incredibly bummed out right now.
I did just finish another game for Otome Jam 2021 (Apartment No.9) and I feel like it's my most polished release so far as I get more comfortable with the new engine + I got to work with artists who are all fantastic :3 I have no idea if it would be your cup of tea, but I'm thinking I might make a genderbent version of A9 with a male protagonist and the love interests become female. I don't think it would take too long to get it done since the framework is already there in the otome version and it's not that long of a story!
Sorry for going on a huge ramble there >.< I hope you're well, managing to stay safe, and having a brilliant week so far :3
Viewing post in What Could Have Been + What Could Be comments
Oh that's nice! It's good to hear that the CGs will be in this version of the game too. Also if it spoils too much of the game I guess posting the CGs shouldn't be done, maybe you could post a sprite of every route once the artist is done redrawing them as an update though?
As for CiQ, since Manly decided to play a few of your VNs I hope you now have enough people interested in the game.
Tbh, Apartment No.9 really doesn't seem like my cup of tea, but if you decide to make a genderbent version of it, I'll definitively check it out.
Eitherway, I am just happy to hear that this game is still being worked on (albeit slowly) and not on hiatus. Cheers.
They are absolutely gorgeous CGs as well! The artist is so incredibly talented :3 I shall have to ask first but I wonder if maybe posting some of the sprite and CG sketches would be a bit less spoilery! But yeah, once the sprites are completed, posting one or two from every route as updates is a good idea :D
Hmm, I think CiQ is still pretty much dead in the water even with all the amazing support I've gained since Manly played some of my other stuff. I'm not sure if it's because it just looks boring to anyone who looks at it, because people don't know it exists, or if it's just because there's really not much interest in otome/bl games compared to VNs with female LIs available. It'll probably have to take a back seat I guess. All the writing for it is finished, and I definitely will finish the project at some point because I don't want to let down the people who have helped out with the new demo, but as far as I can tell, there might be like 5 people who actually want to see the game finished >.< haha. I honestly don't know what I'm supposed to do about that one.
Well, I am indeed going ahead with making a BxG version of Apartment No.9! Holding auditions as we speak. I think it makes sense to do it now while everything is still fresh in my mind from the jam version + all the code is there already so it really shouldn't take all that long to finish. The only thing that sucks is that it won't have fancy sprite art like the jam version and it likely won't have any CGs because it would be unfair to ask the artists who helped me out during the jam to do any more when they already helped so much, and with it no longer being a jam, I can't see me managing to find anyone who is willing to help on that front >.<
But yeah, everything will get there in the end :3 Cheers for sticking around! I'm sorry I can't get it done faster really, haha. If it were the length of my jam games, it wouldn't take all that long, but SR is just so darn big that anything to do with it is just gonna take ages >.< I think it was like 3-5ish years to make the otome version in the end. But that's including some long breaks since I was caring for my grandma and for other personal reasons. I don't really take breaks nowadays because I don't know how to anymore xD