Hello and welcome to my devlog! You can call me Bee, I am a new indie developer and solo game creator.  A game that I'm still working on is called Trembling Essence! A demo is now available for those interested in playing! 

Since I'm still understanding how to post here appropriately, if you would like to see the previous updates to my recent game development post, you can read it here and here! Also, I'm mainly active on my tumblr if you would like to see more things such as me answering questions from my ask box to random drawings based off my game. My ask box is still open so if you're interested in asking any questions about the game/Noah, there's even an anonymous mode if that makes you more comfortable!  :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

I wanted to start it off with this new CG out of a few I finished, he's so happy to see the player(Y/N) can't you tell? :]

• So in good news, the missing half of Day 3 has been finished in terms of all the writing! It took some time to finish because I had to go through and revise a lot that was originally written from the new/old routes. When I went over everything again, I decided to rewrite a few things and then I went over and adjusted it one final time. This is mainly because a good portion of the routes and dialog had way too much romance going on and I don't want the player(Y/N) to feel side swiped by it all happening so suddenly if that makes sense. This isn't to say all of it will be archived, just moved around in the story on top of what's already in place in terms of spending time with Noah so it isn't overwhelming. :]

Introducing the kitchen!

• I don't want to spoil too much of everything but I'm still working on the last few missing sprites, backgrounds, and a few more CG's. The kitchen will be remade though since what you're visually seeing doesn't really match up with the dialog. :]

Lastly here's a new place for the player(Y/N) to explore a bit! The background being used for it is just a placeholder right now but here's a sneak peek of it.

• There were two specific new routes that were impossible to activate based on how close you are with Noah that's been fixed! In addition, some backgrounds that weren't suppose to show up are now fixed.
• Once I finish testing/fixing up more of the missing half of Day 3 I'll begin the attempt at rolling in the Day/Night setting, which I'm really excited for. :]

I think that's everything I have to report so far so thank you guys for all of your support on everything that's been going on so far, I really appreciate it! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello again, I'm here with another update! Here's a look at the kitchen I redid. I think out of all of them so far, this one is my favorite! :]

For those interested in playing the demo, here's the link!

This update is a bit delayed because of things outside of my control. I don't want to rush update posts about the game so I decided to make up for the days I missed. I want these to be good enough to keep you guys informed! :]

• I wasn't able to work on certain CG's as I had originally hoped but to be fair, I take this as a good thing. I'm really trying to keep my art style accurate because Noah tends to look drastically different at times and I really want to keep him consistent or at least try to keep it pretty close. Because of this, I'm going to put a small pause on those specific CG's since trying to draw them a certain way becomes extremely exhausting and time consuming for me.

• As far as writing goes, I was able to get a better idea of where I wanted to add CG's and where to remove them. It's been pretty great for the most part and I'm starting to get a good rhythm going. I'm mainly focusing on stabilizing the branching routes and then going back and adjusting them based on how you interact in the game.

• But as I was checking through everything, I realized I got carried away by accident and ended up making a lot of branching routes starting from parts of Day 3. I won't specifically say how many but it's more than 10+ and at this time, I'm still testing each route to see what I can do to keep them unique and different so the player(Y/N) can have a good amount of variety. If it's too much for me to do, I might condense one or two together but that's only if certain routes have a lot of similarities or if a specific branch itself isn't really necessary to have.
• I'm still testing/fixing up the parts of Day 3 and adding various dialog changes but I did do an attempt at adding in the Day/Night setting just to see how it would go and so far it's pretty nice!

I think that's everything I have to report right now so thank you guys for all of your support! :]

Hello and welcome to my Devlog! :]  I am here with another update to share, I was gone for a few days so I made up for the days I missed so here is my game development progress! For those that are new to my updates, here's a link to my demo you can play! :]

• As far as the CG's go for Noah, I did make an attempt since my play tester suggested a technique to help me with drawing. Once I finished and showed it to them, they really liked it! I'm still not ready to share some of others yet mainly because spoilers anddd I'm still working on them. :,]

• Things were going a bit slower in the beginning but recently got a bit better now that I had the chance to really get some good ideas in. I went through some of the earlier portions of the game and did a quality of life adjustment for a few segments.
• As far as the many branching routes on certain parts of Day 3, I had a idea laid out on how I want them to go and I'm feeling a lot more confident in adding it, it's just a lot of writing. I'm still testing and brainstorming things out to keep them unique for the player(Y/N). I said I might condense one or two together in my previous update and so far----- I'm still processing that.
• I'm trying to take each route one at a time before making a decision on it and I have a few more to go. One thing I have done though is slightly adjust a few of them to meet more specific requirements, I felt it was a bit too linear. >;]

• There's one specific route that took up a lot of time and required a lot of adjustments. In the end, I thought it might be a good idea to push that one a little farther down into the game but I'll let my play tester tell me what they think because I haven't shown any of it to them. :,]

With all of that said, I'll get to working on a few asks I still have and other miscellaneous stuff that I want to do for fun in between. I have a goal in mind I'm hoping to achieve in the next update post!

Thank you guys for all your support on this, I wholeheartedly appreciate it! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello and welcome to my devlog, it's been a while but I am here with another update! :]

For those interested in playing the demo, here's the link!

Firstly, I just want to keep things transparent and catch people up to date for those that might not of seen my previous explanation for this delay and/or are new here.

I was very hesitant on making any new update posts because I wanted my original play tester who's been here since the beginning to look at everything first so I patiently waited. I didn't want to give out false expectations and add bunch of new content/concepts in update posts only to take it out or change it entirely if I couldn't make it work. In the end, my original play tester just couldn't make it so I recently asked someone else. Everything went really well, I had a lot of fun with how they played the game and they were very understanding. Their feedback really helped me when I needed it and I learned a lot from this experience, I am never waiting like that ever again. :]

Anywho, here's how things have been going as far as game development goes:

In my last update post, I was talking about a certain goal point I wanted to achieve and the game got a pretty big update!

• I finished all of the morning settings/routes that now lead into day 4, this took a lot of writing and time. There is one specific route that I'm fixing because when my new play tester and I played it straightforward twice, it took a very long time to get through and we still weren't done before we took a break. :,]
• There were two new paths that I also finished during all of this. For the first one, I decided to push it later into the game due to certain events happening too early and the second one is an ending which is slightly hidden somewhere. :]

All that'll be needed is minor adjusting, etc because the variables need to line up correctly since some routes can have different outcomes. I'm up for this challenge but it's going to take time to organize.

Here are some of things I fixed along the way:

• Slight adjustment to an ending that required a certain trigger
• Adjusted certain visual effects happening to early
• Cleaned up various grammar mistakes
• Fixed certain routes jumping into other routes
• Minor fix to backgrounds appearing at the wrong time of day
• Adjusted the volume of different background SFX's / Music

Here's one of several things you can eat in the game, can't survive on an empty stomach after all! :]

When it comes to CG's that involve food, my style approach will be a bit different. I was originally going to do realism but those take a very long time to do and after the first few, I got pretty burnt out from them.

Along with that, sometimes you might find things that will aid you along the way! This key is just an example, I don't want to show the other items just yet. :]

I'm also still testing this but I thought about adding a visual effect that appears on your screen when something is causing you to rapidly lose health(?) It's not in full effect right now, just brainstorming it.

Lastly, another thing that's kind of been on my mind once I looked through the routes again is how long they are, I'm not sure how people feel about long visual novels since I consider this one to be a slow burn game. I don't want you to feel as though you have to skip through a lot of the dialog unless you've already seen it, I want it to be fun and not feel like it's dragging on. I really would like to hear people's thoughts on this because I honestly don't know.

I think I reached the max I can type here so I'll post the rest in the following update post next week but overall,

Thank you guys for being patient and understanding. I wholeheartedly appreciate the support and encouragement! :]

Hello hello and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update to share! There were a few things that caused this delay however I will continue trying my best to keep the updates weekly if I can! Thank you for being patient and understanding! :]

For those interested in playing the demo, here's the link!

I ran out of typing room in my last post so I'm going to continue where I left off:

The afternoon settings/routes were already being worked on previously and I have a bit of them finished and they now lead into day 4! There's possibly one or two left but I took a pause here.

• There were going to be certain CG's you could encounter but I decided to scrap at least two of them because they would be on the screen for about two or three sentences and weren't really necessary.
• There were also a few dialog changes as I was going through everything. There was a certain event trigger that could happen and I decided to adjust the situation that occurs because it was a bit too unexpected. I really like the new outcome you can get from it now. :]

At some point I said I might condense one or two routes together if certain ones had a lot of similarities or if adding a specific branch itself isn't really necessary to have. I had two different choices you could make that would lead into their own unique branch. I decided to make them go into another branch instead.

• This is because the choices were pretty benign and giving them a unique route wouldn't make much sense? You'd have to really go out of your way to even find these branches and it felt random since Noah wouldn't know anything about it.

For the last few routes that I have left to work on that go into Day 4, I'm brainstorming which settings they'll lead into again. I went through them and realized some could go a bit differently from what I originally had planned so things slowed down a bit here. What happens for the most(?) part in them will still be the same but just takes place at a different time. Once I got a fair amount done I took a pause here as well.

• I'm still testing this but I adjusted the visual effect that appears on your screen when something is causing you to rapidly lose health(?) to make it more noticeable on the screen, I'm still brainstorming it but I kind of like how it looks now.
• The process for them have been a bit slow but I'm mainly just pacing myself and making sure what I'm writing fits what's going on. I'm getting a decent flow of how I want them to go but also keeping them fairly unique enough to flesh things out. :]
• For one of them specifically, there's a choice you can make that drastically extends things out more. I talked to my new play tester about it and we bounced out ideas with how it would lead. In the end, they gave me a thumbs up to go with an idea I had for it and I took what they suggested and mixed some of it in there somewhere else too. I'll eventually come back to this one because it may require more CG's. :]

Lastly, for one of the longest routes in the game I decided to unpin it and work on it.

To those who answered my question in my last update post, thank you!

I took what you all have said into consideration! :]

• I ended up adjusting one part of it but only slightly. The choices and conversations will still be the same however they'll only progress to a certain limit before possibly branching elsewhere instead. The remaining portions will still occur but just somewhere else.
• For the other part, I had to go in there and heavily clean it up. There was a lot going on and it got complicated trying to figure out what goes where. It had been some time since I checked on since it can go in several different directions so I had to organize a lot of the old code so it can flow better. This took up a good amount of time because I really wanted to take time out to fix this while I knew what I wanted to do. I ended up making specific choices lead down one specific path, this had to be done because if I didn't there would be too many branches and that would be incredibly overwhelming for me to try and sort out.
• There were also a few minor dialog changes along with some small grammar adjustments to fit what you see visually.

Here are some of the overall bug fixes so far for some of the routes:

• Grammar mistakes
• Random kitchen scene happening in areas where it shouldn't
• Random living room scene happening in areas where it shouldn't
• CG glitch that caused a random black screen to appear
• Hp loss not signaling appropriately
• Certain CG's not transitioning properly
• SFX's volume adjustment
• A specific CG staying on the screen for longer than intended
• A certain route jumping into another separate route
• Certain backgrounds misaligned with the dialog in a specific choice

Thank you guys for all your support on this! I wholeheartedly appreciate the support and encouragement! :]

Hello and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update to give! :]

For those interested in playing the demo, here's the link!

So this week I decided to take a small step back from coding and catch up with CG's. There's going to be a fair amount of them because I really don't like static background situations if that makes sense.

If I can add a CG to make a scene more visually appealing I'm going to try and see if I can add something there. I am trying my hardest not to over-do it because CG's take a very long time for me to draw and I don't want to get carried away.

So far, they've been coming out pretty well! I have a couple(?) of them left to go.

A few small visual adjustments have been made along the way too.

• Certain dialog will show a visual effect if you're in pain but I'm still trying to make the effect look better. Once I figure that out I'll slowly put it into rest of the routes
• When you officially go to bed your HP will gradually increase instead of it being a sudden spike
• I also finally figured out how to make the backgrounds transition into different parts of the day without it hiding the dialog! Yay! I'm slowly adding it in the different routes as I go. :]

Some of the situations in certain routes were adjusted a bit as I was placing the CG's around. There were some conversations you or Noah could have with each other that needed some fixing. Extra dialog choices have been added in a certain routes along with new variables which will trigger certain events here and there depending on how close you are with him.

Lastly, I also went and adjusted two of the different living room settings. The afternoon one had too much yellow so I went back and adjusted the contrast, hue, and light source to make it look more appealing. The night version with the main lights instead of the lamp originally looked too dreary(?) and the light source was weird so I asked for help and it got fixed up!

I think that's everything I have to report so far!

Thank you guys for all of your continued support, I really appreciate it! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello hello and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update to share! :]

For the most part, I've been focusing on CG's! I've been looking over the routes and deciding what sections should get their own.

There were some suggestions from my play tester that I took into consideration as well. For certain scenes, if it's something that isn't too important (For example: Eating a small snack), I'll make it descriptive to make up for it or do a mini sprite that shows up on the screen if I can! :]

Between the CG's, I've also been adding/looking into more variables to reduce confusion on my end and balance some things.

• I added a few new choices to explore a bit more around the cabin. Some depend on the route you go into along with some other requirements that are necessary for it to work. Here's a sneak peak of one. :]

• I also adjusted the variables in one route since it took more than what I wanted into the next scene. I was going to add an ending there but decided not to because I felt as though it was too early.

Somehow I ended up working on endings while doing CG's, I really can't explain how or why it happened. As far as that goes, the writing for maybe..three of them have been finished!

For the first one, I decided to keep it straightforward. I felt that adding choices would be too much and I want this one to have more of a story-like situation.

For the second one, I finished it some time ago and left it alone after that. I recently learned something new and gave the route a good amount of tweaking. I removed some of the old effects because they were outdated and it was over-kill. It'll have a CG at some point but I'm still brainstorming how it'll look.

Lastly, there is one new ending I added to even out certain variables, I'm still working through it but this one was ultimately approved by my play tester! When they finally played it, they thought it was very good in a scary/shocked way.

And finally, I went back and messed with the visual que's for a little bit and came up with a better idea to reduce confusion for the player. If you are losing HP versus the dialog describing something that doesn't effect your HP but still mentally effects the player, they'll have two different visual effects! The original way I did it was tedious and sometimes messed up other transitions. It was working at first and then it stopped so I'm still trying to figure out how to keep it on screen without it getting hidden by another image. If I can't figure it out I'll just go back to the tedious way. :,[

• Here's a mock up of what it'll look like if.. Let's say, you stepped on a sharp rock. It will display a sort of 'heartbeat effect' on the screen, and have a 'splatter look'. I lowered the opacity on it by half since it felt a bit too vibrant on the screen when it was at 100%.

• And here's what it'll look like if you just have a headache! I slightly reduced the opacity but it'll have more of a fadein/fadeout effect on the screen.

Here are some bugs I fixed along the way:

• Skipping through dialog too fast had the possibility to make the screen go black in certain scenes if there is a scene animation
• Grammar mistakes
• A certain dialog event activated incorrectly
• Animation transition error
• Evening to night in a route activated incorrectly
• An ending had an incorrect transition

And that's everything I have to report right now, thank you guys very much for all of your support and appreciation with this! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi and welcome to my devlog! I am here with an update to share once again! This one is a bit shorter. :]

 A link for the demo is right here!

I've been giving the routes some quality of life adjustments here and there. Some time ago there was a point where I was trying to shorten the dialog a certain way to keep the routes from being too long. When I read it aloud I kept fumbling over the sentences so much I decided to go and fix the parts that seemed too complicated.

• Through this I've also been getting more comfortable when it comes to placing CG's around. I've noticed that there are some moments where it isn't needed as much as I had originally thought. I managed to finish about 3 CG's and here's one of them! I can't show some of the others because spoilers. :,]

• This is pretty benign but the background for Noah's room door will have to be redone since I can't find the original drawing file anymore. I think I accidently saved over it as a .PNG by accident earlier this year and didn't notice until now.

I also added some music for moments that have tension/suspense etc. because it felt empty with only the rain SFX's being played. The song that's going to be used is actually still in the demo from one of the endings you can get in the cabin! I'm also thinking of adding in new music too when you get to spend quality time with Noah too but I'm still brainstorming which songs will fit.

Here's some bug fixes I took care of:

• A certain route still having injured effects continuing into Day 4
• Grammar mistakes
• A background from a specific route being the wrong size
• Small atmosphere lighting adjustments in a specific route
• Removed odd "pop" sound from the music that activates during moments of suspense/tension

I think for right now that about covers it!

Thank you guys for all your support, I really appreciate it! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello everyone and welcome to my devlog! I am here to give an update on the game! :]

For those interested in playing the demo, here's the link!

I've been cleaning up a lot of the dialog in some routes. I'm really glad I went through and fixed up as much as I could because it's starting to flow in a better direction, just like water! I've also been incorporating his main sprite a lot more instead of feeling like I had to put a CG everywhere. :,]

Secondly, I've been going through the variables again and checking out the alternate situations you can get depending on how close you are with Noah.

• In one of the routes there was a specific alternate interaction that would make you lose too much HP which would lead to a death when there wasn't suppose to be one. I fixed it up by cleaning out some dialog and gave added some quality of life changes. I let my play tester have a go at everything and they really loved it. I also brought up the CG issue I was having and they gave me some pointers and everything ended on a very good note. I think this route might be my favorite right now. :,]

Lastly, speaking of CG's, I decided to go and fix a few of them. For example, the doorknob in the original CG image was too low and it was blocked by the dialog box so here's how it looks now!

Here's some fixes I took care of so far:

• SFX volume adjustments when interacting with a certain item in the kitchen
• Grammar mistakes
• Fixed an issue when the transition from evening to night would happen too quickly when looking out the window
• Added some atmosphere color adjustments in a specific route
• The wrong background setting showing up within the kitchen during the evening

Other than that I think that's all I have to report right now!

Thank you guys for all your encouragement and support on this, I really appreciate it! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello and welcome those that are new to my devlog! I am here with another update post! I don't have any new CG's to show right now since some are spoilers and I did a lot more writing this time. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a  link to it. :]

I'm still going through the alternate situations and making sure they line up correctly with the rest of the route. I came across a few more dialog situations that needed some fixing and I added a few more choices in some of them that I felt were needed! Here's a tiny sneak peak. >:]

Speaking of routes, there was a situation in the game where one specific choice into another during the first half of day 3 would make the player branch off into two different routes.

• In one of my old game development posts I said I might condense one or two together but that's only if certain routes have a lot of similarities or if a specific branch itself isn't really necessary to have.
• As time went on for this specific route situation I came to realize I didn't like the idea of it anymore. This is because both branches had some similarities and in this case, the decision itself shouldn't result in another extra route anyway since it's benign, I'd rather the player get a different scene/interaction instead. I asked both of my play testers to go through both routes separately and pick which one they liked more. They both ended up picking the same one and explained what they liked about it compared to the other. This really makes things easier for me going forward and the route itself is going to be a bit longer now but not by much.
• This isn't to say the other route will be removed I just need to see what I can do with it since there were bits in there that are unique for it.
• There was also an ending you could get in the route depending on how close you are with Noah. I decided to move it later into the game since it shows something too early for Day 3.

Lastly, I also finally figured out how to activate spellcheck! It's not 100% perfect but it does help a bunch when I'm looking through everything so I don't have to overly check all the time! Yay! :]

Here's some bug fixes I did along the way!

• Noah's sprite still on screen during a transition
• Grammar mistakes
• Adjusted volume levels for rain SFX in different areas
• Alternate interaction activated during the wrong dialog choice

That's all I have to report right now!

Thank you guys for your patience and support, I really appreciate it! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi and welcome to my devlog! :] I am here to share what's been happening so far!

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

I've been updating some outdated CG's I drew back in April-ish since I'm getting better at drawing Noah the way I want to now! Yay! :] I can't show all of them because spoilers but here's one of them below that took a really long time to do! It was a fun process in the end and I learned so much from it. :]

• I also adjusted Noah's reaction towards the player in a different route to line up with what you visually see on the screen from a new CG I drew up that I can't show right now! There wasn't one there originally so I was only using his sprite.

Also, I know I said this before but I'm still going through and double checking all the alternate situations!

I went through a certain route that didn't have any and added a few in certain places.

• This one has a certain path that required some unique CG's just for it specifically. I also added some choices for the player to make during certain times you spend with Noah.

I'm trying to add a bit more of an immersive touch for certain things instead of everything being straight forward if that makes sense! For example, I'd rather you make a decision to react to something a certain way instead of it being just one way. I can't guarantee this type of decision making every single time it comes up but I'll try to add it in situations where it's needed! :]

With that being said I also ran into a weird bug in this same route.

• A certain choice you could make before you finally fall asleep ended up skipping an entire scene depending on what you do later on in the game when it wasn't suppose to. I was easily able to find out what was causing this issue and added a variable for it.
• I also went through and reworked two different interactive situations in a specific choice that technically should've been the other way around.

Here's some things I fixed along the way!:

• Grammar mistakes
• Certain sprite expressions not lining up with the dialog correctly
• Evening into night transition not displaying properly in one specific route
• Slight dialog adjustments during two different endings
• Adjusted visual effects during two different endings

That's all I have to share for right now, thank you guys for all your continued support and interest in what I'm working on, I really appreciate it! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello once again and welcome to my devlog! I am here with another update! This one is going to be fairly long but I'll try my best to condense everything. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

Things were progressing pretty smoothly until I ran into something pretty interesting! I'll try my best to explain it properly but depending on how close you are with Noah along with a few choices into one ultimate decision, it would have you going into three separate branches and situations which included one of the longest routes which depends on what you choose after that. When I went over everything, I came to realize this would be too overwhelming and long for the player with how much was going on and I want to spread it out more/condense certain things.

• To remedy this I decided to make certain choices/Noah's relationship with the player(Y/N) from the longest route go into one specific branch and the others lead elsewhere. Also to be fair, the scene you get with Noah's reaction from everything in this makes more sense now versus the other two I had since he didn't really acknowledge it like I wanted him to. I also added new varying choices/responses in there too so even if it leads to the same situation, you at least have something different happen when it proceeds into the next day. I actually had fun with this since I was able to do a few callbacks to other choices from before.
• There were two endings you could get and there was a certain way you had to do things to get them but I decided to turn one of them into a full ending instead to keep the situation unique!
• Lastly, I moved the second branch you could get from your choices elsewhere and adjusted a few things in there to make it fit where it is now.

I let my play testers try it out since this was a very drastic change especially for longest route and they said that it's easier to understand what's going on versus all the branching leading them everywhere. I am hoping this will make things easier/not too lengthy and coherent for the player! :,]

Lastly, I gave the entrance into the cabin a small quality of life adjustment. Since I've come a long way with how I write I decided to clean up some old dialog I had in the game back in early development! Anything that's happened before this part hasn't been messed with. :]

• There were some parts that had wonky wording/outdated so I cleaned it up and gave some parts of it a bit of clarity. There are some moments in the game that I want to express for the player when you're outside/within the cabin!
• There was a situation you could get with Noah where his dialog text would change color. This was removed since the text color blended into the background at some points and it didn't fit the situation as much as I thought it did months ago.

Here's everything that's been fixed along the way:

• Grammar mistakes
• Evening to night transition overlapping Noah's sprite
• SFX volume adjustment in certain areas
• Hue change remaining in a certain CG transitions

That's everything I have to share so far!

Thank you guys so much for all your continued encouragement and support! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello once again to my devlog! I am here with another update! This one might be slightly long but I condensed everything the best I could. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

Things have been going pretty well with the progress of the game so far, there's a few more situations which are pretty much finished and lead into Day 4! Yay! :]

There were a few things I ran into that I fixed up while going through everything again. It felt like I was using an actual first aid kit! :] :

• There was a certain imbalance where you'd lose HP in one situation but not the other in a specific route. I adjusted it by adding in some dialog and a small scene that gives an idea as to why that happens.
• I found a glitch where a new scene from another route would continue into a alternate setting depending on what you choose. I gave it a small patch so it transitions smoothly.
• A few adjustments were made to alternate dialog/possible ending that required a certain amount of closeness with Noah. I hadn't messed with it for a while until recently. When I looked through it, some of the alternate dialog had too much of a drastic reaction to the point it could get pretty confusing for the player. I re-wrote some of the dialog so that even if there's a difference in closeness, it's easier to understand.
• I also had to heavily clean out a lot of outdated transitions since I didn't understand how to fully organize it at the time I wrote everything out back in early development. It was a little tedious but things are structured now!
• Since I got rid of the font color change with Noah, I went back and adjusted some of the wording/font size. This is more of a quality of life change since some of it was all over the place.

All that's really left is a few more CG's that need a slight fix/redo and some sprites and it'll be done.

• Speaking of CG's, I finished up some alternate ones and started placing them around. I cleaned up more dialog that was outdated so it matches what you visually see on the screen. I can't show much of them right now because spoilers and I'm still working on them, I have about 4-ish more to go!

And that's everything I have to report so far!

Thank you guys for your constant support and appreciation on what I'm working on, it doesn't go unnoticed! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello once again to my devlog! I am here with another update about the game development progress so far! There wasn't an update last week because I wasn't able to work on any of it until a few days ago. I couldn't start from where I left off so I decided to give my mind a fresh start!

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

There's one final route I'm currently writing up that's been in the works for quite some time now! It's going to be a fairly long one that has different interactions depending on what you choose along with your closeness with Noah to a certain point.

• This all happened because I originally planned for there to be only a follow up into one specific choice that would lead into it but now, there will be a few choices instead which go into it but certain ones can drastically change what can happen. I think once it's all done it'll probably end up being the longest path now instead of a previous one I finished a while back if you go through different varying choices.
• This might(?) change at some point since this makes the route dialog heavy depending on what you do, I can't say for sure but we'll see! :,]

The progress for it has been steady and I got a CG done for it along with a certain section! I can't show it but I really loved how it turned out and how my improvement for drawing Noah and just drawing in general has come so far. :,]

Speaking of CG's, I'm really trying to balance them out for this, at one point there was going to be 3 different CG's back to back in one scene but I felt as though that was too much just for that one setting. Once my play tester is available to play everything, I'll see what they think! :]

Lastly I'm going to take the liberty of organizing my Tumblr and having specific #'s to make it easier to navigate through. It's been on my mind as something I wanted to fix along with posting more doodles/lore art here and there. I'm just really particular on how I want to go about it since it's been fairly quiet here. I'll talk more about it next week once I get everything together! :,]

Overall I think that's all I have to report right now!

Thank you guys for your patience and understanding, I appreciate all of the support encouragement for this when I wasn't able to work on anything until a few days ago. It means a lot! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi guys and welcome to my devlog. Here's another update about the game development progress so far which is fairly short! A very special thank you to those that have been sending thoughtful messages, I really appreciate it! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

A lot of progress has been made on the final route! I mainly did a lot of writing and adjusting variables as I went along so I don't really have a lot to discuss right now. It was fairly fun experience since it gave me more ideas that might get implement into the game!

Both of my play testers went through it and didn't have any complaints outside of grammar mistakes here and there. I thought the route might've been too short since I adjusted some things to keep it from being too long but they reassured it's fine the way it is! :,]

In my last update post I mentioned that this route would most likely be dialog heavy.

Originally I was going to make each choice that lead to this have their own unique path. As I went through everything I realized that it would be too much for the player and I don't want to have too much going on to where it can become overwhelming and confusing.

• To fix this I went ahead and made certain situational segments and/or scenarios all go through a specific direction(s) together versus making every single one all have their own separate path. It's going to require a good amount of variables to make it work correctly but hopefully this all makes sense!

I only have two more to go in terms of cleaning everything up so that's going to be my main focus until my next update post!

I also took the liberty of going through my Tumblr and organizing things a bit so it's easier to navigate through! Some things were slightly edited or removed since I don't align with it anymore or I just didn't like some of my old drawings.

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah

For updates about the game, they'll be under #TE Updates

If there's any other #'s I should add to keep things organized, please let me know! :]

With all that said I think that covers everything, thank you guys for believing in me and supporting what I'm trying to create! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello and welcome to my devlog! I have another update to share! I also would like to make it be known that since it's officially spooky month, updates about the game might be shorter and/or a bit scattered around so I can't guarantee they'll be weekly. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

Anywho, I wanted to give myself a break from the other route I was working on last week to focus on some other things within the game starting off with a fairly large change to a ending/path!

• Back in April/May, It was originally planned to be a ending you could get depending on how you interacted with Noah but, it was too similar to something I had already written. I then got an idea and turned it into a very long and extended situation you could get in Day 3 that would lead alllll the way into Day 5(+?).

I put a pause on it and went back to writing everything else because I didn't want to get too far ahead. When I came back to it I realized it had a good amount of spoilers that got thrown way too early at (Y/N)the player just on Day 3 and it ruined the flow I was trying to go for. I didn't get rid of it and instead, moved it somewhere else and placed it later into the game.

The path now leads back to an ending I settled on that I think really nails the whole survival thing and what would actually happen! I don't have any CG's to show for it right now but hopefully in the next update post it'll be done! :,]

Speaking of endings, another one also got adjusted! You could get it if you picked a specific choice and had a certain amount of closeness with Noah. When I was testing things, I found a unique variable you could get that would still let you continue into Day 4 when you technically weren't suppose to and I couldn't write anything to make it fit without messing up the flow of the other variables that were already in place. Now you'll automatically get this ending depending on how you go about playing! Here's a preview of it!

Lastly, I got to working on a different route I had already finished up and added a few more choices for you to make.

• The beginning of it was fairly empty and I wanted to give it more life since there was more reading than actual decisions. Nothing was too outdated or anything but some parts really needed better transparency so I went and fixed up certain sections.
• For example, some of Noah's and/or (Y/N)the player's reactions to certain situations didn't make enough sense to me so hopefully that shouldn't be a issue anymore! It also really helped me get a better idea of how I wanted a event to play out easier for me. :]

I let my play tester see the revised version and I explained what all was changed/fixed after they went through certain parts.

• One thing they mentioned that really stuck out to me was a specific part that they suggested to be done 'in the dark' and that there should be some CG's shown for when you make certain decisions instead of just seeing the window CG. I went and made some adjustments and overall, I think it adds a lot more to the stealth and suspense I was trying to go for! :]

With that being said I think that just about covers everything! Thank you guys very much for all your support and interest in what I'm working on, I wholeheartedly appreciate the encouragement! Also happy spooky month! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog, hope you're all having a great spooky month so far! :] Updates about the game might be shorter and/or a bit scattered around this month so I can't guarantee they'll be weekly. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

As far as routing goes I can confidently say one of them is about 95% done as it transitions into Day 4! I had to go through and redo one section that's a fairly strong pivotal point within the game that can branch differently.

In the old version there was only one way it could go with varying dialog. When my play tester went through this section, the writing came off kind of wonky when I herd it being read back to me.

• I remade the situation again and now you'll have three varying responses for it into Day 4! There were a few fixes towards CG transitions and glitches I just happen to come across, for some reason a certain trigger kept making the player go to a decision that wasn't chosen. It took a while to finally fix but I have no idea what was causing this issue. :,]

Also in mini happy news, I found one of the files I had been looking for! It was the backdoor CG that I couldn't find for months. It was used as a temporary placeholder until I redrew it but now that I have it again I touched up a few things with it and added different day/night settings to it. Now I just have to go through everything and place it around. Here's a before and after! :]

Also one of the CG's I did came out nicely and I didn't need a reference for it, I am very happy that I've been improving my art over time! Yay! :]

Lastly, I went through some of the choices within the beginning of the cabin part and added his sprite around a bit more as a quality of life change! At first I was kind of going for "off-screen" realism but sometimes you were left just looking at a empty room for a while so I went and adjusted him to continue being on screen unless he'd realistically wouldn't be (For example, the wording explaining that he went into another room, etc.).

I think that just about covers everything so far! Thank you guys for all your continued support and thoughtful messages. Hope you all continue having a good happy spooky month! >:]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog, I hope you're all still having a awesome spooky month! :] This update will be a bit long but I tried my best to condense everything.

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

There's a specific route I ultimately decided to rework. I wrote everything during the summer and looking at it now, it had the same problem I had fixed in another one which was the odd responses/reactions from both Noah and the player(Y/N) and not many choices. There was also a lot of alternate dialog that didn't make too much of a difference, hard to keep track of, and made things very cluttered.

I decided to lessen some of the alternate dialogs and instead focus more on it changing and having situational variables depending on what you choose since in this scenario, regardless of your closeness with Noah to a certain extent, he still feels a certain way towards you and I don't think adding extra dialog to it is needed like I thought it was months ago.

• The only exception to this is for a ending you can get since it would make the player(Y/N)'s reaction to everything seem really weird if I didn't change it up.

I also switched two situations around so it flows better. In the old version Noah's view of the player(Y/N) didn't line up in a certain scene so it felt as if everything leading up to that part didn't matter.

Lastly, something interesting happened while I was fixing up everything. There was a choice you could get that would be brought up and reflected later on in the route. I went and fixed it since I thought the alternate situations from it were too repetitive and gave off more of a Day 4 situation than a Day 3. The next day I adjusted it again and ended up starting them over from scratch because I thought the fixed writing was too cheesy. I was halfway through the second and accidently wrote over the one I actually liked, THEN everything crashed and reverted back to what I had there in the beginning. :,]

I took it as a sign and asked my play tester to play through it before I did anything else to it. :,]

They initially thought it was pretty good and I told them the issues I was having with it since they didn't see the other two situations you could get, the both of us bounced ideas back and forth for a while up until I went back and mixed both of our suggestions together. The revised version ended up being the one that was enjoyed a lot more since it felt more organic and the reactions were natural and not too cliché.

Now it correctly flows into a choice afterwards the can determine how the day ends. Overall, all of the revising will make this path even longer but I think it was worth it! :]

I think that is everything I have to share right now! Thank you guys very much for all your support and I hope spooky month continues to go well! >:]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi guys and welcome to my devlog, I hope you all had a great and awesome spooky month! :] This update is a bit late because I wanted to give my mind some time to adjust back to working on the game since everything was fairly scattered around last month. This will be slightly long but I tried to condense everything. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

In good news, another route into day 4 is now 95% done! Both of my play testers went through it and gave a good amount of advice/guidance but overall enjoyed the additions I added to it along with a new CG! I won't show it right now but to give a little back story, It's actually a redraw of an old scene I was trying to create in the early part of the summer. At that time I was trying to strictly keep things updated weekly and rushed a certain angled CG pose so I could have something new to show and not reuse the same CG thumbnails over and over. I tried to make it work but i secretly didn't like it and eventually deleted it since it looked so awful. I rewrote the entire scene recently to fit the new CG that's there now and in a way, it brought everything together a lot more now then it did before. :]

I've also been going through and fixing up a lot of the volume differences within the game. There were times in the game where certain SFX's were too loud and not adjusted well to whatever song/ambiance was playing at the time. I'd say more of the commonly used SFX's are all fixed but I'll keep looking through and hopefully catch any of the ones I accidently missed.

There were also a few more adjustments done in the start of Day 3 when you enter the cabin most of which were quality of life changes ranging from simple dialog fixing to alterations depending on your closeness with Noah.

• I also tested adding a small animation to see how it would play out and I do like it but I still need to learn a bit more about it before adding it in.
• I also fixed more transitions since some were outdated and I missed a few of them.

• Along with this, one of the choices you could make towards the end got a drastic change. The reason being is that the reaction from this was too similar to another option you could make. I was originally going to cut this choice out entirely since I was having issues with how the story would progress from it. Changing it kind of gave me an idea on how I could make it work without it feeling forced. This is still up in the air though and I can't guarantee anything for it right now. :[

Lastly, I've been looking at one of the endings you could get in Day 3 and I came up with another idea for how it should end. I'm still coming up with CG ideas but I think the new ending will fit the theme I'm going for a lot more which will make it fairly long, some time in the future I'll come back to this. :]

With all that being said, I think that's everything I have to share right now! Thank you guys very much for all your support and appreciation for what I'm working on! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update towards the game's progress! This update will be a bit short because I was gone until recently and I'm still re-adjusting to working on the game again! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

In my last update post, I talked about looking into one of the endings you could get in Day 3 and I came up with another idea for how it should end. Here's a sneak peek! 

It's been a while since I've drawn outdoor CG's so I'm a little rusty right now. I thought this ending would be a long one but this one lasts a few minutes. I like how it turned out since it fits a lot better with the theme I'm trying to go for! I even attempted a little animation for it which came out nicely! Now that it's finished, everything leading up to the part where things start to branch off within the cabin is completed! :]

Onto other things, I checked through a different route and found out where I had left off from last week-ish+ so I'm still fixing glitches/quality of life changes I didn't get the chance to completely adjust there. This also includes the SFX/Music since I finally found out how to make them stack! In even greater news, I came across a time consuming bug that was giving me issues and I finally fixed! >:,]

Sadly, I did hit a rough patch that took up a lot of time. I was having a difficult time trying to come up with one or two CG's for a section of a path you can go through that didn't have anything. It took a while before I finally could come up with something for it but it's still up in the air since it might require some perspective angles and I'm still trying to practice that. :[

I'm hoping by the next update post all of them will be finished! :,]

Anyway, I think that's everything I have to report right now! Thank you for being patient and understanding! I really appreciate the continued support even though my update posts have been very scattered since spooky month. :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

This week mainly focused on CG work and placement!

I made a few that are now being added around in one of the routes you can get. Compared to the other path, this one felt rather empty especially during sections that had a bit of depth to them. I used his sprite in these areas because my art style at the time was inconsistent during the summer and I was bogged down from having to scrap a few of CG's. Now that I've been improving on drawing I feel more comfortable with adding them in! :,]

This is just a mock up but I also tested some small animation segments here and there, mainly just for practice so I can get a good idea of what I want to do moving forward! Eventually, certain parts of the game will have animated sections but for now, I'm just taking it slow. :]

On to some fixes that were made while I was placing the CG's around!

• Fixed a glitch I accidently overlooked which caused you to lose a lot of closeness with Noah if you happen to get an alternate situation twice.
• There were a few alternate dialogs that got removed since they were very minor and didn't really add towards the game.
• I deleted a decision from one of the paths you can run into in order to balance things out a bit more. It's now 2 instead of 3.
• There were more music/SFX that were adjusted in terms of balancing the volume. I also placed some in certain areas to give more of an immersive feel that weren't there initially.
• I redid the dialog from a choice that leads into the kitchen which didn't express Noah and the player(Y/N)'s reactions correctly.
• Lots of miscellaneous dialog changes that were either outdated, awkwardly worded, or unnecessary.
• Tweaked a few transition sections I missed.

I think that's everything I have to share right now, this week went really well as far as working on the game, I got a lot done than I expected to! The next update will go into a couple of reworks which includes his sprites! This was a long time coming but I'm looking forward to this! :]

Thank you guys so much for your continued encouragement and support, it does not go unnoticed and I really appreciate all of the kind words towards what I'm working on! :,]

Hello and welcome to my devlog, I am here with another update to share today! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

This week mainly focused on sprite rework!

This was something that I thought would happen later into development but I'm finally looking forward to doing this since I like how my art style has been developing. :]

The old files for his sprites were very unorganized and hard to follow so I redrew everything from scratch!

My coloring/shading has improved since early January-March so I wanted to fix certain details to define him but nothing that would drastically change him.

So to go into a bit more detail and add some more lore:

Noah's hair is healthy and well taken care of but still recovering from damage which makes it uneven. The hair on his right side that's over his shoulder is very long and reaches down towards his chest while his left side is shorter and slightly inches over his shoulder. The center part of his hair reaches down to the mid part of his back! :]

It's more noticeable in most of the CG's since his old sprites didn't show that too well.

In very early development for sprites, I was going for a sort of "anime" shading style and used a very small brush and minimal shading. The line art was too thin and didn't transfer well into the game so I redid them. In the second attempt, the main sprite from the demo that you would see on the screen had more details but I overlooked adding that same type of shading towards his side sprite in the bottom left corner in the demo. I didn't notice any of this until the early summer so it was something on my radar to redo.

I even changed the way his over-sized hoodie looked since I didn't know how to properly draw them at the time. Everything ended up taking a couple of tries before I was able to finally get what I wanted.

It took longer than expected to restore the new sprites when I first started adding them because I tried using the "replace" method and it messed up what I was trying to do. I wasn't really too bothered by this so I combed through everything one by one instead which helped me catch a few more grammar mistakes/do some minor quality of life changes.

Speaking of quality of life, Noah also has more sprite expressions too, It went from about 10 to 17 so far! Some of his original expressions didn't line up the way I wanted them to in the demo/full game and now they fit a lot better this time around. :]

There will also be alternate sprites being used when he's in what he considers his pajamas! I had some old sprites of this but I really did not like them as time went on and his sprite expressions no longer fit what I'm trying to go for anymore. This will be something I'll talk about in the next update post! :]

With that being said, that's all I have to share for right now!

Thank you very much for all of your support and constant encouragement on what I've been working on! I will always wholeheartedly appreciate it! This week was really productive and I'm very happy with how much got done with the games' development! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog! I am here with an update again which will be fairly short! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

This week continued into more sprite reworking!

I don't really have too much to say about this that I didn't already cover from the last update post but these are his alternate sprites that will be used when he's in what he considers to be his pajamas!

The old version of his pajama sprites no longer represent what I wanted to go for and they looked too similar to his green hoodie sprites. I wanted the pose to be different and show the differences between what he wears since his green hoodie is oversized on him. I'd show the before and after but I cringe looking at his old sprites lol. :,]

I also went through and temporarily fixed the morning living room CG by lightening it because his pajama sprite blended a bit too much into the background.

Adding all of his pajama sprites was easier after the trial and error with his green hoodie sprites which lead to me finding more grammar issues and certain dialogs that weren't needed anymore.

Now with that out of the way, it's time to talk about a new ending you can get now! So funny story, I actually completely forgot about this ending and it remained unfinished since it was something that was originally hidden within the game and there was a very specific way you had to go about getting it. I just happened to find it again when I was placing his sprites around. I read through it and changed the entire segment since it was outdated. Here's a small sneak peak!

I love the way it turned out in the end! I was able to find the old CG file and had a lot of fun with adjusting the lighting for it to resemble a different time of day! :]

This is all I have so far to discuss so thank you for supporting and encouraging me through this game development process! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

 Hi guys and welcome to my devlog! Wishing you all a happy and safe new year! To start things off fresh, I am here with an update to share today! This one will be a little bit long but I tried my best to condense everything. :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

The start of the game that leads up to the cabin is getting completely reworked. This was something that was going to happen way later into the game's development and this will be talked about in depth on a Master post.

(If you have any questions and/or comments, feel free to send in a ask on my Tumblr or comment them on itch.io as I would like to compile some of them into the post! I'll make another comment about this some time in the future.) :]

As time went on I started revaluating some things when I played the beginning of the game again when I went to do some minor quality of life changes. I realized that a lot of what happens during this segment doesn't match what happens later on in the game since my writing and story telling has improved since then.

This is still up in the air as far as how I want things to go and will require some brainstorming but hopefully everything will turn out the way I want it to! :]

The main part I want to discuss without mentioning spoilers is the way Noah introduces himself to you. My thought process from early January-April of 2023 is completely different to how I want it to go now.

The old/early demo version was going to be more on the horror side and even though there were semi-hints of romance and maybe 2 endings for this which would start around Day 5 or so, it wasn't the entire focus if that makes sense. Without spoilers, this slightly explains why he comes off very distant at the start. Now there's a even balance between both genres which I really had fun writing and working through, I like it as a meaningful slow burn than it just being all over the place. :]

I also didn't like how regardless of what you choose he's still fairly aggressive and is some what condescending the entire time at the start in the demo. This part was actually the second time I redid it because in the old version, he only spoke to you maybe once or twice and that was pretty much it. I want his actions to be based on how you interact with him versus it happening only one way. This will mean more writing but It'll be worth it. :]

Lastly, the two bad endings where Noah finds the player(Y/N) freezing to death/falling off a cliff have been adjusted and Noah no longer finds you in your horrid state. Noah's thought process is different and he wouldn't be that disconnected towards the player(Y/N) to want to see you like that. :,]

That pretty much sums up everything so far! Thank you guys for all of the continued support throughout 2023! I can't wait to see what 2024 will bring and I hope it goes great for you all! :]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello guys and to my devlog! I am here with another update to share about the games progress! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

So far the start of the game leading up to the cabin is still being tweaked and there's been a lot of brainstorming going on for it. Most of the choices/endings are still the same but some paths and endings have little animations for more of an immersive play style! :] The dialog has also been adjusted to fit more with how I like to write now compared to last year.

There's a new CG that got re-made and a new ending! I'm not ready to show the CG but I do want to talk about the ending!

It's was originally going to lead to you crossing the bridge but I decided to change it. Then it was going to continue off into the cabin but I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that it wouldn't make much sense for there to be a "second chance" so depending on how you interact with Noah will get you this one. It's fairly similar to another ending but it's kind of an interesting path to take and is more of a form of symbolism.

As far as the inside of the cabin goes a couple of situations got adjusted since his response to your actions could have the potential of Noah getting closer to the player(Y/N) and I've been testing it out to make sure it's balanced and reasonable. :]

My play tester also happened to have some free time and went through the game again! It had been a good while so there were new things in the game they hadn't seen before. Overall, it was a great time and a good discussion about the routes! I expressed my different mindset compared to early last year and a lot of communication and ideas were made from it! :]

Everything else was minor fixes and miscellaneous adjustments that don't need a lot of explaining.

With that I think that's all I have to share so far! Thank you for supporting me through this game development process! :,]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi guys and welcome new followers! I am here with another update to share which is fairly short! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

Progress was pretty slow this week up until my second play tester got a chance to play a little bit of the game. They also haven't played it in a while so it was enjoyable getting their view on everything. Sadly, they weren't able to finish everything but it was a lot of fun! I was given some grammatical tips and redid some sentences that needed to be adjusted/shortened.

There was also a laugh between the both of us. They came across a funny grammatical error that's been in the game since the demo that surprisingly never got noticed or mentioned when Noah is thinking to himself during a certain section of the cabin. :P

They also mentioned fixing up old CG's and I completely forgot about updating the old ones from early development that didn't focus around Noah being in them.

Here's the new updated version of the bathroom!

This will most likely be mentioned in the master post but, the old version of the cabin was going to be in a very bad state. Mold and dust was going to be something that was not only a big problem in the bathroom but also the living room, kitchen, [redacted], and [redacted]. This was changed due to my writing improvement and I have a different way of approaching the mold issue. To those who've been here since the early days of the "mold era", it's no longer as bad and mostly (? >:?) cleaned up now! :]

There's also going to be a fairly small-medium sized quality of life change in the start of the cabin. My play tester mentioned a few key things that I agreed on that would really reflect Noah's view towards the player(Y/N) and his own characteristics.

That's all I have to share so far! Thank you guys for all of your supporting encouragement through this! It will always be greatly appreciated! >:]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hi guys and welcome to my devlog! I am here with another update about the game, this one will be fairly short as well! :]

If you would like to play the demo here's a link to it. :]

In good news, both of my play testers were able to replay the game and go through everything I've written up so far. Listening to their advice has really helped me progress the game/story and revisit a couple of things from Day 3 that would fit later on in the game. It goes into spoiler territory so I can't explain too much but it mainly has to do with pacing the story. :]

As for the routes, both play testers gave the green light for them and there were only a few things that needed fixing.

• There were about 2 situations where the conversation between Noah and the player(Y/N) happened out of order that needed fixing. I cleaned up some of the dialog and rearranged some of the talking points to make it easier to understand, once I showed both of them the results they said it was easier to follow! :]
• A reoccurring SFX that happens in the game was suggested to be replaced with something else. I was fine with this since it was something in the back of my mind that I wasn't too about adjusting so this really gave me the go ahead to do so. I'm still looking for one that fits but hopefully I find one soon! :]

• They also ran into a a couple grammatical issues I still missed (e.x.: Brake instead of Break) and I'm very grateful these were caught because I'm still surprised some were left around. I also did more dialogue fixing too since some descriptions were too clunky. :,]

Also, here's a new CG! This was originally going to be used to replace the old living room window but my play testers and I agreed on liking the dated version a lot more. This was going to be scrapped but I found a better place for it! :,]

I'm still brainstorming how this area will look but maybe sometime next week it'll all be figured out!

I don't really have too much else to report on this time around. I've mainly been fixing a lot of the things my play testers have mentioned and doing a few tests here and there.

Thank you guys for all of your kind words and support, especially from the OC x Buckshot roulette drawings I did, I didn't expect the sudden boost with those. All of this is greatly appreciated! :,]

SURPRISE!

TREMBLING ESSENCE [EXTENDED DEMO]: 

💙FEBURARY 10TH💙

Here's a early Valentines Day present! :]

Hello guys and welcome to my devlog! This is a surprise that has been in the works when the interest in what I've been working on got a lot of positive reception and continued to do so! From this I decided to extend the demo out even further and allow the rest of Day 3 to be playable!

This [extended demo] will include:

• Two full routes that continue out the rest of Day 3.
• Revamped dialog and scenarios
• Updated and alternate sprites of Noah
• New and updated backgrounds
• Day and night settings
• Animated scenery in certain sections
• New music/SFX's
• Visual effects that indicate HP loss/immersive play
• 23 different endings (An additional 10 have been added!)
• More interactive choices
• A few easter eggs have been added!

The old demo from March 2023 is no longer canon and will serve as an archive since much of it has been changed! If you haven't played it yet and would like to just for fun, here's a link! :]

Please note: If there are CG's/scenes you've seen from past game development posts that aren't in the [extended demo], that's because they are most likely from other routes/paths that contained spoilers that happened too early for my liking and need fixing.

If you have any questions, feel free to send them in my ask box on my Tumblr! :]

Thank you to everyone that has stuck around and believed in me by keeping up with what I've been creating so far, it doesn't go unnoticed and I will always appreciate the support I've been given! :,]

TREMBLING ESSENCE [EXTENDED DEMO]: 

💙Mini Update💙

Hi guys and welcome new followers! I am here with a mini update! :]

Since there's 3 days left until the [Extended Demo] is uploaded on my itch.io page, I want to share a few game development things that weren't written in the Surprise update post. This was done to keep it from being too long winded. :]

If you would still like to play the old March 2023 demo just for fun here's the link! :]

There were a lot of quality of life changes.

For starters, a few CG's got adjustments that I felt were needed. Here's an idea of what I mean:

Before:

After:

• Since this CG will be commonly seen throughout the game, I felt like the view should be updated! I wanted to go for a detailed, scenic look with varying colors. I think out of all the Day & Night settings I redid, this one was my favorite to illustrate! Also, I slightly adjusted the window frame but kept the rustic look it was intended for! :]

(Not every single CG got reworked as this would've cause the [extended demo] to be pushed out even further into 2024.)

• I added a few immersive CG's throughout the game to really give a dynamic view of what you choose to do as well. These were mainly added in areas that would need suspense and foreboding elements .
• There are also a few never seen before CG's of Noah that also got fixed up too that I wanted the player to find on their own. Some of them were drawn back around Summer/Fall when my art style wasn't really consistent. Some of the lighting and overall look were redone.

You'll see what I mean once you get to play! :]

• Another thing I did was fix the "Rollback" commands in the game. I tried fixing it before and messed up so I left it alone for a while until I was ready to come back and fix it. I tried my best to place them in areas where it made sense.

I also showed one of my play testers the new SFX's that would replace an old one that we agreed didn't fit the game. In the end we ended up picking 2 different ones to give a more diverse/immersive feel.

They also told me to check for more grammar mistakes and I found a few more again... :,]

That's all I have to share for now, Thank you again to everyone that has stuck around by keeping up with what I've been creating and believing in me , I appreciate the support I've been given! :,]

TREMBLING ESSENCE [EXTENDED DEMO]: 

💙OUT NOW!💙

You wake up lost within the swamplands that is surrounded by a large forest. The sense of time is lost on you and the moon is your only guiding light.  At some point you can choose to receive help from a man named Noah who resides in the swamp. He has vast knowledge that will aid you in your survival and if you choose to go with him, he'll take you back to his desolate cabin. He just wants to take care of you and keep you safe but there's a lot more to him than he lets on. It's up to you to make certain choices to survive to the end even if it means taking extreme risks. 

Trembling Essence is a slow burn horror game/dating sim visual novel which focuses on survival. Your choices will lead to multiple endings that will help you learn not only about Noah and the swamp, but everything else surrounding it.

If you would like to play here's the link to my [Extended Demo!] :  https://zombeebunnie.itch.io/trembling-essence-extended-demo

A very special thank you to everyone that's been following this project of mine and being supportive! It means a lot to me! :]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙Thank you!💙

Hello and welcome new followers to my Devlog, if you would like to play the [Extended Demo] here's a link! First off I just want to show my appreciation and gratitude for all the support I've been given this week with these two concept drawings. :,]

I don't show sketches as much as I used to since they can look really messy but maybe it's time to change that into the new year! :D

They were suppose to be colored up and uploaded as a Valentines Day surprise but, there was a lot of stuff going on which gave me art block so I didn't get a chance to finish them on time. I'm still sort of getting over it now though. :,]

A big thank you to everyone that has been patient and supported this through a comment, tip jar, likes, re-blog, fanart, share, etc.

I whole-heartedly appreciate the positive reception from the [Extended Demo] and it really makes me happy seeing familiar people and newcomers interested in what I'm creating. I'm still adjusting and need time to get to everything I might've missed.

If you have any questions about the game/Noah feel free to ask here or comment below. I would really like to hear from you guys!

If you've already sent in a ask, I did see it I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings and my art block isn't as bad as before. :]

I'm also going to try and re-organize all of the lore and art about Noah/the game posts on my Tumblr  since going through the tags don't have them ordered correctly. I didn't know about this until recently. :[

Game development Trembling Essence [Extended demo] update:

I've only been able to catch a few glimpses of playthroughs and wasn't able to watch them fully so I don't have too much to say right now but I did notice that one of the full routes out of the two in the [Extended Demo] weren't found so I'm going to post two more CG previews here and on the game page as a hint, hopefully this helps!

As far as any future updates go for the [Extended Demo], I don't have an answer yet! I want to see how things will continue to go and not rush anything. :]

Anywho, that's all I have to share right now. Once again, thank you to everyone's kind words and continued support, especially those that have been here since the beginning and have been very patient and understanding! I wholeheartedly appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙Quality of life changes + Q&A.💙

Hello and welcome new followers! To show my appreciation for all the support I've received again, here's one of the Valentines Day concept drawings finished! A big thank you to everyone that has continued supporting this through a like, re-blog, fanart, comment, tip jar, share, etc. The higher quality version is on my Tumblr since this one had to be adjusted in order for me to upload it. :,]

I wasn't expecting it to take as long as it did but I'm very happy with the result and how much I've been improving! I'm not too good at drawing angled faces so being able to get it to look just right made me very happy! :,]

• I still have this one to go so hopefully at some point I'll have it done!

Quality of life changes:

*Please note that these changes aren't in the [Extended Demo] yet! It'll be something for me to work on adding and I'll let it be known in a update post!

Now that it's been two weeks of the [Extended Demo] being released, It's time to go over some changes to help the player out when going through the game!

1. I noticed from comments and playthrough's that certain Bad endings/Neutral story progressions were difficult to find, especially the full afternoon route. I don't want players to feel burnt out from trying to search for everything.

I want to add a check-list menu that shows all the Bad/Neutral endings you can get while playing so it's easier to navigate the game.

2. For those that are new or have been here for some time, entering the cabin with Noah starts Day 3 due to the player(Y/N) being lost in the terrain for 2 and a half days which Noah mentions. Sometimes this can get confusing since some consider it Day 1 while the game considers it Day 3.

It's still up in the air about how I'm going to go on about this but I'm thinking about adding a little notification tab in the upper left corner of the game to notify the player(Y/N) of what day it is in the game to resolve confusion.

3. I talked about this last week but I didn't know until recently that the tags I use for Trembling Essence were very unorganized and hard to search through.

I went through and tried my best to re-organize all of the lore and art about Noah/game posts. I also cleaned up the #Trembling Essence tag since it was flooded with game development posts and not much else. I'm also working on a master post and plan on creating some reference sheets of Noah which will be placed under a different tag! :]

#Get to know: Noah : This will be filled with answered asks and lore dump. Sometimes(?) there's random dev-logs that have lore attached to them too.

 #TE Updates : This only includes dev-logs/updates about the game and development progress.

 #Trembling Essence : This tag is mainly used to post fan art / art and anything else in general that might belong here which includes lore posts. I really want searching through the tag to be enjoyable and not filled with a bunch of dev-logs.

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I really wanted some of the lore to be found through playing versus me just answering everything. :]

If you've already sent in a ask, I did see it I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings and helps me practice. :]

That's all I have to share right now! Thank you for the continued support, I wholeheartedly appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙Quality of life progress💙

Hi hi and welcome new followers! This week mainly focused on the quality of life changes I discussed in my last update post. :]

Quality of life progress:

*Please note that these changes aren't in the [Extended Demo] yet! I'm still working on this and I'll let it be known in a update post!

Now that it's week three of the [Extended Demo] being released, It's time to go over some changes to help the player out when going through the game!

It was a struggle but I managed to make a endings collection gallery! I'm still working on it and brainstorming how to make it easier for the player to navigate but hopefully it'll be done soon.

I added a 'Endings' button and separated the endings into different categories!

It looks wonky here but trust the process, I'm still fixing it up! :,]

The left section will be all the bad endings you can get which will be marked in RED when you get them!

The middle section will be the neutral endings that you can obtain within the cabin. These will be marked in BLUE. :]

To give a little bit more detail on this one, these are sections that were suppose to continue the story but ended very early since I still need to look over and redo some of these paths/routes.

For example: Choosing the "Go to sleep." choice here will always lead to a neutral ending regardless of how close you are with Noah.

The right section are all the endings you can achieve when you manage to find the two full routes that progress the rest of Day 3. They will be marked in GREEN!

With that out of the way here's another quality of life adjustment!

For those that are new or have been here for some time, entering the cabin with Noah starts Day 3 due to the player(Y/N) being lost in the terrain for 2 and a half days which Noah mentions. Sometimes this can get confusing since some consider it Day 1 while the game considers it Day 3.

I added a little notification tab in the upper left corner of the game to notify the player(Y/N) of what day it is in the game to resolve confusion. Once you enter the cabin with Noah it starts Day 3. I'm still fixing this too. :]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I really wanted some of the lore to be found through playing so I'm more comfortable with doing this now that the [Extended Demo] has been out for a good while now!

If you've already sent in a ask, I did see it I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings and helps me practice. :]

For those who don't follow my Tumblr, here's a sneak peek of a drawing I've been working on. I was looking through old drawings for a skit and noticed I haven't drawn Noah with his sledgehammer in a while. Not sure when this will be finished. :[]

That's all I have to share right now! A very big thank you for the continued interest and support in what I'm working on, I will always appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙Quality of life progress finished💙

Hello and welcome to my devlog! I've been focused on the quality of life changes I discussed in my last two update posts. :]

Happy one month of the [Extended Demo] being released! Yay! Thank you to everyone that has been patient and supported this! :,]

Quality of life progress:

*Please note that these changes aren't in the [Extended Demo] yet! I'm in the process of updating which I'll announce in a future post! :]

Here's the finished endings collection gallery! I enjoyed the process and learned a lot from this. I can't wait to implement what I've learned in other places within the game! :,]

When you load up the game you just have to click on each tab to see your progress. If it's greyed out that means you haven't earned it yet and if you do, it'll have color and a "+" added to it! I also changed the hue's compared to how it looked last week. :]

I also discovered there's actually 12* Bad Endings and not 13. At some point during development a Bad Ending was turned into a Neutral Ending and I accidently forgot to change that. :S

The game page will be adjusted to indicate this now:

12 Bad endings 6 Neutral endings 6 endings that continue the rest of the Day 3

For those that are new or have been here for some time, entering the cabin with Noah starts Day 3 due to the player(Y/N) being lost in the terrain for 2 and a half days which Noah mentions. Sometimes this can get confusing since some consider it Day 1 while the game considers it Day 3.

I added a notification tab in the upper left corner and moved it slightly to the right so it wouldn't overlap the player(Y/N)'s HP bar. This is meant to show what day it is in the game to resolve confusion. Once you enter the cabin with Noah it starts Day 3. :]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I really wanted some of the lore to be found through playing so I'm comfortable with doing this now that the [Extended Demo] has been out for a good while now!

If you've already sent in a ask, I did see it I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

Outside of a couple of spelling errors I fixed, I can't think of anything else that needs to be added right now so that's all I have to share! Thank you for the continued support, I appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙Update out now!💙

Hello and welcome new followers! Just letting it be known that the [Extended Demo] has been updated and now includes a Endings Gallery and a Day 3 notifier when you enter the cabin with Noah! :]

Please let me know if you run into any bugs, glitches, misspellings, etc or if the Endings gallery shows up for you.

When you load up the game you just have to click on each tab to see your progress. If it's greyed out that means you haven't earned it yet and if you do, it'll have color and a "+" added to it! :]

This notification is meant to show what day it is in the game to resolve confusion. Once you enter the cabin with Noah it starts Day 3. In the future, this notification will pop up every time there's a new Day! :]

Q&A / Ask box is still open:

Thank you to those who have sent in asks! I'll try to get to them when I can. I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

Thank you to everyone for the continued support and patience, I really appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence [Extended Demo]:

💙What happens now?💙

Hello and welcome to my devlog!

If you would like to play here's the link to my [Extended Demo!] :  https://zombeebunnie.itch.io/trembling-essence-extended-demo

Firstly, I just want to thank everyone that have been playing the updated [Extended Demo] with the Endings Gallery and Day 3 notifier! From this I was able to get a good amount of responses to help me with quality of life ideas going forward. :]

The game page has also been fixed to include the Windows and Mac logo downloads as I had no idea they weren't there until I was told. :,,]

Again, please let me know if you run into any bugs, glitches, misspellings, etc or if the Endings gallery doesn't show up for you correctly.

"So what happens now?"

As far as the [Extended Demo] goes, I do have plans on updating it with certain paths/routes HOWEVER, it will be some time before that happens. There's a lot of stuff that I need to rework and look over before I can add anything. Here's a peek from some of the old game development posts.

[Please remember that this is still a DEMO and anything is subject to change.]

The sections missing from the [Extended Demo] were from routes/paths I wrote during the late spring-summer of 2023. In the fall my writing style developed significantly which lead me to discover multiple pacing issues in the story that went unnoticed. Out of everything I wrote, the two full routes you get while playing were the only sections that were good enough for me to polish up and didn't contain spoilers. As for when the new routes/paths will be added to the [Extended Demo], I don't have an answer for this.

Right now I've been giving myself a break and mainly focusing on brainstorming things out.

In other news, I'm still in the process of creating Noah's reference sheets! There will be a total of three(?) which will have specific details for each one! It's taking some time to create since I'm still learning how to do angled faces/poses, here's the w.i.p sketch version below:

 /Ask box is still open:

Thank you to those who have sent in asks! I'll try to get to them when I can. I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

This is all I have to share so far, Thank you to everyone for the continued support and encouraging words while I continue working on the game, I really appreciate it. :,]

Hello and welcome to my devlog!  It'll be some time before there's another update for the '[Extended Demo]' so it will no longer be in the title of game development posts to avoid confusion. Also the next couple of game development posts for April might be a bit short and/or spread out. :]

Behind the scenes:

So far a lot of what's been going on has been brainstorming/going over the script with breaks in between!

I had a very long talk with one of my play testers and it was very fun! One hour ended up turning into several and it really helped me get a better idea of what I want to do for some of the routing/paths and the overall story in general. I believe that this entire month+(?) will just be overlooking the script and brainstorming more ideas/quality of life changes for the game!

My writing style has developed significantly and I'm trying my best to fix all of the multiple pacing issues in the story in a certain order. Noah's backstory is one of the focal points being thoroughly worked on since he expresses sections of his past throughout the game depending on your choices. I can't really share too much else because a lot of it has spoilers and happens later on in the game so right now I'm just writing everything down. So far, I'm still in the early writing stages and I would consider it about 20%(?) done.

I'm still in the process of creating Noah's reference sheets too but I think I'll end up ditching some of the sketches since angled faces/poses are still difficult for me to draw. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is still open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

Thank you to those who have sent in asks! I'll try to get to them when I can. I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

Right now this is all I have to share so far, thank you to everyone for the continued support while I continue working on the game. :,]

💙Script progress + Updates💙

If you would like to play here's the link to my [Extended Demo!] :  https://zombeebunnie.itch.io/trembling-essence-extended-demo

Hello and welcome new followers, long time no see! I was very busy most of this month, but I am back and ready to continue from where I left off on the game! This game development post might be a bit long but I tried to condense everything! :]

"How are things going so far?":

It's going slow and steady! I haven't been able to do too much these past few weeks, however, I wrote a few parts out before I got too busy and couldn't do anything else.

I want to be very careful when it comes to spoilers but, based on your choices, some of these areas will give off immersive cozy/homelike vibes that really express Noah and the player(Y/N)'s view towards each other. In the old 2023 script I was very new to writing so the small semi-hints of romance weren't the entire focus compared to the horror aspect but there's a better balance between both genres now and I'm still aiming for a meaningful slow burn versus it just being all over the place. :] I liked writing them a whole bunch which lead to a lot of these taking place in the mid/end of Day 4+, they just need to be placed in specific areas that call for it. With that being said, it felt really comfy adding key details about Noah and creating meaningful sections in the game. I was even going to draw out some of the unseen script/scenes but I believe the best thing to do is give deeper lore from the [Extended Demo] first. Even though my writing style has improved I still have to fix the multiple pacing issues I wrote last year.

"Playtester's advice":

I wanted to continue working through Noah's backstory but I kept having moments where I'd get sidetracked into wanting to fix up the start of the game again. Eventually, I talked to my play testers about it and they gave me a few encouraging pointers.

To help keep my process at ease, I will fix the beginning of the game when I take breaks from writing up Noah's backstory. :]

I talked about this during early 2024 but the start of the game that leads up to the cabin is still getting reworked. I was able to get some of it fixed for the [Extended Demo] but I wasn't done. Things are still up in the air but, I will say that I have a better view of everything than I did before. :] Another priority that needs fixing are the backgrounds! I've improved a lot on drawing and they need to be optimized. When you first start up the game, you wake up in a holed out tree in the swamp with the choice to leave this area and possibly end up in the forest. I was going for a very immersive form of symbolism that only a few noticed but, I believe I can do a better job about this. Unfortunately I don't have any new backgrounds to show right now but maybe next week I'll have some finished up! :]

"Art process/Noah's sprite sheets":

As far as Noah sprite sheet goes, it's still in sketch mode.

I didn't draw anything since I was gone so I need to do a few warm ups before I get to them. There are some old drawing prompts I wrote down and old sketches that I never got a chance to doodle so hopefully I can get to them at some point with some attached lore. :,]

My Q&A / Ask box has been reset!

Thank you to those who have sent in asks in the past, unfortunately they all disappeared except for 1 while I was gone. I have no idea what happened but I can only guess it just got reset.

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask or resend them in here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

This is all I have to share so far, Thank you to everyone for the continued support and patience while I was gone! I was ready to accept the interest for this game to fade out and coming back to see that it didn't happen makes me happy, I really appreciate it. :,]

Trembling Essence:

💙Background + script updates💙

Hi hi and welcome to my devlog!

If you would like to play here's the link to my [Extended Demo!] :  https://zombeebunnie.itch.io/trembling-essence-extended-demo

This week mainly focused on art practice. I'm still getting back into the flow of working on the full game so this post might be very short. :]

Anywho, here are some of the backgrounds I drew up as practice.

I was going to use these in the beginning of the game but the immersive symbolism I was going for didn't match up to my liking. It just finished raining in the swamp where you're located at which leaves the area feeling tolerably cold but oddly humid with a hint of decay/mold in the air. I'm aiming for a dreary night theme that gives off a foreboding and a gloomy atmosphere. These give off a "fairy-forest" concept which I don't like all that much. Here's some reference examples of what I hope to bring next time:

I'm also in the process of creating a map for myself to make things easier to layout since certain endings are being changed. This due to specific areas taking place in the forest and not the swamp which have their own unique form of symbolism. I tried to convey this in the March 2023/[Extended Demo] but it's hard to tell the difference between the areas.

I can't guarantee this fully but if you choose to explore around the area there might be small parallax effects that move around automatically. It was something I wanted to try back in the [Extended Demo] but this would've pushed the update farther out into the year.

Lastly, happy belated birthday to Noah! His birthday is May 7th! :]

I wasn't able to draw a birthday doodle yet so enjoy this unrelated sneak peek practice sketch I did a few days ago. :,,]

My Q&A / Ask box has been reset!

Thank you to those who have sent in asks in the past, unfortunately they all disappeared except for 1 while I was gone. I have no idea what happened but I can only guess it just got reset.

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask or resend them in here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

This is all I have done so far but I'm enjoying the process even if it's a bit small, Thank you guys for the patience and continued support and patience I really appreciate it. :,]