May 2023 General Update (Patreon)

Hello hello!

April was a packed month as we've been getting back into the swing of things, with lots of exciting developments.

We've been making lots of progress on Samayuuni, in just about every regard. There's been a lot of story discussion between us writers and our editor, Ari, as we've been refining the outlines and story. Much like with Please Be Happy, some of the themes and ideas that we came up with 4 years ago at the project's genesis don't resonate quite as much nowadays. For me personally, when I first came up with the overall premise, I was very driven by the nostalgic aspect of what we were planning - after Summer reunites with her friends, she's relieved to find that they haven't fundamentally changed, and that comes as a relief to her. Now, I think we're all a bit more interested in exploring how the characters have changed in their time away from each other, while Summer navigates her own feelings of not living up to her expectations for herself and feeling a little left behind when she sees how her friends have matured. Of course, this doesn't mean the overall premise is different, or even a lot of the planned events. Only which aspects the story puts more focus on.

A work-in-progress background for Samayuuni

One aspect that's been a little bit difficult is figuring out what exactly the writing style will be like. For PBH, I was the sole writer, although adi gave a lot of story input. For HotW, there were two writers. Now, with Summer, we have three writers, and also an editor who's much more involved in the story planning process, which has been a very neat and somewhat new experience. However, it's definitely gonna take a lot more editing than PBH did to make sure everything comes out consistently (honestly, a lot of PBH is essentially first drafts, with a couple quick editing passes for grammar/wording).

One thing that is changing about Summer is her voice actress. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues, Bao won't be able to perform the role. We're really grateful to her for her patience, since originally we told her we expected to be recording her lines in 2020 or 2021. In fact, we cast her as Summer back before she even became a Vtuber. Things are very different now for both her and us, so we just weren't able to make it work this time, but we hope to work together someday!

(Also, if you haven't heard it, Bao performed the vocals for "Sweet Dreams," our Celeste Academy theme song composed by Singto Conley.)

We recently sent out a casting call for Summer, Curiosity, and a couple side characters, so we've been glued to our inboxes as we wait for auditions to come in. Casting voice actors is always one of the most exciting parts of making a game, and we've already gotten some great auditions.

The final update regarding Samayuuni is that adi has recently resumed her weekly art streams where she works on CG's or other stuff for the game. Lately, she's been streaming Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thursdays at 4pm Pacific time.

Outside of Samayuuni, there's been a lot of progress on Twofold as well! If you haven't yet, make sure to read the big progress update we posted a few weeks ago about it. Most of the assets aside from CG's are finished or almost finished, and we're hoping to release the full game sometime this year! It's too early to say for sure if we will, but it's the goal.

Lastly, we wrapped up our Kickstarter campaign earlier this month! A big thank you to everyone who pledged or helped spread the word. We're working on finalizing the designs for everything, as well as updating the game builds to be ready for printing. One thing we just decided on is that we're going to have reversible covers for the Classic editions of the games too, not just the webstore ones. Unlike the webstore editions, these covers won't feature new illustrations, but instead will use other existing key visuals that we have on hand and think would look nice. If you were a Kickstarter backer who chose the webstore edition but would instead like to get the classic edition now, you can go into your Backerkit account and modify your choices. If you're a Kickstarter backer and haven't filled out your Backerkit survey, please do so! We won't be able to ship your rewards to you unless you do.

If you missed out on the campaign but still want the items from it, pre-orders are available on Backerkit up until we close the surveys. All items, including the campaign-exclusive postcard and sticker sheets, can be purchased on the pre-order store. However, once that closes, those items won't be available again, barring any leftover stock we might have after filling orders.

We're not the only ones releasing physical copies of our games, either: Limited Run Games is currently taking pre-orders for physical copies of Heart of the Woods on Nintendo Switch and PS4/PS5. This edition also has a reversible cover, with a new illustration by Satchel, the illustrator for National Park Girls and Doki Doki Literature Club.

Pre-orders are open until May 21st, so don't miss your chance to grab a copy! We're not too sure ourselves what availability will be like afterwards.

Okay, I think that's pretty much everything. Although I said at the start that it was pretty packed, even I didn't realize just how much happened in April until I typed it all up here. And of course, like always, there's plenty of other stuff happening that we can't talk about yet. Please look forward to it~

Thank you for another month of support.