Our Life 2: New Features & KS Stretch Goal DLC (Patreon)

Hello!

The Kickstarter ended a little while ago and a lot of very exciting expansions for the game have come from that. I didn't post a lot about it during the campaign, so I'm putting the new elements all in a big lump post for Patreon. Now you can stay in the loop about what the game will have even if you didn't follow along with the crowdfunding.

Wedding DLC:

There was one additional DLC we might've been able to commit to this early on- the Wedding Story DLC.  It was the first stretch goal on the campaign and thanks to our Kickstarter backers, it's going to happen! So, here's an FAQ on how it'll work-

Who can get this DLC?

Anyone who wants to purchase it! When the DLC has finished being created, it will become  available on Steam and Itch.io, costing a similar price to the other commercial DLCs.

How will you unlock the option to get married?

During Our Life: Now & Forever,  you can get engaged in Step 3 or Step 4 whether you have this DLC or  not, that’s a basic part of the story. You can propose to your  partner(s), or they can propose to you. And if you do get engaged at  some point, then after the Step 4 epilogue has ended, the story won’t  stop. Instead, you will be asked if you’d like to continue on to the  Wedding DLC Story. If you choose to play it, then you’ll get to plan  your wedding and experience the big day itself.

You can’t play the Wedding Story in Step 3, even if you’re engaged  during that time period. Qiu and Tamarack will always choose to wait  until they’re older and have more money saved up before throwing a big  celebration.

What if you’re in a polyamorous relationship?

You will still be able to have a wedding. That is a guarantee.  Exactly how it will go is still being considered. In real life, you’re  not allowed to be married to more than one person in the US. I’m not  sure if the story will simply stray further from how things actually go  and let you officially marry them, or if it will be closer to what  people do in reality where the trio is having their own ceremony despite  it not being legally recognized. Sometimes it’s nice to idealize  things, and other times it’s nice to show how you can make it work  despite the difficulties.

Also, a lot of the scenes will include all three if you’re in a poly  relationship, but there could be some cases where Qiu and Tamarack  decide to give the MC some one-on-one planning time with the other  partner. For example, maybe Qiu lets the MC and Tamarack pick out the  ceremony venue on their own while Qiu and the MC pick out the reception  together. That’s not entirely set in stone either. It’ll be a couple  years before this DLC is in development, so we’ll keep considering the  possibilities!

When will this DLC be available?

The current estimate is sometime in 2026. We won’t even start producing it until the base game and the three other DLCs have been completed/released.

Choice Log & Achievements:

This is the second stretch goal. It was also hit. The Choice Log will work almost like a journal of your playthrough.  If you've stepped away from the game for a while or you have many files  and got mixed up on what's happening in which save, you'll be able to refresh your memory with the Choice Log. It won't be able to track  every  option you've ever picked, but it will note the major points.  What extra-curriculars does your MC do? How's their relationship with  their  mom? Have they ever kissed one of the leads? And so on. The info  in the  log will be specific to individual playthroughs.

Achievements will be the same thing Steam has, just within the game  itself. These would permanently note if you've done certain major story  points. Even if you played the game again, it wouldn't undo any achievement you got in a prior playthrough. I imagine the achievements  will be similar to the ones in the original Our Life, though I'll  probably think of some new ones too.

MC Icon Color Expansion:

The third and final stretch goal was expanding the color option range for the MC Icon. That was unlocked as well! The way these new colors will be implemented is through applying the color with a special tool our programmer, Shawna (they/them), created. It won’t be individual art assets and any color code can potentially be applied now. We made sure that this kind of feature would be possible before setting it as a stretch goal. However, having each color be its own layer was the original way we did it. A lot of effort is gonna go into totally overhauling the system, fixing up and reworking all the existing assets, changing how things are implemented, etc.

We’ll also need to figure out exactly how to let people use a customization element with theoretically any color possible while still being able to have the color you use mentioned in the story. Some level of limitation will have to be applied or adding a way to type in the words you want the color to be described as would need to be created. We’re gonna try out different possibilities for this far more flexible coloring system.

So, despite there being a ton of effort needed to fully complete the update, it’s definitely going to be an improvement in the end. Not only will there be a wider range of colors by far, but it’ll reduce the file size of the finished game than if there had to be multiple different colored versions of each MC layer.

And I’m sure people are wondering, does this apply to the MC’s skin tone options, too? Technically, no. That’s not something we wanted to tie to a stretch goal and a lot of the work needed for this stretch goal to be possible isn’t an issue for skin tones anyway. There’s dozens of MC hairs and clothes with little detail work that need to be altered. There only six plain MC heads that need to have skin tones. But I can announce a related feature that was in development regardless! 

MC & Opal Skin Tone Feature:

We would’ve been okay if the last stretch goal wasn’t met, and if MC hair colors and accessories were limited to the original thirteen options. But one thing we needed to do no matter what was expand the available set of skin tones. That required solutions that were separate from redoing the hair/accessories.

The same color picking system for the hair/clothes could be used to determine the MC’s skin if it’s tweaked to be within a range of colors that were real-world tones. But then what could be done about their mom, Opal? Even if some players don’t care if Opal looks especially similar to the MC, there needs to be an option for her to match her child for those who do want that.

Normally, the way to solve that would be to have an artist create new versions of Opal by hand. That was the concept I presented when talking about having more skin tones become available later in development. However, behind the scenes Shawna wanted to try another way of making it happen. And that was by somehow changing Opal’s color scheme using a far more sophisticated color picking system.

The MC Doll has a simple flat coloring style. Opal’s sprite has texture and shadows and gradient shades. I did not know how that was gonna work and was worried it wasn’t going to be possible. But it actually worked. That’s crazy to me.

This means, you’ll be able to customize your MC’s skin tone and your mom’s with full shade freedom rather than limited pre-set options! But there will still be some restrictions. You won’t be able to make your MC have green skin and your mom be bright blue. Sorry for that, haha. But this is the absolute ideal outcome for the customization system overall and I’m grateful to work with such an incredible team.

MC Hair Recolor

MC Skin Tone Recolor

Opal Skin Tone Recolor

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Phew, that's everything! OL2 sure is gonna be a fancy VN, aha.