Back In Action! (+Character Q&A Announcement) (Patreon)

Hey everyone! I'm back and feeling recharged after my break, thanks for bearing with me! To give you a quick update on things: I've been more or less back in the full swing of things for a week or so now. At the moment I'm still fully focused on plotting out and outlining the weeks to come. I might be able to move on to the gameplay update I mentioned in time for a demo build this month, but especially with the holidays coming up I wouldn't count on getting that until January.

Like I said I would be doing when I announced my break, alongside my return to the page I've swapped over to Patreon's subscription billing model. For anyone already pledged, nothing changes for you at all, your charge date will remain as the first of every month! But for any new patrons joining things will now work like you'd expect a monthly subscription to: you will be charged for the current month immediately when you pledge, then pay on that same day every month going forward (so if you pledge on the 5th of December, you would be charged for the next month on the 5th of January, and so on). In the same vein, while it won't change your monthly charge date, if you're currently pledged and raise to a higher tier, you'll now immediately be charged the difference (ex. if you go from the $3 Freshman tier to a $5 Sophomore tier, you'll be charged $2 for the switch)

Also, based on the response to the idea on the last post, I've decided to go ahead with making Week 1 off-limits for scene suggestions now that it's finished! Pretty much everyone that commented seemed to be supportive of the idea, and some good points were even raised about how the two days that would have been available for suggestions still if I stuck to the usual method were already the most content-dense, so I definitely think it's the right call. As for suggesting scenes for the future though, I will still be sticking to my plans of having two weeks available at a time, so with Week 1 cut off already that means Week 3 will be available for suggestions when the poll returns! But for this month, we're doing something different... a Q&A with the characters!

The colder fall weather in Week 2 means most of the characters needed a wardrobe update!

Support for switching things up to try out the character Q&A this month seemed pretty unanimous from those that spoke up on the last post, so we're going forward with the idea!

What does that mean?

Instead of suggesting scenes to be added to the game, this month anyone at the Sophomore tier or higher is able to submit questions for the characters in the game to answer! At the end of the month, I'll make a post where I answer a selection of the questions submitted in-character as whichever character it was directed at. Here's an example of the format if you don't quite get what I mean:

Q: Emma, what's your favorite color?

Emma: Oh my god, blue! 1000% blue, I don't know how you could pick anything else, it just can't be beat! Think about it, everything beautiful is blue--the sea, the sky, my eyes. Plus it's always the best flavor of any kind of candy!

(Of course, that's cheating a little because it's almost verbatim something she says in response to the same question in game, but it's just for demonstration.) Unlike the scene polls where you can only have one suggestion entered at once that has to be approved, for the Q&A everyone eligible can submit up to 15 questions, but with the important caveat that not all questions will get used and I won't be giving any approval/denial as you make them. My plan is to just compile a list of all submitted questions, then after the cutoff date of December 20th (same as scene suggestions) I'll pick out which ones I'm going to answer. Since I haven't done this before and A: don't know how much time/effort it will take answering questions and B: don't know how many I'll be receiving, it's tough to nail down a number for how many I'll be answering, but I think I'm going to commit to answering at minimum 30 questions, though potentially more!

I'm not setting any hard restrictions on what you can ask, but try to keep them reasonable! For example if you try to ask about details that the game is clearly building up as mysteries to reveal later, like Cherry's name, I'm obviously either not going to choose it or the character will not actually give you an insightful answer. Similarly, the only person that's completely off-limits for asking questions to is "Mary", the player character(because that wouldn't make any sense), but I'd recommend sticking more to the main cast or minor characters rather than one-off fodder characters!

Oh and as a final note, those pledged at the Junior and Senior tier are guaranteed to  have at least one of their questions answered!

The upperclassmen needed a fresh look as well! Somehow, Sunny became even cooler!

Quick recap of the character Q&A:

• No scene poll this month, instead there will be an in-character Q&A session exclusively for patrons
• Anyone who's at the sophomore or higher tier can submit as many as 15 questions directed at any of the characters in the game
• I will not be approving/denying them as they come in like I do for scene suggestions, Juniors and Seniors are guaranteed to have at least one question be answered but Sophomores may potentially get unlucky and not have any of theirs selected
• The deadline for submitting questions is December 20th. I aim to have the post with the Q&A up on the 25th, just like the scene poll!

And I think that'll do it, I'm excited to be back in the saddle! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or concerns about the character Q&A!

~Os <3