Here Comes 2023!! (Patreon)

Hello Patrons,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a busy year and we have accomplished a lot! Based on current projections, Astral Ascension is going to be releasing in 2023! That means the game's read-only, then art version will be coming in hot in the first two quarters of the year and then we'll probably spend quarter 2 (possibly quarter 3) doing all the voice over work and marketing material (opening video, ending music, title screen theme, extra menu...etc).

The meme dream would be to release on August 22nd, 2023. This would be an aggressive deadline so if we need to push it back, we will (to prioritize quality), however that is what we are aiming for internally!

As for the project after Astral Ascension, we'll be starting to think about this when the game is developed and we are mainly doing the voice over / marketing work. We'll of course be including you in our exploratory and decision making process for what the next game will be.

In the interest of transparency, I did want to say that 2022 has been a little rough financially. There has been four factors that contributed to this:

1) We didn't do a Kickstarter for Astral Ascension. That means we are frontloading the entire development cost whereas previous projects we had the budget to work with from the get-go.

2) Astral Ascension has not been releasing episodically on Steam. Our previous games had started sales right from episode 1 all the way to the official release whereas this project is aimed for a full completion.

3) Our existing games have been on market a pretty long time without a new project (2+ years now), so there isn't a buzz on a new game which helps people find our previous VNs.

4) This year in general has been rough for the world economy.

Now some of these factors will be self correcting (game releases this year, hopefully economy picks back up after 2023). Non-episodic releases has been EXTREMELY helpful to the development of the game as we've been able to retroactively correct, update, and even add content to previous 'episodes'.

In our other games, this would be much harder since we had to worry about redoing voice over sections, save compatibility...etc. As for Kickstarter, normally our artists would have to dedicate some time to process backer rewards. In this case, Sunimu is able to focus on delivering more CGs for the game.

The reason I mention all this is because your support on Patreon has been an absolute blessing. You let us develop Astral Ascension without worrying about finances and monetization strategies. Your trust in us is why we can make this project uncompromised and in the vision of exactly what we want for this VN.

So seriously, thank you so much for being the awesome PF community that you are and all your generous support and belief in us. It means the world to the team and I that despite the turbulence we faced in 2022, you are always taking care of us.

We hope to deliver the quality of VNs that you entrust us to make. <3

We will have one more update before finishing the year which will be a monthly update for Astral Ascension to wrap up 2022. Please look forward to that!

Thanks again for all your support. We hope you and your loved ones have a fantastic holiday. :^)

Cheers,

PF Team

P.S. What is Luna doing with that mistletoe? O_O