Unity Change Q&A (Patreon)

Phew, that was a long wait for an update! There were some big changes going on this time, so I was hoping to explain a bit about what happened and why, and the direction for the future of the game.

Q: Why did the update take so long?
A: Well, I essentially had to remake the game from scratch. I had the art and most of the script, of course, but I had to program in a lot of the features that Renpy comes with by default. Add on to that the new backgrounds, characters, and of course all the coding that went into the new inn system, and it was quite the arduous process.

Q: Why use Unity? Why not stick with Renpy?
A: For a few reasons. First, I always envisioned IAW becoming more than just a VN. The management element was always a big part of my idea, and it would have been essentially impossible for me to do it in Renpy. Second, I am much more skilled/experienced in Unity/C# compared to Renpy/Python. I can do a lot more in Unity.

Q: But I hate Unity >:(
A: I know that Unity doesn’t have the best reputation, especially for adult games, but I urge you to give it a try. I’ve done everything in my power to add in all the quality of life features of most VNs, and did my best to make the game feel smooth and  easy to play.

Q: Is anything missing from the Renpy version?
A: Unfortunately, the rollback feature was a casualty of the switch. With all the new logic and variables going on under the hood, rollback was breaking the game more often than working correctly. To combat this, I made an extensive autosave feature (it saves directly before every dialogue choice, and every time you move to a new area) and of course added in a text history screen.

Q: What kind of benefits will there be from switching to Unity?
A: I’ll be able to implement new features much more easily, and gameplay that would be impossible in Renpy can be added. This will come into play in the future when I add some kind of exploration mode to the game, in addition to the inn management.

Q: The inn building feels a little…barebones at the moment…

A: It’s true. I would have liked to have added quite a few more features, as well as furniture and decorations. However, that would have delayed that patch by possibly up to a month more. The good news is that all progress you make now will be carried forward indefinitely. Expect a patch in the near future to add more to the inn building system.

Q: It’s taking up quite a bit of RAM on my PC…
A: I’m still working on the optimization. It’s already a lot lighter on PCs than it was in the first alpha tests. Expect more optimization going forward.

Q: So what’s next?
A: The next patch is probably going to be a quick one to add more features and items to the inn, as well as some UI tweaks and changes. After that, it will be back to adding more content for the girls, as well as starting on Ritsuki’s story.

Q: Where’s the Android version?

A: Currently still working on it. The control scheme is quite the challenge to get working with the new inn system, but I should hopefully have it up in a few days.

Okay, so there were a few of the questions/concerns that were brought up to me over the past few months from various parties. I hope this answered some of your questions, but if you have any more, please don’t hesitate to contact me on the Discord, on itch.io, or on Patreon.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you all building your own inns out there!