dev diary: astra's garden prerelease stuff (Patreon)

it's monday, so time for the first weekly update~ i picked monday because... nomday.... very easy to remember. so on brand. ANYWAY!!

aside from setting up the new patreon stuff, i've just been getting astra's garden ready for release. this means...

• sending out the final translation files to my translators
• taking screenshots
• making all the promo/store images (like the one above!)
• making the itch.io page look cute
• answering all of google play's weird questions (no my game is not a news app, yes the characters do say "fuck")
• putting together the art collection
• getting the soundtrack ready to post on bandcamp and youtube

i kinda miss the days when i could just toss up a build on itchio with the art collection and call it a day. having to do all these extra things after just finishing a game gets so exhausting after you've done it 10 times already... but it's okay if it takes a little while this time, since the translations are so close to being done! and it's very worth it to release in as many languages as possible for google play. (much less important for itchio which doesn't really have global reach...)

the main, biggest thing is the art collection, and i'm like 90% done with that! i already wrote all my commentary, so all that's left is arranging the images in an appealing way. it's very rewarding to see it all put together!! i just keep avoiding doing it because some parts (especially arranging character busts and alt expressions) are really tedious.

pretty sure i'll be able to finish and post it here tomorrow or wednesday, since it's so close. here's a preview of one of the pages!! (beware of spoilers at the bottom if you haven't finished the game)

it feels so strange having such a delay between patron and public release, since normally i've waited like... a day or two...? i was always very excited and impatient before. but it's nice to take my time and relax a little for once! hey, that fits with the pace of the game too... let's pretend it's all on purpose and not a result of my still-recovering mental health lol

that's it for now!! next week i think i'll write up a postmortem for this game. although i slipped a lot of those thoughts into the art collection already... oh, i can share more of the baby pictures though... (by that i mean the earliest screenshots with rough art haha)

LOOK FORWARD TO IT!! have a great monday :)