Small Update + Relationship Values (Patreon)

It's been quite a while since my last post, and there's a few reasons for that. Most important reasons being my health. For the  past month or so I've been experiencing pretty intense chest pains. So intense that I had to go to the hospital this week. Everything turned out to be fine(?) and subsequently, my chest pains died off a quite a bit since then (Still there just not as bad.)

That's a whole conversation for another time, but for now, it's fine. 

Because of this whole incident, I made an announcement that Rejuv would be on hiatus. I would like to officially retract that statement. I won't be working as much as I did before, but I don't, and won't, stop altogether. I physically cannot bring myself to not do something, so I'll just do it in moderation!

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All of that aside, let's get to something a little happier! The Protag/Relationship values!

So if there's one thing I've learned while making Rejuv, it's that I actually despise silent protagonists. Since around V6 or so, I've gotten a lot of criticism about the player character. The biggest one being that they don't feel important or impactful. I feel like the reason why some people feel this way is because the player doesn't speak, ever. They just feel like they're there because 🤷-- 

This isn't necessarily a Rejuv specific problem, and more so a con to having a silent protagonist in general. So I've decided to go the Persona route with the player and give them options to speak, while generally being silent still. I feel like this gives the player more opportunities to feel more included, and also give them some sort of personality (Not enough to intrude on people's OC's, though!)

Which brings me to the relationship value system. I've revamped it. With new opportunities for the player to speak, the more I can play around with this system. Now that this is possible, I feel like it's important for the player to have a visual indication of which dialogue options affect relationship values.
As shown here: https://imgur.com/6O5F5Qx  

There are emotes for +1,+2,+3, friendship increase, and vice versa.
This is still pretty early in development so I'm not sure how these points will scale? Since the game is pretty long, I think for every 10-15 points, one heart will be filled in.

That's pretty much where I'm at though. Haven't done too much on new content. Gen 8 is right around the corner and I am... Ready(tm) to tackle that beast.

I know I haven't been good about weekly posts. I'll try to be better about it. Even an update on what's going on will be good. Commissions were put on hold due to health issues, but I'll get right back on it soon. Very, very sorry for the incredibly long wait. 

Thank you guys for supporting me, and have a wonderful week!