Monthly Update - July 2020 (Patreon)

Hi, everyone!

We've somehow made it through June, and it's time for another monthly update! Let's get right into it, starting with updates to The Divine Speaker:

The Divine Speaker

Art

Arts been coming along smoothly after a rocky couple of months due to COVID, but we now have every CG for the new demo either sketched or completed!

Here's one we haven't shown off on Patreon yet:

Next, during our editing of Fawn's route, we found a couple of places were additional backgrounds would work fantastically, so we decided to get a couple more made. Here's how they look:

Writing

The last month has primarily been focussed on:

• Editing Fawn's route
• Adding additional scenes to Fawn's route
• Finishing Fawn's 18+ Scenes

We're so pleased to announce that due to our edit, Fawn's route has increased (so far!) from 52,000 words to 68,000 words. A big jump! 

We have one more scene left to write for Fawn, and then he'll be ready for voice acting. We're really happy with the progress and what the new additional scenes bring to his character.

Next, we'll focus on both editing Cyne's route and continuing Leos' route.

Here's a couple of little previews of newly added scenes:

What's this, new characters?

Programming

At the moment, programming has come to halt aside from testing. We're currently still testing the full game to get rid of any bugs and find any missing dialogue etc.

We've spent some time rewriting/rewording parts of the original demo to come into line with the rest of the game, as well as updating some of our programming styles thats changed since the creation of the demo.

This test will soon be complete, ready to insert the last three CGs and to release the extended demo.

Voice Acting

Voice acting is due to begin this month for the common route, which means another 50,000 words of voiced content will be heading our way soon.

This is a huge undertaking, as you can expect. So much time and effort goes into directing, recording, editing and inserting the voice lines, but to us it's especially worth it. 

Next month, we hope to have some voiced previews to show off!

 Beyond the Abyss 

Art 

The art for Beyond the Abyss is coming along smoothly. At the moment, we don't work to deadlines, since everything we're doing now is in preparation for TDS to be out.

All expressions are now complete for Zhang Zhenli, and his naked sprite has also been released. Here's a look at some of them:

We've also received the sketch for Zhang Zhenli's love interest, Song Tao:

Music  

The last of the sound track has now been composed and inserted in the game, created by the fantastic Efe Tozan. 

There's a few other tracks we'd love to get (ending songs, character songs) but we'll wait to have these as a Kickstarter stretch goal in the future.

YaoiJam

This year, Two and a Half Studios is so pleased to be cohosting YaoiJam. Don't know what it is?

"Yaoi Game Jam is a two month long jam running from July 1st to August 31st (AEST), dedicated to making games—visual novels in particular—featuring male-identified characters in queer relationships. "

Obviously this is something right up our alley, and we want to support it as best we can. If you want to join or play the entries as they're completed, you can check it out here. 

A few members from our team are also working on a small YaoiJam project in their spare time. You can follow the progress here. 

FujoCon

Many conventions are being (rightfully) cancelled or pushed back at the moment, which means many online cons have sprung up!

We happen to be sponsors of one this year - FujoCon! 

"FujoCon is a BL+ virtual convention dedicated to providing fan creators with opportunities to share their art, cosplay, and panels as we all stay home to prevent the spread of covid-19."

You can find out more here (and sign up here!). You can win a copy of our 2019 artbook just by attending!

 Discord

As always, you can join us on Discord here. Make sure you link your Discord to Patreon to receive your special role!

That's all for this month! Take care, and we'll see you soon!