March 2023 Monthly Update (Patreon)

We've somehow already hit March and we're speeding through the year, but we have a lot of updates to give you this month from all of our upcoming projects.

Lets jump right into our update:

The Sun and the Moon

Art

Firstly, here is the complete background for the sketch we showed last month. This one is definitely, completely the last background for the game!

This file was called "rear room" by our artist and it makes me giggle.

Programming

Last month, I let you guys know that all the base programming on the game was complete, and I have completed my testing/adding music to the game, which means it's now complete and ready for release script wise!

I actually decided to go through it one last time in my spare time to add in some additional animations and camera movement:

Hello handsome.

The eternally ageless Aralla.

On top of that, we'll also be updating the credits this month and creating all of the achievements. Yay!

Release Date

The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon will be releasing in March 2023! We're waiting on the last couple of art assets at the moment, so we won't give a strict date as of yet, but expect late March.

Everyone on the Solaris tier will be receiving a free key to the game this month, so keep an eye out for a message!

Dreambound

Art

Art wise we are working full time on the Ivan route CGs at the moment. We're around half way through, and after those are complete we will move on to Kaine's route.

We've just posted the full version of this CG, so make sure to go check it out!

Programming & Screenshots

We finished programming and testing chapter 2 of Dreambound and released it to all beta backers last month! So far we haven't had anyone come forward with any bugs, but let us know if you do find any so we can fix them up quickly.

We haven't yet begun programming Chapter 3 (Crow's route) as we're in the midst of editing it. Once that's complete, we will begin adding all of Crow's route into the game and releasing it as a beta.

Here's a couple of screenshots of chapter 2 for the people who haven't played it yet:

Everyone's over at August's house!

August's dad appears a little in the common route, but will come back more in Kaine's route.

There'll be a few important scenes at this river!

Writing & Editing

I'm currently going over Crow's route before beginning the writing on Ivan's.  We have the final chapter, chapter 5, plus Crow's escape room before it's complete.

Ivan features in Crow's route quite a lot, much more than Kaine. You'll understand more when you play Ivan's route, too.

Here's an intro for a new character, Luka. Luka appears mostly in the flashback sections of Crow's and Ivan's routes. He's a year younger than Noah, and quite different to how he appears.

The flashback parts of Crow's route will follow Noah and August's relationship and give the best background as to why Noah is the way he is. Ivan's will instead show the same period of time but from his point of view, which doesn't really relate to Noah and August at all. Kaine's will overlap more with Crow's, but from his point of view.

More Ivan, this time from chapter 3 (Crow's route). Surprisingly, Ivan seems to be somewhat of a good friend in this route...

Beta

A new Dreambound Beta came out last month. Everyone on the Solaris tier (And up) can access the game now to play! 

This beta includes chapter 2 of the game in its entirety.

A Date with Death

Starting from this month, we'll be showing updates on A Date with Death, our upcoming chatsim!

Art

Artwise, the player characters room background is complete. We showed some WIPS and things last month, but let's look at a screenshot of a completed room:

Your room in A Date with Death will be customisable. We'll be showcasing all of the options later this month, but here's another room:

The room creator in game took around 20 hours to put together because of various issues with the way ren'py displays blending types... anyway, it works now, so yay!

Our lead artist has also completed the love interest character design. We'll be posting the turn around sheet this month.

We're now moving on to the character creation assets, which will definitely take up a lot of time. We plan to have a range of skin tones, a few outfits to choose from, loads of hairstyles, and some other accessories too.

We will definitely think of expanding to even more options if everything goes well!

Writing & Editing

A Date with Death spans over seven days. Currently, 2/7 of the script is complete, though I imagine we'll add more options and choices when we get to programming.

Everything the player character says during the game will be a "choice", whether there is one option or eight to choose from. The ability for the player to shape their character is our top priority.

The very first writing preview of the game! This sets up the premise of the story, which involves a bet about whether the Grim Reaper can take the player character's soul before the week is up.

As you can see, we're actually writing this game in a spreadsheet, which is quite different to how we've worked on any of our other projects. Due to the nature of having so many choices, it made much more sense to write somewhere we could see the clear flow of the story and the choices that appear to the player.

We thought about using something like Twine, but it doesn't really lend well to multiple people working on the script. While Emma is the lead writer on this project, I am still adding to it where I can & editing.

Surprisingly, this kind of game lends well to multiple writers - I can jump in at any point and add additional choices, which has been fun.

As for the love interest's personality, he is something like Leos... very cocky and sure of himself, but easily flustered sometimes too. He knows what he's got and is happy to flaunt it, but gets embarrassed easily if you point out his mistakes.

There is a certain voice actor we'd love to get back to voice him too, but we'll see how we go...

Programming

Programming has not yet started on the project. The UI has been commissioned and is now complete, we're just waiting on the final files to be sent to us.

While we'll showcase the UI in detail later in the month, how about a couple of preview mockups?

Sticking with our important theme of player choice, we'll have both a light and dark mode for the game.

These are all subject to changes, but you should get a good idea of the aesthetic from them!

The Storyteller's Festival

We're hosting The Storyteller's Festival this month - a celebration of all things narrative in visual novels and interactive fiction!

When the event is live (March 25/26) you can access the festival via this link on Steam. We have SO many amazing released and upcoming narrative games in the fest and lots of discounts and streams planned, so make sure to check it out!

Here's just a small preview of some of the games from participating developers:

Focus for the next month

Here's our focus for the next month:

• Dreambound: Ivan route CGs, Crow route additional writing/editing, Ivan route outlining/writing
• The Sun and the Moon: Additional animations, credits screen update, CG creation, achievement writing and programming, release
• A Date with Death: Day 3 writing, UI implementation, character creator complete/implemented

On a more personal note, we will be away in Japan next month for a lot of April. It's been a long time since we've had a chance to go, so we're very excited!

Thanks once again for reading, and I'll see you next month!