April 2023 Monthly Update (Patreon)

March came and went and it's already April - nearly Easter! I have another update jam-packed filled with goodies ready for you.

A quick note: I myself will be overseas for the majority of April. While writing will be a little delayed this month, art will keep going steadily! On top of this, we have posts scheduled for Patreon, so you won't miss out on anything.

Lets jump right into our update:

The Sun and the Moon

While we were hoping to launch The Sun and the Moon late March, some last minute art delays happened that pushed back the release a little - however, not to worry! The last little pieces of art we need will be complete soon.

Luckily this actually gave us time to get a proper song and trailer created, which we'll be showcasing very soon!

Art

How about a teaser for a CG you'll all be seeing soon?

These two are very silly and tragic.

Here's a few shots from our new trailer! It was created by Foxdrift Studios. They have a really cool game coming out soon, so make sure to check it out!

Steam Approval

We've sent a full build of the game + trailer off to Steam for approval!

We're crossing our fingers for a quick approval process!

Achievements & Programming

We fully implemented and tested achievements this month! There's a total of 21 achievements to unlock in the game.

Here's a little preview:

After this, we also finalized the credits screens. The game is now looking super nifty and polished!

Dreambound

Writing

Crow's last chapter is nearly finalized! Here's a few looks at some scenes in his route:

You'll see one side of the story with Kaine in Crow's route - to actually find out what he's going through, you'll have to play his route too.

I feel like storms are always the herald of bad luck in most of my games.

A Date with Death

For those that missed it, A Date with Death is our new, upcoming chatsim visual novel about dating the Grim Reaper!

Art

All backgrounds for A Date with Death are now complete, as is the UI! We're still working on the character creator and the Grim Reaper's sprites.

For now, here's a look at some of the art and UI in game:

Writing & Editing

A Date with Death spans over seven days. Currently, 4/7 of the script is complete. We still need to go back over it and edit - and I'm sure we'll add a lot more options as we go through, too.

One particular quirk of the Grim Reaper is his lack of knowledge of texting and emojis... over the 7 day span, you'll see him messaging you in a variety of different ways as he works out his style:

At this point, he's just discovered kaomoji. Also, after you as the player tell him that capitals don't belong at the start of Every Single Word, he only types in lower case.

This also showcases another thing I wanted to bring up. In the screenshot, you can see [women] typed like this, in square brackets. This is because that word will be switched out for whatever word goes along with your chosen pronouns.

You'll have the option of he/him, she/her or they/them - or make your own custom pronoun set!

We've also broken up pronouns, gender and descriptive terms - you can pick to play as a male character, but be called pretty/beautiful, or a female character and be called handsome. You'll also be able to customize the descriptive words if you wish.

The idea of the system is to give as much power to the player as we can. We hope you enjoy it!

Programming

We're waiting to start programming the first day into the game for when we receive the files for the character creator, but that hasn't stopped much of the behind the scenes programming we've been working on.

Programming of the UI is pretty much complete at this point, and took around a week. It was very intensive!

At the moment, because I like suffering, I have been adding a computer screen, where you can mess around a little bit before continuing on with the story.

You'll be able to do some simple things, like listen to music and check out art, but there will also be the ability to change your background, browse the web, and play some games.

That undo and redo button caused me SO many issues and I know no one will ever realize, hahaha.

I'm working on implementing a wordle-style game at the moment, and I'd also like to add a mini rhythm game later too.

New Game Release - Moonflower!

Our fantastic friends over at Cats on a Lilypad Studios have just released their first game, Moonflower. Moonflower is a fantasy steampunk-inspired BL visual novel about a catboy alchemist and a mysterious fae detective investigating a murder and uncovering a kingdom's secrets.

I personally worked on editing the game and I know you're SURE to enjoy it! You all know how much I love fantasy games, so I'm SO happy to see another BL fantasy VN out there.

Grab the game on Steam here!

BL Lovers Bundle

Looking to grab three BL games at a discount?

We've bundled up with Moonflower to offer the BL Lovers Bundle!

You can grab The Divine Speaker, start;again and Moonflower all for a permanent 20% discount.

Already own one or two of the games? No problem! Pay only for the games you don't have yet and still receive the bundle discount. This is a great way to pick up some other BL games if you already own TDS!

Focus for the next month

Here's our focus for the next month:

• Dreambound: Ivan route CGs
• The Sun and the Moon: Additional animations, CG creation
• A Date with Death: Day 5 writing, additional minigames polished

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