#irl devlog

[mmmm-burnt-eggs]

*Fixed inability to change the color of your bingo bongo to blue on Sundays, don't ask why you couldn't

*Fixed inability to trans your gender, FINALLY!

*Dev log is now available to public

[dreamlink3d]

woag 1000 followers wtf!!! well thank u all sm :)

currently am about to sit down and sprite the remaining additions to the roster actually, did the majority of character revisions last night. once they're all finished sprite-wise, i'll reorder them and set up their sprite sheets, and then re-implement all of them lmfao. wish me luck cuz i'll probs have actual stuff to post on here soon!!!

[the-prince-is-not-a-woman]

Micro dosing living in the same world as my OC's by inexplicably having my laptop have WiFi signal but my phone not. I've been doing a lot of listening to downloaded music in order to use less mobile data.

The WiFi and phone signal is shit in the TPINAW universe because I needed a reason to have everyone physically meeting up to have basically every conversation, that isn't just that I personally hate calling people on the phone. So I decided that magic interferes with most wireless signal.

It's particularly bad in Boxwood Glen (town where most characters live) because of GG Adégbénjó and KJ Adétúnbí spamming their powers. Like people there have to get an Ethernet cable adaptor to use the internet on a smartphone, and some characters don't bother with smartphones or mobile phones at all.

But this problem is widespread enough that there's almost as many payphones, landlines, and internet cafes as the early 2000s in the 2020s. This is also why analogue radio is still big money around Boxwood Glen and other such dead zones, satellite tv is too inconsistent. Still, 16:9 format and Ultra HD never caught on because 4:3 and SD use less bandwidth.

Leads to the funny situation where your average Boxtrian teenager in like 2020 has exclusively watched TV in like 480p via digital download and low-key doesn't believe live digital TV broadcasting is even possible, but listens to shows on AM radio and reads serialised novels that aren't written by other teenagers all the time.

Even though GG's job involves a lot of making websites and computer programs, she has rarely deigned to create phone apps. Everything having 10 thousand accommodations for low vision users with their screen at 200% zoom makes them pleasant to use on a phone regardless.

[bramblelightgarden]

Blender is quickly becoming toys to me. getting pretty confident with using it

low poly flip phone based on the TZ-804

[ravenstargames]

✦ LOST IN LIMBO DEVLOG #16 | 03.03.2025

Aaand February is gone! Obliterated! Sent to oblivion! Which means a new devlog of Lost in Limbo is here to keep you updated about our work on the game. This has been a very eventful month in our private lives, and there has been a lot of work behind the scenes—but I know that's not what you're here for!

Let's jump into it! 💜

This month, Raquel has managed to finish Amon's new expressions and I've already coded them! She has also been working on Envy's new coat and their expressions, and we can't thank her enough for her hard work. Remember she now works from 8 to 13 and 15 to 18, and is still working for LiL, too!

Our second background for the Extended Demo's prologue is done, thanks to Airyn and Astro! We may make a few tweaks to it but here it is—Master Lysander's shop from the outside! Quite an interesting place, huh? Suspiciously different from the other buildings around it, some would say...

Astro has also finished the 3D modeling of the third background, which our Kickstarter Backers will be able to see in our Kickstarter devlog! :^) Now that he's free from 3D modeling hell, he'll be free to do a few adjustments to our artbook! 💜

This time, I'm talking about writing and programming in the same section, as process has been going well but there's not much to 'show' without spoiling scenes of the Extended prologue—which is something we don't want to do yet!

Kayden is still working on the new mini-cgs for the new prologue, which I hope we can show really really soon!

Our voice actors have also been sending over more voiced names, and we've been working with them to get the best takes for y'all!

This month we have also had to focus on taxes, paperwork, and going back and forth with our manufacturer, plus a few irl things we'll tell you all about in the next section!

Our discord peeps already know, but our Raquel has found a full-time job and we are very happy for her. She finally can start supporting herself, and even if that means she can't work on LiL as much as before, she's doing great sacrifices to keep up as much as she can. Astro now has three jobs and I myself have spent half of February hosting classes in college about character design, which is great! However, I got home at 11 pm (blame it on the flood that stroke my city on October), so I've been a bit all over the place.

We want to apologize if this devlog seems a bit short, or if progress this month lets y'all a bit down. On a happier note, we've joined our first festivals this month, including The Storyteller Festival, and Steam's Visual Novel Fest! Also the Amare Games Festival 2025 over at itch—we hope we can do at least a small update for the deadline, but I'm not so sure about that T_T

Phew! This month has been hectic, and sadly not for the right reasons. As irl things keep happening, you get a bit scared of not being up to the task of developing your game at a pace that satisfies not only your supporters, but yourself. As I write this I'm itching to go back to writing the prologue, haha.

So, yeah! I hope we can keep balancing our lives and LiL as best as we can. I also hope we get a bit of good news from our counselor regarding taxes, and I hope this month is full of cool opportunities for us! 💜

As always, thank you so so much for your support! See you in the next one! 💜

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog #44 | 8.29.24 ๋࣭⭑

why did august feel so long and so short at the same time

And hot girl summer finally comes to an end! Can you all believe we're already getting into September? That's..... crazy.

Before I get into the devlog this month, I want to make a small announcement! It's a bittersweet one, but overall, I do think it's more exciting than anything.

Crescence is FINALLY CLOSE TO GRADUATING!!!!

It's crazy to be able to say this. For anyone who's an OG fan of Alaris, you'll know I basically started game development at the same time I started my Ph.D. program. It's been a wild ride having to balance game development throughout this entire journey. Funnily enough, when I started Alaris, I saw many game developers say a game that was around the same length as Alaris would take about 4-5 years. So at the beginning of my program, I remember thinking, "Ahh... So even though it sounds so intimidating to work on something for 4-5 years, that basically means by the time I finish my Ph.D., I'll be done with Alaris, right? Might as well start then! If I'm going to spend those 4-5 years getting a degree, might as well also use that time to make a game :D"

*Graduates before I finish Alaris alosjdfliasdifj*

inserts a little fanart montage of recent fanart players have made to break up the text

Anyways, it's crazy that I've been on this journey for both parts of my life as long as I have. Both my dissertation and Alaris have equally tested my sanity, but words can't describe how rewarding it is to see the finish line finally in sight for both projects.

The thing is...

If I want to graduate this semester (which I so, so, so, so, SO desperately do), I have to write my entire dissertation (about 60k words) in about..... a 1-1.5 months, haha.....

On the bright side, it's feasible (Crescence says delusionally). On the not-so-bright side, it's going to test my sanity. And if there's a 5% chance I'll be able to make those deadlines and graduate this semester, that chance goes to 0% if I try to balance Alaris on top of that.

Which means...

I'll be taking a two month break from Alaris development, which is the first time in all of development that I'll be taking a break that long. For those who have followed me on this journey, you may know I've worked on my firstborn baby almost continuously since I first started this project. While I've balanced other games during development and sometimes taken short breaks where I don't make as much progress, I've never just Not Worked on Alaris. So it's a bit terrifying to imagine two months not working on Alaris at all.

But graduating this semester is important to me, and at the end of the day, as much as I love game development, it's very much my hobby. I don't talk about my IRL obligations on here too much, but I do have them, and finally getting my Ph.D. degree is one of my biggest IRL obligations and priorities.

So it's with tears in my eyes that I say Alaris will be on a break until the end of October. I'll still be around to answer questions (thank you to everyone who has been sending them in and showing sm curiosity and love for the cast!), and the Patreon will still be up for those who want to play Druk's beta. But aside from that, I'm taking a Full Break on Alaris so that I can buckle down and focus on the final stage of my degree :')

I know this may come as a disappointment to some of you, especially those who have followed me for a while and/or are eager to see the full game release. It pains me to have to step away from Alaris for such an extended time, especially since the weight of full game release does weigh on me with each day lmfao. I want this game out just as badly as the rest of you, and especially because so many of you have trusted me with your money, time, and support, please rest assured that this decision didn't come easy. It's my biggest hope that when I return to game development after finishing dissertation matters, it will be full steam ahead now that I'll no longer have degree obligations hanging over my head.

With that out of the way, let's go into this month's devlog! I'll try to make it as juicy as possible for you all as a thank you for your patience and support while I Get That Degree <3

Thankfully, this past month was much more focused in the writing department! While there was some small editing happening in Fenir and Druk's routes, it was minor changes compared to July. Most of my attention was on Kuna'a, and I'm very excited to say that the first draft of his route is OFFICIALLY FINISHED!!!

THAT MEANS ONLY ONE ROUTE IS LEFT FOR ALARIS TO BE WRITTEN!!!!!! It is so crazy to finally reach the last stretch of script writing. While I'm sure there's much editing to be done, the idea of having the base drafts finished is honestly hard to believe considering how endless script writing has felt.

A sneak peek of Kuna'a's route to celebrate

With how plot-centric the last three routes feel, it's also rewarding in a different way to officially write out a lot of the main plot details into the script, instead of just dropping bits and pieces here and there.

It makes me sad to pause Alaris development right when we're getting into the last meaty bits and pieces, but hopefully this just means when I return to development, I'll be hitting the ground running after missing working on the game ^^

Art has also been making lots of nice progress this month! I finished about half of Druk's CGs and our current CG counter is.... 25 out of 54! Which means we're just about reaching the halfway mark with CGs as well ^^

One of the CGs was so hot, it broke my iPad and almost lost ALL MY ALARIS ART ASSETS!! ha!! ha!! ha!! That was a fun part of this month!!!! Anyways, this isn't the CG in question (that one would be too spoilery to show, though it is on my Patreon for those who want to see it, heh), but this is a CG that I'm particularly fond of that I finished recently---Sneak Peek!

What lipgloss do you use, my man

CGs, aside from sprites, are the last main art assets that need to be done for the game. So knowing that they're just about at the halfway mark really shows that we're getting into the last stretch of the game's development!!

Finally, in extremely exciting news, we launched Druk's beta recently! WHICH MEANS..... HALF of the routes are beta coded for the game!!! WHAAAAT!!!!

Obviously, I'll be going in later to fix up some things, add in more sprite expressions, the CGs, etc. at a later time for these routes. But the fact half of the game is basically coded is so surreal...... I remember when these updates were just me telling you I was still writing and that was literally it LFJALSDJF.

Now, we're here on our third route to be beta tested!!!

everyone thank @minthe-drawings for drawing our beefy boy in all his beefy glory

Druk's beta will be up for a while since I'll be on break from development, but if you'd like to play his beta, sign up for Hydra on my Patreon!

This month, we've also started including drabbles to the Patreon for free members. So if you don't have funds to support through paid tiers but would still like some extra content, I've started writing drabbles that are free for anyone following my Patreon to read ^^

Finally, as one last thank you before I go on my break, we recently reached this milestone on itch.io!!! Y'all have downloaded Crescence games 100k times and played my games over 200k TIMES.... (we technically reached 200k plays a while ago, but I wanted to wait until the downloads number was a pretty 100k).

not to mention the other milestones we've hit. thank you all for your support ;_;

It's crazy to even see this kind of number on my page.... I remember I used to see other amazing devs post these kinds of numbers and I could only dream that one day I'd be able to experience that kind of engagement. And so seeing that number for myself.... it's just really humbling to know you've all supported me for this long and to know I've reached the amount of players that I have <3 Thank you as always for the support and love you've all given my games. One day I will reward you all in kind and release Alaris....LFMALSDIJF

For market research this month, I have been trying to play Fields of Mistria in the small pockets of free time that I have. March and Eiland my beloved. But what I really want to highlight this month is...

No one is surprised that I am, once again, telling you to support @ravenstargames

Lost in Limbo is a phenomenal dark fantasy VN that just released their demo and went live with their Kickstarter. The team is made up of some of the kindest, funniest, most hardworking, and talented people that I know, and I can't recommend the demo enough. The cast is diverse and has so much character (I literally love every character). The writing is beautiful, and the art is absolutely stunning. It's the team's first game, but you wouldn't know it from how polished, immersive, and breathtaking the demo is! Please consider supporting the team, whether it's playing the game or backing the Kickstarter. They deserve every ounce of success they get, and if you're a fan of fantasy and stunning storytelling, you will LOVE THIS GAME!!! Envy stans RISE!!!!

That's all for this month (and for the next two months.... wah.... don't forget about me everyone...)! Hope everyone stays well and warm as we enter fall, and I'll see you all in November <3 I'll miss you all dearly (I say this as if I won't still be around to answer asks), and hopefully when I return, I'll be making my debut as DR. CRESCENCE!!!! \o/

[deadvnstudios]

THE CURRENT STATE OF FOOL'S PARADISE (DON'T WORRY SHE'S STILL HERE)

Hello to our dear FOOPARIANS! We wanted to start this announcement with our team's sincere apology. The lack of updates on the state of the game has rightfully worried a large part of our fanbase, and we wanted to create this announcement as soon as possible.  

2025 is officially our studio’s first year in business. Last year was, to be blunt, a disaster for our team. Many development team members have left over the past few years, leading to our writing team being only two individuals (thank you to Mock and Notafish, by the way, for their extremely hard work during this trying time). With no editors on standby, we are stuck with a slowly progressing script that has to be entirely written and edited by the same team. Any finished scripts are passed to our coding team (Tora coding script content and Maita scripting minigames and screens), making the choo-choo train process even slower. Alongside the large cast and expansive content of the game, our production has been snail-pace. I’m not even going to come up with the expansive list of (IRL) disasters that hit our team members individually last year, but I’ll say it was an overall bad time for us.  

What we can say for sure is that we are sincerely thankful for your kindness and patience while we are producing this game. Not creating subsequent updates for you guys was irresponsible on our end, and we will be more proactive than ever to deliver the content you deserve.  

Overall, FOOL’S PARADISE is still in development and an active project under our studio.  

WHAT WILL HAPPEN: 

To accommodate our small team, applications for open studio spots will open in early February. Open positions include 2D Artists, writers, editors, coders, and music producers. These will close on February 16. Accepted applicants will assist our studio in developing FOOL’S PARADISE and other upcoming titles. 

We will release a 2.0 demo before March with the finalized script and visuals for the first portion of Act 1. Then, FOOL’S PARADISE will be released in three acts without the Kickstarter. The first act will be released for free, with the second and final acts being paid DLC. While we work on FOOL’S PARADISE in the long term, we hope you enjoy our less intensive titles as we prepare for the wild ride of our main project. 

We will also open a Patreon page to help sustain our members and projects financially. Here, we will post a variety of content weekly. This ranges from exclusive artwork, drabbles, behind-the-scenes content, and early beta builds of our productions.  

We are in the process of opening our official website with assets for our studio’s branding. Here, you can actively apply to our studio and view information about our titles and teams. After this is finished, we will develop an online merchandise store that will sell products from our current games. 

Monthly devlogs are back! We’ll post updates about our games’ and studio’s development on our website and social media. If the log’s information pertains to a specific game, it will also be cross-posted to Itch.io.  

In the meantime, why not check out our other, completed title—TOY BOX? 

[liarvibe]

Quick Lil Post About Me/This Blog!

The name's Rye! And this is my new Fandom Blog for DRV3! I used to run @unweavinglies, @drv3sprite-edits, and a different personal blog that I have now since retired. Nice to meet'cha!

Mun is 30+ Years old and Agender. I use They/Them (Plural, not singular) Pronouns (So for example: "They Are" instead of "They is". I just personally identify with the plural version more for Reasons.)

Due to the nature of DRV3 as a whole, minors under the age of 16 probably shouldn't follow this blog but I ain't your parent. Just don't expect me to cater to you if you follow me.

I'll be posting analyses, reblogging other's art and posting my own art, answering DRV3-related asks, among other things!

This is a remake of my old personal/fandom blog--which I felt like got too messy--so you may see me reposting/reblogging stuff on here that I wanna keep.

Anon hate, ignorant asks, and bait asks will be ignored, deleted, and outright blocked. Anything akin to these things will also be deleted and blocked. This includes "hot takes", Bad-faith arguments, and debates about fandom crap.

I'll try to tag everything accordingly, but feel free to let me know if I missed something!

I'll probably never shut up about Kurochi Ouma, the Protagonist for my WIP DRV3 Rewrite "And We'll Be Here Tomorrow." You can find the DevLog Community for that Here!

I believe that Fiction =/= Reality, which means that I don't care how bad a fictional media is--I will never condone harassment over fiction.

I don't believe in call out posts, do not ask me to reblog them.

Don't ask me for Donations I literally cannot Donate.

Finally, this is a DRV3 blog, so lets keep things on the topic of V3, okay? No IRL politics or current events, crossovers are okay.

Links:

Ao3: LiarVibe

And that's it! Have fun! :D

[qkayoostudio]

devlog 35

Hi dear friends,

I've been chipping away at TSL backgrounds and working on the walkthrough some more. I also did a bit of sprite work for Resonance in Orbit--here's another unserious character introduction for you!

I've also been working on the actual character intro files, because I want to be able to fill up the itch page in the near future :)

Also! Did you know that another Queer Bundle will be running next month? Keep an eye on their twitter and their itch page!

While I'll still be around in June (and updating my Patreon like always) I'm going to skip the devlog for June 12. I'm going to be really busy with some IRL things during that time and won’t be behind my desk much. Rest assured work will still continue (quietly and slowly) in the background, as always.

much love,

qk

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

for the haters out there there's also a least favorite trope poll

[rekindlevn]

Devlog Update #2!

*checks calender*

Guys.

Guys, it's been a month.

HOW HAS IT BEEN A MONTH ALREADY?!

So much has happened and it feels like no time passed at all!

Alright-y then! First off, let's talk stats.

Since its mighty release during the Otome Jam 2024, the demo is sitting at 2,200+ download, has been added to 1,000 lovely libraries, and according to comments and reviews, people are loving it and wanting more!

At risk of sounding like a broken record, we cannot thank everyone enough for enjoying the demo so much and wanting to learn more about the boys. It truly warms our hearts; we never fathomed that it would gain an interest as big as it did! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o

Okay, okay so enough of that – we promise we will leave the rest of the thank yous once the game is fully released

So let's summarize what’s happened in the last month dev wise!

Plotting commenced with writers already having planned out the key moments of each LI’s route

THE WRITING OFFICIALLY STARTED!!

Talking about writing, we have crunched the numbers and came to a figure of a minimum of 95k words for the full game

Each LI will have three endings to their name

The game will be partially voiced

A recent poll told us you wanna know ANYTHING and EVERYTHING about the game dev, The Boys, and just all the memes

Plenty of asks have come through about The Boy and we have enjoyed both giving and withholding info about them

Oh! And we have started creating the NPCs you will see in game!

So much has happened in such a small amount of time, and that’s in-between some of the team joining other jams and IRL stuff!

But there is one really big update that we wanted to share and that is...

OZ! Your best friend and confidant!

They are an asexual non-binary person who goes by any pronouns, but with a preference for they/him – also incredibly non-romanceable (sorry, we know they look amazing but they are your greatest platonic friend and won't be anything more than that).

(concept design may change)

Soon, so very soon we will be able to give you so many more hints of the game, but for now, we hope you enjoy theorizing what is going to happen and wanting to learn more about our darling boys!

[hexundev]

Devlog #2

Been a while since the last devlog, too much IRL matters going on but things should be fine now! Character design for the protagonist, still in the planning phase for other parts of the game.

[itsu-saragi]

Devlog #7 - Little by Little.

Good timezone and Happy November! Sorry for the late update once again, I should've written this yesterday but I was in an emotional funk last night lmao. Nevertheless, here we go:

Writing

October's writing goal was to get my love interest character, Aven, locked in. While I don't think I've gotten him fully figured out, I believe I made some decent progress so hey, that's worth celebrating, right?

This was a harder endeavor than I expected. In last month's update, I mentioned how not only do I want my LIs to be interesting and appealing, but also have a character arc and be cohesive to the theme.

Up until this month, I felt that he had appeal and a decent character arc, but he didn't feel interesting enough nor did he have a strong connection to the narrative's theme. So to solve this problem, I dug into my VN's theme- which is "mundane joys"- to analyze what that meant. Then I started applying those meanings to Aven.

I think that worked, he now feels more solid as a character. I'm still worried that he might not be that interesting, but I hope to slowly tinker and improve on him as I continue this writing hell.

I realize that I'll continue to revise everything I'm creating- characters, lore, the entire goddamn narrative- until the day I ship this VN out. So I'm not too worried about making Aven "perfect". The improvement will come with time, I'm trying to trust the process.

On a separate note, I finally coalesced all my world-building notes into a single document and that felt GREAT. Now that's worth partying about.

I'm setting my VN in present-day society but with a touch of magic (I like to call it "irl but a little to the left"), and for the past year I've been jotting down ideas on how it all works. But I didn't organize those notes until now.

I also had several friends check the lore for plot holes, so that felt nice. Progress.

And one last writing update- I've also been working on the story outline aiming to map out story beats so I can send it to my editor for review. It's a very loose process for now, like I'm throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks but that's okay. I want to take my time with this.

Programming

I don't have much to report on this aspect, unfortunately. October was writing month. I should pick up the slack, especially because I'm a complete beginner.

I always have a mental hurdle I need to overcome when it comes to programming. It's like knowing how complex and confusing code can be makes me nervous to even start RenPy, lol. But at the end of the day, this is the only thing stopping me from learning, so I need to shut up and do it. Or at least, complain my ass off while doing it.

So I think that's what I want to focus on for this month. Thanks to October's writing hell, I've started to figure out what elements I need for this game (character customization, storing & referencing MC choices, etc.) so it'd be best for me to build a prototype using that scope.

Ohhhh boy, this is gonna suck. Let's fucking do it.

November Goals

Focus on programming. Learn and build a prototype based on the estimated scope, so I can apply it to the final build.

Continue working on the story outline.

Thank you for reading! Feedback is always greatly appreciated.

[labyrinthe-exe]

laby_log 0.2

oh wow... has it already been like idk... two weeks? it's kind of insane to think about... originally i wanted to do it every week, but a lot of stuff has happened since my last log..

but i released the demo! wip! you can find it here!

anyway... now to actually get into my mental state and where i was at progress wise during the last two weeks

so! i left off in an optimistic spirit, while i was mentally in a downpour and feeling waves of hppelessness.... i also was positive of the future! i had to do some cuts in terms of cutting off legs but....

as soon as i finished that devlog, i ended up just... really really going through it mentally...

i was both tired, fatigued, and like all over the place even more. i had started to write but i was insecure about my story and the pacing and if i was even doing a good job. i was worried about if the story i was telling would even be interesting or if the designs were hot enough, attractive enough... i was wondering if i was doing justice to characterization, too?

that also was the fact i just felt like giving up completely LMFAO

i was powering through, and i wasn't progressing in ways that i want to... hell what can i show for it other than writing? that you can see in the game!

but anyway, i started working on the key art and this is where i spiraled again LOL wow... me and spiraling... is it professional to express all this? i dont know...

and this is where i was unraveling... you see i started out mapping stuff out ( i dont have the screenshots i dont think of the part before i fixed stuff but like its okay these are some i sent to my friends LOL ) but the third pic is where i hated it... i had to go to sleep cause i just wanted to cry

i felt like i was struggling with both trying to improve my art, stay consistent, but also develop an art style all at once in the same frame and that sort of progression... is hard? scary... terrifying... it made my heart totally break

but! i perservered!

and WHAM! i started getting somewhere with the help of amazing community of friends who i just spammed LMFAO like "pls i need it to look like clouds...." and also just in general to make sure i was on the right track with vibes...

i finally felt a little satisfied though it still didnt match the other cains i drew/other love interests but eh... honestly consistency is a hurdle i will have to learn how to get over eventually, i was looking at this game development process as not a fun experience but as a job and that was really fucking with my creative process

a lot.

AND I SWEAR I WAS COOKING THOUGH! once i was getting into a roll, but my progress still felt abysmal with all the things i wanted to achieve: good writing, good story, attractive characters..

i felt i was lagging behind my peers, i felt like i was making a fool of myself. who am i even trying to make games yanno? i'm just a sort of like... artist who struggles to even draw everyday. which doesn't mean im impassionate... i think i am passionate...

it's just a battle...

that and irl i have to take care of the household in terms of chores and the like, i only have so much mental bandwidth... it was hard to socialize some days cause i just felt like i was disappointment... would i even be able to finish in time?

well from the beginning of this log, it's clear i did finish something! aided w/ the power of friendship and eternal shounen determination LOL yes. call me naruto ( don't but funfact in elementary my friends called me ichigo kurosaki )

once again, i had to take an art break, here's my art from 2022 ( the subview ) versus 2025! i'm so happy with my progres even if the sketch i made was kinda shitty too LMFAO i do have plans for a project featuring this character, a little devil ( he'll be in a game with anathema... i'll take about anathema in another post one day, my precious baby )

either way, i found it easy to compare everyones progress to mine... like wow other people are able to be so organized and cool and i struggle with it... even checking off lists, it's hard for me? i felt all over the place, sinking into a pit that i created myself and that i was just showcasing the worst parts of me...

even though thats not true.

honestly i was incredibly worried people wouldn't like cain, the mc, he's like so pivotal to the story it'd be kind of hard to rework the entire story because cain is like... pivotal, i'd just have to write a completely different story...

but the show must go on, i kept making things.

honestly, in real life was a strong part of why i felt kinda crappy. even online, being busy so much and not socializing w/ key people that i usually socialize with was such a damper on my mood. i missed my friends. i wonder if they felt uncared for while i was busy ( which isn't true, but my brain is weird ) WOW AM I OVERSHARING? idk... i feel that its important to showcase that my design process includes being all over the place...

i didn't work every day. i tried to, but i didn't.

while my friends were trucking along on gui, i was frozen in a sense of wondering if i should even continue development or quit while i'm ahead and ghost everyone for being a disappointment.

the deadine was nearing and i still hadn't even written the kiss. the gui wasn't done either which didn't worry me as much as being worried that i would disappoint everyone i told "i'm making a game!" what would i look like then... if i didnt make it? a gameless loser?

i know right. what the heck?

it makes no sense.

i ended up writing the kiss yesterday actually, i was experiencing writer's block cause i was so insecure about my story.

but woo boi. the story got put out the gui got done and my stress... didnt dissipate. either way, i think the last two weeks of the jam was a tough time? i did learn a lot. like what i needed to prioritize, how to better prioritize for my workflow.

i have to go like gui - sprites - writing - editing - backgrounds - writing again... i think? it feels a little weird but i think that'll work for me? i can still fix that though.

ANOTHER THING! i couldnt actually sleep last night. i was nervous how my story would be recieved LMFO isn't that normal i think...

but i released the game!

and there was typos.. which to be fair, i'm not good at cross-editing.. i was trying to go line by line after a friend proofread the first part for me and then i... kept missing stuff- don't be like me, just copy paste all the edits and reformat it. or just write in renpy speak in the first time...

but overall i think i learned a lot from swak.

am i still going to be ambitious?

hell the fuck yes.

but will i know how to better work around my high and low mental peaks? also yes. i think i need to remind myself every so often why i'm doing this... well i love writing, i love art, i love telling stories... i like to share my perspective on things, my characters perspectives, and just ships too in general I LOVE SHIPS! SO MUCH YOU DONT EVEN KNOW

but yeah...

does any of this make sense? i don't know... maybe i overshared, maybe i didn't. but the demo is done. it's still a giant wip, but i feel better about the future of it. the extended demo is coming and i will keep on trucking on. cause that's all i can do.

anwho... laby logging out <3

[ravenstargames]

✦ LOST IN LIMBO DEVLOG #17 | 04.01.2025

March has flown by! This month has been plagued with irl work, but I'm personally really happy with the progress we've made! I'm currently sick as I write this because my body always decides it's funny to get sick when my workload gets the worst; my cat has kicked me out of the bed so he can have it all to himself, and here I am! On an important note, we'll be sharing a roadmap soon with our plans for the Extended Demo release. We are still aiming for a June release, but with Raquel getting a full-time job, there are some changes that have been done to the workflow and workload of the team—more on that along with our roadmap, coming in a few days, hopefully :^)

Now let's jump into March's devlog! 💜

This month Raquel has managed to pull off two expression sets, Raeya and Envy's, and I've coded them accordingly! Now while taking the screenshots I've noticed a few things that need tweaking, but nothing major. Here you have a beautifully blushing Raeya because she deserves some love! 💜

Remember that the Layered Image Tool we use is made by the amazing, ever kind-hearted Feniks!! 💜

Also this dude.

(Maybe this gif looks like a**; it shouldn't, but pre-edit readers beware of the possibility of it happening)

(Update: The gif looked lika a**)

Airyn started working on the next background, the first you'll see in two different times of day! I'm really excited to see it finished. Sadly, we're saving the preview of those for our Kickstarter folks, so I'm afraid the public will have to wait a bit more to see them :^)

She has also polished the background you see above, which some of you might recognize from the early days! There's a bit more storytelling going on, and the lightning has been modified to better represent early morning. She's also fixed some objects, added more, and overall enhanced the River's kitchen!

Here on the writing department we (meaning I) are almost at 70k words. That's more than 20k words of extra content! Which is great!

I still am not finished. There's a whole scene for Ara left to write, a few choices to tweak, and the new prologue ending, which will lead you to the route selection. I'm also trying to implement choices people have been asking for while keeping them organic and make them work. The "I want to kill myself" choice is one of them, haha.

I want to finish everything this month so Allie can take a look at the script during May and fix my Spanish oopsies.

We have patchnotes now! We mentioned this two devlogs ago, but here's the real deal. Thanks again to Feniks who helped me figure out the code; whenever the demo (and in the future, the whole game) updates, you'll get a pop-up notification with the changes. You'll also be able to access the patch notes via a new, sparkly button added to our previous ones! :^)

Also, I programmed our Kickstarter backers' special thanks! This was three or four days of me writing these by hand because it was more comfortable than CTRL+C and CTRL+Ving. Don't ask me why, I just felt way better doing it that way! There were some folks who opted out of having their name displayed, and they get a special thank-you too if you scroll down! :^)

Our composer, Tomás, has been working on our soundtrack; for the Extended Prologue we needed two tracks and they. are. done.

Not absolutely completed as Tomás wants to check them again and actually produce the high quality, finished version, but they are sooooooo cute. Agh. Tomás is working so hard and we love the tracks so much :`)! As I'm writing this, he sent another track, haha. He's the absolute best, so please make sure to support him and his work if you can!

Also, I have been fighting with our manufacturer for some reasons (more on that on our Kickstarter update, as this concerns them the most), but everything should be alright as of now. Hopefully we'll have the definitive proof of our pins after the changes we requested!

As for our irl whereabouts, this month has been specially hard on me due to my PhD courses beginning all at once, but I'm managing! I also have had to write three papers (I'm still writing two of them) with my colleague (and friend!) with a very tight deadline, so I'm dedicating most of my time to that.

On a lighter note, this month I have been taken off my OCD meds! After a year and a half of therapy and meds, I'm finally ready to tackle things without the help of medication, which is as scary as it is exciting. I'm not quitting therapy, though! Not until I'm ready.

Raquel is also getting used to her full-time job, which she's thankfully enjoying! Things are still hectic for her as her day is basically cut in half, but she's confident with a little more time she'll be able to juggle everything efficiently. As a team, we have already talked about what this means for LiL and for Ravenstar, so more on that on our upcoming roadmap :^)

And that's it! Phew! Can't believe I've managed to pull this devlog off in a day. If there's more typos than usual, then you know why, haha. Now I've got to tackle the Kickstarter version, which includes more stuff and our merch update, so I'm off to work on that!

I hope you have enjoyed this devlog, and as always, thank you so much for your support, your kindness, and your patience. It means the world!

Let's talk soon! 💜

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #35 | 09.26.23

Hi everyone!

Hope the beginning of Fall has been kind to you all <3 To be Frank, it has not been Kind to me LMFAO. But I'll get into that, so let's dive in yippee!

Before I do, someone liked this post recently, which was such a throwback. It was before the full demo was out and everything!! I was so young and full of life. I'm going to sprinkle some comparison shots of the new assets with the old ones to break up the text and also walk down memory lane with me! (Full GUI not shown as I'm still waiting on the assets)

Chapter Cards (Left: After | Right: Before)

The "Progress"

I'm going to structure this devlog a little differently from the usual template. The main reason being, for those of you who didn't see, I have not been feeling Myself recently.

This month I found myself all out of sorts. While I felt like I was making progress and doing so much everyday read: fighting for my life, when I looked back on things at the end of this month, I didn't feel like I really did much.

On a higher level, I finished fulfilling Kickstarter physical rewards, opened a Kofi shop of the remaining merch, edited Druk's route and continued writing Etza's route, updated assets and code for the updated demo, and then general commission stuff (BGs from Vui, soundtracks from Peter, etc.).

But overall, Alaris felt largely like it was kinda sitting at around the same spot as it did when I entered this month. Which made me a little sad! I had wanted to make So Much Progress on Alaris because next month I won't be able to work on it really. Then, I realized I haven't taken a break from game development since I started it two years ago HA!!!

The Real Progress

Development for me has been back-to-back. Chapter releases every 1-2 months during my first half year of development, Full Demo release shortly after, Kickstarter shortly after, Full Game Development shortly after. When I was feeling burnt out from Alaris, I made intertwine. Then I was Heavily Involved in the development of two games shortly after.

All of this on top of my IRL responsibilities, which include a job, PhD school, and well, functioning as a normal human occasionally.

And then here we are at the end of September 2023, and I'm wondering why even though I creatively want to work on Alaris, I find my brain literally just getting too tired to think.

Etza CG (Left: After | Right: Before)

I think ever since the Kickstarter, I've put a lot of pressure on myself to consistently put out LOTS of updates for each monthly devlog. I don't want people to think I'm not working on things or I'm not committed to delivering after giving me their hard earned money. But now, with two years under my belt, I'm realizing that is... HMM maybe too high of a standard to put on myself for my first game ever. There are many much more seasoned developers than me who don't put that pressure on themselves (which is Good and Healthy).

So this month, I debated scrounging around and gathering all my crumbs to give you all a devlog that you'll be satisfied with. But I decided ultimately that wouldn't be good for me and would honestly not be the most transparent way to present the current process of things.

And so. Here I am. Head in my Hands. Letting you all know that while I'm not "burnt out," I am.... only human LOL (one human at that). And so some months, like this one, will just not have much progress to report. Not because I'm not working on it or any other deeper reason. But because it's physically impossible and unreasonable for me to be continuously pushing out a steady stream of content.

In-Game Sprites & BGs (Left: After | Right: Before)

Next month, I'lll be taking a vacation. It's actually my first Big, Official one in a Long Time! I'm very excited for it. And while I did initially think about working on Alaris while I was traveling on trains or things like that, I decided to respect my own need to be a Human and just take a break for once in my life. I don't even want to say I Might work on things, because that sentiment alone will pressure me to make some progress. So yes. Next month, there will be no devlog or updates. But please rest assured, I am "working on Alaris" by letting myself just Exist and Rest Up!

Not an Alaris screenshot but it is market research that deserves to be included because I played House in Fata Morgana recently and it was Phenomenal!

Thank you all for understanding and your continued support. I'm extremely appreciative to have such a kind and patient community. Hope you all have a wonderful October filled with Fall Treats, and I'll see you in November! <3