maneki-mushi

[maneki-mushi]

The Traded Groom - extended version released!

You can now play the extended version of The Traded Groom! Continue past the wedding night in four new epilogues and three extra stories, and see the many forms your relationship with Yùzhàn may take.

It also has a Coming Soon page on Steam.

(by the way, Saint Ceri is 30% off on steam for the summer sale!)

[maneki-mushi]

The Traded Groom - extended version

I'm adding more content to The Traded Groom for Otome jam! The extended version will contain: 📖 20k additional words ✨ 4 epilogues for different relationship outcomes; friendship, budding romance, a cold partnership, and remaining strangers 🌹 3 extra stories 🎨 5 new CGs (including 3 NSFW) It will also remain free! I'll also be releasing a small booklet containing 6k words of writing from Yùzhàn's PoV and some concept art.

[maneki-mushi]

Played The Traded Groom and its was so good!!! Really like the unique premise too, I love my steppes romances 🥺 Also, the female lead is so hot too lol, I wish we could see more of them...

Just wondering, what are the five endings? i can only get up to the third ending. a little hint please?

Hi! Thanks for playing The Traded Groom and enjoying it :) There'll definitely be more of it as I've already written epilogues and extras! The five endings are:

(ENDING 1: THE FIRST NIGHT) = romantic ending with the NSFW scene

(ENDING 2: A BETTER TOMORROW)= romantic ending without the NSFW scene

(ENDING 3: TENTATIVE TRUST)= platonic ending (so same as romantic ending, making generally kind, trusting choices; just no kiss)

(ENDING 4: AT ARM’S LENGTH)= make generally distrusting choices like not asking any of the questions in the list, choosing choices that express suspicion or are unkind, but eventually choosing to allow him to stay when he mentions he can leave

(ENDING 5: TURNED AWAY)= same as above, but choosing to ask him to leave Hope that helps!

[maneki-mushi]

The Traded Groom is released!

The Traded Groom is out! Marry a man you've never met and decide whether you can trust him. It's: ✔️ free 📖 13k words long 🌶️ spicy (optional) 🎨 animated with Live2D Play it here!

[maneki-mushi]

The Traded Groom will feature Live2D! Here's a peek at the intro and some of Yùzhàn's poses:

I actually only fully got this working like yesterday :') It was a bit of a technical nightmare and I want to do more tweaks to transitions, but I'm happy with how expressive Yùzhàn looks so far!

[maneki-mushi]

The Traded Groom - Josei After Dark jam

Today's your wedding day, and you've never met your husband.

You're the chief of several semi-nomadic clans; he's an imperial prince of the Han people, with whom you have a complicated political relationship. You meet for the first time on the same day you marry, and you quickly find that he isn't the arrogant, prideful prince you'd expected. Get to know him over the night and find out whether he's a spy for your enemies or a victim of political schemes; and most of all, whether this marriage can work. I'll be working on The Traded Groom throughout Josei After Dark jam! It'll be a shorter project (about 10k words) with optional adult content. I'll post more about it as I make progress!

[maneki-mushi]

i drew a cute little best boy kyros from the new @maneki-mushi vn game Saint Ceri on steam

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri is released and on sale!

Saint Ceri features three love interests, 6 monogamous endings, and every possible combination of poly endings! But getting there will require careful communication and withstanding the pressure of the church you belong to.

It also features:

📖 120k words

🎨 28 total base CGs

🌹 Soft femdom (two submissive male LIs, one dominant female LI)

💋 An optional SFW mode

💔 Optional jealousy and angst; break everyone’s heart!

You can buy it now on itch.io or Steam, with a small discount during the week of release!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri releases next week!

The poly ending with Eira and Kyros is the hardest to reach; Kyros is hesitant about the very concept, and Eira will withdraw at the first sign of poor communication… you'll have to make the right choices to reach this ending!

Wishlist Saint Ceri on Steam!

[maneki-mushi]

UNDYING: The Beast

I made something for o2a2 again!

Your town calls you a witch, but you're a simple, widowed herbalist. Tonight is your first brush with the supernatural. A man is hunted and finds refuge in your home, and you can tell he's something other than human. Features: 1k words 1 sprite 2 endings Download it or play it in browser over on itch.io!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri - upcoming adult otome

Saint Ceri is an adult otome with poly options that will be released on July 31st!

It features three love interests, 6 monogamous endings, and every possible combination of poly endings! But reaching your happy endings will require careful communication and withstanding the pressure of the church you belong to.

It also features:

📖 120k words

🎨 28 total base CGs

🌹 Soft femdom (two submissive male LIs, one dominant female LI)

💋 NSFW scenes, and an optional SFW mode

💔 Optional jealousy and angst; break everyone’s heart!

Play the demo now on itch.io or Steam!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri - June devlog

Read it on itch.io | Play the demo | Wishlist on Steam Hi everyone!

This is the last devlog for Saint Ceri before its release on July 31st, and I'm doing a lot of final checks and tweaks! A lot of June was spent on testing, which is great because I'd missed some really major bugs! Some endings couldn't be reached at all due to me writing some variables wrong/putting them in the wrong place. I've now confirmed all endings are obtainable and all CGs can be unlocked! There may be smaller bugs still hiding in there and I'll try to find more before release, but I feel like like being able to reach all the endings is the most important thing! I also tested the SFW alt versions of scenes to make sure there's no unwanted nudity (the sprites all have naked and underwear versions, so there's a lot of if/elses based on which mode you're playing in).

Another thing about CGs: I'd been thinking about whether there's a better way to organise my CGs, to make it clearer to players which ones are NSFW, which ones are the SFW alts... My issue was that players playing in NSFW mode would see all the locked slots for the SFW alts and possibly feel confused (or just annoyed at the feeling of incompletion!), and vice versa! It was hard to figure out but I've managed to customise the CG gallery to have three separate tabs for general CGs (SFW), NSFW, and SFW alts (pictured below, the details you see when playing in SFW mode). It isn't perfect, but at least it lets you know what's what! I'll improve on this in future games!

I've now submitted the full game for review by Steam support, and I'm hoping for a smoother experience than a lot of vn devs seem to get :') I've submitted it this early to make sure I have plenty of time if there are any problems.

There isn't much left for me to do apart from additional testing! I'll be taking some time to participate in o2a2, it'll be nice to make something ultra short after mostly focusing on Saint Ceri for so long.

Thanks as always for reading!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri- May devlog & Release date

Read it on itch.io | Play the demo | Wishlist on Steam

Hi everyone!

First, the big news: I'll be releasing Saint Ceri on both itch.io and Steam on July 31st! The game will cost $15 and the booklet will be an add-on for $2. I'll release with a small discount on both platforms.

This month I've finalised the booklet and done an initial round of testing for the entire game! I've caught a lot of bugs already, but I'm scared there's a lot more hiding in there :') I'll keep testing throughout June.

Here are screenshots of some of the late game content that took tons of testing :') These are from the festival (where you'll hang out with whoever you chose to end up with; this screenshot is from the BEK end, so romancing all three LIs) and the final route choice scene (which was a nightmare to write and test!! There's tons of variants, and the screenshot is from the KE/B version, where you've promised Kyros and Eira a relationship between the three of you, but told Bryn you'd be with him alone. The variants where you have to choose who to break up with have a fair bit of crying...).

I did do more creative work in between testing: I'll be taking part in the Josei After Dark jam between August and November! I'm planning a short VN with a single male LI, taking place in the same setting as Saint Ceri/THJ but in the Han Empire. It'll have an (optional) NSFW scene and multiple endings (romantic, platonic, unfriendly etc), and I'd like to make a DLC with epilogues/additional stories after the jam. The jam is pretty long, but I'm keeping the scope small as I expect I'll need a break after Saint Ceri's release (and I'll probably need to make lots of patches in week 1 haha). I'll share more about the jam project when the jam draws closer!

Thanks as always for reading!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri- April devlog

Read it on itch.io | Play the demo | Wishlist on Steam

Hi everyone! I narrowly managed to do everything I'd planned for this month, which means all of Saint Ceri is now drawn, written, and scripted in!! All I need to do now is very thorough testing. But let me get into the details of what I did this month:

Art-wise, I finished the CGs for the final ending and drew some extra portraits for the booklet! Writing-wise, I finished writing little concept art notes for the booklet. It isn't much; just a tiny bit of commentary on the concept art for each character. I've also finished the booklet in general! It isn't a massive one (to compare it to THJ's, it has fewer stories but has a more thorough walkthrough, and has actual concept art), so it is going to be cheaper than THJ's. I do still need to proofread and export it all, so I'll leave it alone for a bit before doing that. I've done a lot of scripting and some initial testing! The endings work and have all the script lines. But as I said above, I will need to do lots of testing! I want to make sure there are no (or not many) gamebreaking bugs on release. If you were there when THJ was first finished, you might remember I had to do lots of quick fixes during the first weeks :') Uploading to Steam is a more convoluted process, so I'd like to avoid having to do so many fixes. The first week after release is also pretty crucial on Steam in terms of reviews and gaining visibility, so I have to make sure Saint Ceri is quite polished.

As I said before, I'll be releasing Saint Ceri in July/August, so that gives me a lot of time for testing! I'll take screenshots as I go and show off a little more of the game.

Thanks as always for reading!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri- March devlog

Read it on itch.io | Play the demo | Wishlist on Steam Hi everyone! I did a lot of things this month, including some tedious things I'd been putting off :')

Art-wise, I finished a batch of CGs and only have two CGs left to draw! I've also already started these final two CGs, and plan to finish them next month. All the currently finished CGs were also exported in all the needed formats and configured for the gallery, added to Steam achievement icons, etc (I was sure I'd done this already for the solo ending CGs, but discovered I hadn't... I spent a while cursing past-me for the additional work haha). I wrote more content for the booklet (a bit of LI PoVs, and I also finished writing the walkthrough and achievements guide). The most tedious task this month was scripting all the endings! But the first pass is done (and that's also the most time-consuming pass where I script all the sprite changes; the next passes are focused on testing, tweaking things and adding music and other simpler things). It's a relief and makes the game feel so much closer to completion.

In April, I'll start the month with some art and try to finish the last two CGs, and also try to finish the PoV stories for the booklet. My goal is to have things mostly finished before May to dedicate some months to only testing the game and putting the booklet together (I have no clue how long testing will take since THJ was cut into chapters which made testing a bit easier, but I figure I'll need to give myself plenty of time to find all the silly mistakes I might have made). I'm aiming to release in the late summer; July or August, but no promises yet as I've heard Steam can take a super long time to approve builds which can cause delays. I'll likely only announce a date once my build has been approved there, just to be safe!

Lastly, you might want to check out a jam VN​ I did backgrounds for! The sprite artist is a good friend of mine so it's really lovely to see our art side by side.

Thanks as always for reading!

[maneki-mushi]

Saint Ceri - February devlog

Read it on itch.io | Play the demo | Wishlist on Steam

Hi everyone! Like I'd hoped, I finished writing Saint Ceri's script this month! The story reached 117k words (I originally estimated it would be about 80k... but I am notoriously bad at estimating wordcounts). This gave me a boost of motivation so I started writing content for the booklet earlier than planned, and already wrote an extra from Bryn's PoV and started Kyros's.

Art-wise, I finished the base version for the 3 NSFW CGs I was working on! I now need to draw the variants and polish things a bit more. I also started sketching the final two CGs (a SFW and NSFW CG for the route where you end up with all three LIs), and they're going to be the most challenging CGs yet :') it's so hard to fit four characters into a CG and make it look nice! That's it for this month! I'm decently happy with my progress for February. Wrapping up the game's writing is definitely a big relief! The plan for March is to finish those 3 NSFW CGs, make their SFW alts, and continue working on the final two CGs. I think I'll start scripting the ending content too (most of the game is scripted already but not tested; the ending content takes up a whole 32k words so that's still a lot to script, but at least there's no complicated branching). Thanks as always for reading!

[maneki-mushi]

Hi, I was just wondering if you had any future plans to release The Hero's Journey on Steam?

Hi! I don't plan to because honestly, THJ is a bit buggy :') I made it using an older version of the engine I use so it has some issues that can't be fixed, and being my first game I also just made a lot of dumb mistakes T_T So I feel like I can't share it to such a big audience (also an audience that would probably be way harsher about the bugs lmao, itch.io users are very understanding). And I'd also like to remake it in a few years (both to redo all the art and add some new routes and characters), so I feel I might as well wait until then! Sorry if that's a bit disappointing! I definitely understand Steam is more accessible (especially when it comes to buying things), and I do plan to put all my future projects on there!