#PROGRESS REPORT/DEVLOG IS HERE

[rr-tombscribe]

PROGRESS REPORT #6 - GUYS HE'S CUDDLING WITH ASHLEY AWW

I love them! My silly cannabilistic, satanic, weirdo, obsessive siblings!

link to the progress report: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2378900

[herotome]

Devlog #173

Hi-ho, Wudge here. Writing this devlog rather more punctually for the first time in a while!

I updated my Ko-Fi with some more expressions...! Mostly Jade iirc. I have a few more that I'm still working on.

Also, a peek for fem-mode Griffin:

Sprite lined and colored, as always, but the incredible Remnantation <3 Griffin's sprites have by far given us the most work... but it's worth it, I think...!

I experimented a bit with lipstick colors last night. The light bubblegum pink seems best so far, but I'll want to try more of a proper red sometime.

I also made a blush for Jade with a sort of goofy smile, and a couple of new mouth and eye shapes (as I alluded to last week):

And I made progress coding in expressions for her...... I've reached the dreadful bird minigame. 😩

I still have a few other irons in the fire, but that's all I can report on for now.

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[coffindependency]

progress report #8

happy august!! kit9 released the eighth devlog of theirs today, but it's pretty short. find it here!!

the thumbnail this time is... this...

blood!! windows!! ominous dark spot in the middle of the screen!! i don't really even have a guess as to what's going on here. nightmare?

the first gameplay image we have is this:

i spy with my little eye... three dead cultists!! we've seen this place with the stars (or a similar one) before, in nemlei's 4th devlog,

but this scene poses a lot of questions!!! why is andrew inside the circle? how did they manage to make a summoning circle in the between realm? did the demon take the bodies, andrew, ashley, and the summoning circle from the real world..? what deal are they making??? are both of them making this deal?? i guess we'll find out...

i do recall this from march's devlog...

but he's in a very different place and ashley is nowhere to be found!! hmm...

hey!! they’re in an apartment!! we saw ashley in someone else's apartment way back in devlog #4, but now it's just andrew and ashley

the use of "neighbor" and the neighbor telling them to "divorce already" (they're so married) makes me think that they bought an apartment!! wtf!! with what money?? they probably didn't legally move in, and maybe they haven't moved in at all, really. strange!! i'm excited to get to this part in the game!!!!

finally, we have some actual progress reporting!! this is their progress map, with completed and remaining work to be done!!

they say they're unsure of how long it'll take to fully complete the game, but they did say that there are still three episodes to be released!!! (episode three is two separate episodes, plus episode four)

also, that's a lot of cutscene art!!

i really do hope they're able to release episode 3 this year, but since neither nemlei nor kit9 have said anything beyond "probably this year," it's hard to say!!

[blank-house]

Keyframes Devlog #1

Long time no talk! (Or "Hey!" If this is the first time you're seeing a dev log from me ^^) It’s already been a couple of months since we released a snippet of Keyframes for the Otome Jam and with it has been a lot of changes. Which includes something of a bad news. Instead of as soon as possible, players can expect the extended demo to be finished around Spring of next year. It’s not our favorite news to share, but after the jam I want to be sure that whatever we output is as close to polished as can be! Rest assured, production for the rest of the Spring Demo is still on-going but I’m currently funding the development myself so I hope you’ll be patient as we work on the project! (Keep reading for some snippets, y'all!)

For now, I’m happy to report on the progress we’re making on our BGs! Game jams are not to be taken lightly— consider it a lesson learned haha— and because of the high-paced event there were some discrepancies with the game’s art style. As such, one of our goals with the extended demo is to update the style so that they’re all consistent! Some of the scenes are still a work in progress but as thanks for your patience, here’s some BG art for Keyframes! Peep the study room on campus, a hot spot in a downtown area, as well as the inside of an adorable shop— all of which you can visit in the extended demo! One BG might look familiar if you played the current demo-- It's Reynah's backyard! Her space has been updated for the art style and to better tell the story, but we hope it still gives off sweet and cozy party vibes! A lot of new hands have joined the project to help make this possible so please join me in a round of applause to roisale (who worked on the downtown related art), inkdem (the study room) and robin (Reynah's backyard) for their hard work! Bit by bit, the project's coming to life with their help so check out their work and say thank youuuuu <3 I’ll make another update post when we’ve made more progress on Keyframes, but for now: welcome to the game’s tumblr! Feel free to submit any questions you have about Keyframes or the cast! I’m happy to answer your curious thoughts if there are any. ^^ Thank you for reading up to here, that’s all from me and the team for now. Till next time!

[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

[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.

[ashley-kins]

My thoughts on the fact that this whole time, we've only had screenshots and gameplay from Decay:

Holy fuck. This changes a LOT

For those of you who didn't know, when the devlog was first published (AKA when I read it) it didn't have the note that Burial hadn't even started. That got edited in after I don't know how long. (Which is why I was so confused when people started saying that burial is pretty much dead)

SO... what are my thoughts exactly?

Well, some things are still going to be kept the same between Decay and Burial. For example: flashbacks. That's not going to change. What might actually change is when/where/how you get these flashbacks. As well as some other things. (If you played the other games Nemlei made, you'd understand what I mean)

(If you want me to make a post about what things I think would be in both Decay/Burial let me know)

Things I thought would be in Burial: Andrew AND Ashley in the demon realm/in between realm together, due to the Demon saying to Burial Ashley to bring Andrew along. The new question is why did the demon also summon Andrew in Decay to be with Ashley.

As we can see from Devlog 04, this seems to be Andrew's first time in the demon realm (or well, the first time that he can remember being here). Meaning Ashley is with Andrew during this. Which is why I thought this was burial.

Next are these screenshots from Devlog 07 and Progress Report 02

Andrew demon. Who as far as we knew at the time, only excited in the "Sane Friendship" version of Burial.

Next Progress Report 03:

I can't believe Ashley is not freaking the fuck out. I mean, she's in the SAME FUCKING PLACE THAT SHE DIED/KILLED ANDREW

Like, I thought for sure that this would be Burial so of course Ashley has nothing to worry about, she didn't have that vision, Decay Ashley did. If Ashley is freaking out, she's definitely doing it internally.

Progress Report 05:

As someone pointed out when Progress Report 05 came out, this seemed to be the same place that was in this promotional art.

Which would be placed in "Questionable Love" Burial due to seeing Ashley's hickey on her neck.

And of course we cannot forget this lovely thing from Progress Report 10

.......

Okay, so... Now what? What are my new thoughts then if everything in the devlog/progress reports have been from Decay?

Well... There's probably going to be yet another version of Questionable Love in the form of the Decay route. It was a thought I had, but I didn't think it'd actually happen.

I do wonder when them camping happens. If it's at the start of Episode 3, it definitely makes sense. They'd need some sort of shelter while getting new IDs to rent that new apartment we've seen. But... Going back to that hickey on Ashley's neck... We saw in at least Burial's vision that Andrew and Ashley were in a bed. So, does that mean this camping takes place after getting an apartment? If so, why are they camping? For fun? To hunt for new food find a lone person to sacrifice? Or did something happen to their new apartment as well? (They can't fucking catch a break, can they?)

And a new question: Why is Andrew's soul out of his body in DECAY!? we already had that question for Burial Andrew, but now that we know He's getting his soul ripped out in both Burial and Decay, that makes things very interesting.

[wonfiidoesgamedev]

100 Days of Gamedev (Day 1)

I started the course i picked yesterday, and as part of one of its first lessons it asks you to write a short expectation(s) paragraph essentially about what you want out of programming and game development. Heres what i ended up writing

At the end of the day i want to learn to code in order to make silly multiplayer roguelike games similar to Lethal Company or REPO. To make that happen, ill need to know how to code. When i get where i want to be ill be able to bring people together around something ive created, and will be able to take pride in both my end products and progress ive made to get there. I'll practice pretty early in the morning. Make a coffee, wake up for 15-20 minutes or so, then get right into practicing. I intend to practice at least 15 minutes everyday. I'll set Discord to DND and close Unnecessary tasks. I'll also make sure to keep my desk clean and free of unnecessary things that could distract me. Ive started a Devlog on Tumblr where i intend to post about my progress everyday for the next 100 days (you're reading it right now!). This gives me something to look back on to measure progress, as well as some amount of extra accountability since its public.

I'm realizing its a little uncomfortable/embarrassing to post about stuff like this publicly, but it's alright.

Today was a light day otherwise as far as learning. learned some definitions about "The 4 pillars of Godot"

Scenes: reusable templates that can be used for most anything in your project.

Nodes: Building blocks of scenes.

Scripts: text files that give instructions to the computer, nodes, scenes, and Godot itself.

Signals: events that nodes emit to report whats happening in the project. you connect Signals to nodes in a script to make things happen essentially.

this isnt exactly how these things were described in the course, i've described them in my own words here. Both because i think it helps the learning process, and i dont want to get in trouble with leaking aspects of a paid course or something like that lol.

[rottenshotgungames]

Footfall Progress Report

Hey y’all! Sorry for being gone for so long, my efforts have been focused on formatting.

I’m about halfway done with the layout, if my estimations are to be believed. That means that

the Footfall public playtest will be releasing by the end of this month.

Thank you to everyone who has been following the Devlogs and has followed me here or on Itch. I cannot wait for you guys to get your hands on the game! I’ll keep posting more devlogs post release, but right now getting this book formatted is my main priority. Just know that I’m not dead, and I’m definitely not slacking

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, and are interested in learning more about my stealth-action RPG set in an industrial empire with eldritch gods and occult forces, you can find the devlogs here: https://www.tumblr.com/rottenshotgungames/750326109405691904/footfall-devlog-masterpost

[hollowmend]

Fetch Re;Quest Devlog #6

Another month has come and gone, and I'm slowly making progress on Fetch Re;Quest!

I'm in a weird limbo where the game feels like it's almost finished, while at the same time I feel like I have a million more things to do. There are a lot of art assets in particular that still need to be done. I'm getting there one piece at a time, haha.

I'm currently working on the sprites, so here's a peek at two new characters!

Isabella and Sophia are Connor's younger sisters. They're twelve, and they like to keep tabs on who likes who. You'll see them a lot if you choose to play the social deduction game Of Fiends and Fangs.

Once I'm done with the art assets, the script will need a quick editing pass, and then it's time for my favorite part- coding! I'm waiting on music and UI commissions, but what I've seen of them so far is exciting ✨

That's about everything I have to report! Next month I should have even more visuals to share, so look forward to that ☺️

[knight-otu]

Toady's Devlog for 01/30/2024

Toady One, from the Dwarf Fortress Development Log:

Sorry for the news delay - I've been expecting a 50.12 patch and it's been moving slower than anticipated. We recently posted an adventure mode progress update over in the Steam news. And here's the report and the monthly Q&A. Hopefully the patch will be together soon!

Note that Toady refers to the report and monthly Q&A of January here, which he posted at the beginning of the month. The February versions will be posted in the coming days.

[blackblooms]

October Progress Devlog:

One whole month passed since the last devlog and there is quite a bit of progress to report.

---------------- Progress made: -World 4 (Bleeding Forest) and 5 (Mount Evermore) are now close to completion, mostly needing some work on the enemy placement and cutscenes. -Functional versions of those two worlds bosses have been made. -Im pretty much done designing the main game ennemies and have started making the final world (cloud castle) -Ive been making some changes to the prologue to make it into a more engaging level. -A few bits of cutscenes have been written here and there, but not much progress there. -I`ve recorded and rearranged some of the characters' voice bites. ( i call them blahs)

-----------------

Plans for November/December: -Working on Cloud Castle. It's overall a smaller world than the others, but it's still gonna be a lot of work as it's the climax of the game and will need some set pieces. -Getting started on the final boss. I got some ideas, but i need to test them out and see what works. -Make the bleeding forest and mount evermore side paths + mid-bosses. -general writing work. Lots of cutscenes and NPCs are currently unfinished or missing. -streamlining the plans for the postgame. I think the current format is both too ambitious and unfocused.

------------ That will be it for this month. Feel free to ask if there is anything about the game you would like to see or hear about. I kind of dont have a clue what im supposed to use for sneak peaks at the moment.

[coffindependency]

december devlog!!!

the devlog can be found here!!

look at themmm!!! cutie pies!! this has instantly made its way to be one of my favorite pictures of them!! 🥺

the background here is so so pretty!! if it weren’t for the red leaves on the ground and the broken path, i would’ve thought they were in the real world!! idk, maybe they are… maybe it’s like minecraft? lol. i believe this is the tower we saw in the previous devlogs/progress reports, maybe the one with the unreachable stairs, but definitely the one with the handsome fellow:

no andrew to be seen in these pictures, but he’s around somehwere. doing… stuff?

next, nemlei describes the process of creating tcoaal!! copied and pasted:

For a few years before The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, I had been dabbling in making visual novels as a hobby by entering visual novel jams. These were month long jams with no specific goals other than to create a visual novel from start to finish. I entered maybe once a year for... uhhh?? four years? I don't remember, and you don't care. My point here is that it was enough so that I noticed a pattern...

If a jam allowed additional gameplay in the visual novel, the entries utilizing it were often among the most played ones. "Huh." thought little ol' me, and schemed a wicked scheme. The next jam that came around (and I had time to enter) was Nanoreno, and time had come to test my hypothesis.

I only had a month, so I knew from the start the story had to be a "bottle episode", as in the whole story must be contained within one location to save time, and limit how much art I needed to make.

So who were the characters, why were they there, and why wouldn't they switch locations? The easiest answer was the classic "they're locked in and must escape" which is a story everyone and their dog has written at some point. Whatever, it's just a game jam I thought, and carried on.

Then came the characters, at first Ashley was going to be a silent protagonist named Player (yeah, you read that right). I wanted to toy with the idea that players tend to do the most unhinged things when allowed. So there'd be the Player, and one support character whose sole purpose was to spout exposition, and react to the player doing player things. Oh, the humor that would ensue.

There is one small remnant of this idea still in the game. It's at the very beginning when the player wakes Andrew up. He explains something, and "Player" responds with an emoji bubble thing, and Andrew then says "Quit your complaining!" despite the fact that Ashley hadn't really complained out loud. Now, imagine if the entire game was like this........... It would've sucked so bad. I dropped the concept pretty much right away.

This original concept is also why the narrator addresses "you" (the Player), instead of being in pure third person or first person point of view. I did enjoy this game master type format though, so even after making Ashley an actual character, I kept it.

Since Ashley was now a character, she needed to have a story. Cue the whole childhood incident (again, generic, but whatever it's a game jam). This also elevated Andrew to a character status, rather than a mere exposition spouter. Great! Now I knew who they were, and had a story to tell other than "unhinged room escape". (Which is a game I'd still want to play, as long as it isn't made by me.)

This is the first ever sketch I made of the two. Almost final design straight out the bag lol.

This was me still figuring out the UI. I don't remember what was the idea behind having the names off to the side, but thankfully I decided against it.

I drafted rather lengthy character sheets for the duo, as the more I wrote, the more they revealed themselves to be curious little jerks, with a lot going on between them. The story formed almost on its own after that. I knew I couldn't go too in-depth though, as the game jam imposed a hard time limit. So I shelved most of it thinking "well maybe I'll tell this story later on my own time", and left a sequel bait at the end of the story, to give myself an opening to get back to it "one day" that I assumed would never come. And also to give myself time to see if there really even was an interesting story to tell, or if this was one of those "really cool idea!!!"s that emerge out of the blue, but rot away as soon as you sit down to write them. If you're a fellow storyteller, you know what I'm talking about.

Leaving an "in" to continue later is something I've done plenty before. I might very well get back to my other game jam novels one day, which is part of the reason I took them down. For now though, there is no room for such endeavors, as The Coffin of Andy and Leyley must be completed, and will remain the sole priority until then.

Back to my "visual novels with gameplay perform better than pure visual novels" -hypothesis! I entered the game jam with my corny-ass bottle episode organ harvesting edgelord romp, and lo' and behold!!

It did gain more attraction than my other (gameplay-less) visual novels! In fact, it gains enough momentum to leave the visual novel scene. The new influx of people turns my data useless, and the hypothesis goes out the window. So in the end, was it the gameplay that attracted people? Or was it purely the oh, so scandalously unhealthy relationship the duo has? You tell me.

Somehow the game got caught in a shitflinging contest between the self-appointed morality police, and the people sick and tired of being told what kind of fiction they're allowed to read.

Suddenly, life gave me two choices, much like a visual novel would.

Do I take the game down to appease the people telling me to kill myself?

Or do I create the story I already wanted to create and get paid for it?

Boy oh boy, what a dilemma. I contemplated it for all of two nano seconds!

I dug out all the stuff I had shelved, and soon had the draft of the full story all ready to go. I went over it a few times, deemed it to be a lot of fun, and begun production of the full game. Episode 2 released on Steam in October 2023, and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley wrecked havoc across social media! And I thought there was a shitstorm before? HAHAHHAHAHA!!!!

And here we are now.

I want to thank you, my dear audience, for all your support. And I also want to thank the people who tirelessly pissed and moaned about some crappy indie game for months and months and months, helping it gain popularity beyond my comprehension. I would've never, ever gotten this far if it wasn't for you! The kinder thanks goes to the audience though, obviously. Thank you for weathering the storm with me, I hope you'll like the terrible little story you've helped to subsist.

The development continues, unchanged. I can't wait to show you the next episode. It's just awful, I really like it! Hope you will too.

Have a wonderful end of the year,

- The Author of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, Your Least Favorite Person.

[manonamora-if]

Another late weekly devlog... but this time I didn't forget, YAY! Also taking this space to announce I will be more or less offline for the next two weeks at least. I may pop up here and there, maybe dropping some stuff unannounced...

Anyway, let's recap what's been done this past week(s):

This is super recent - aka just now - and completely done last minute, but I've added another template to the Template Assets page! The Title Page Template, with 7 different ways of making a simple title/menu/landing page for SugarCube Projects (both with the BaseUI and Custom). Download it here!

Also complete, published and downloadable, is the SugarCube Guide! Loads of words, loads of code, updated explanations and fixed examples. And now you can use it offline! Get it there!

Also, I should have access to a Mac laptop in a few days (for a week), so I'll try to see how to make the Tweego Folder useable for Mac computers!

Also, also, I'll be adding all these to GitHub soon (promise) so to track issues report in the repos...

Anyways, if you've tried any of those assets, consider leaving a little comment or a rating :) Or send me the link to your project!

MelS completed all edits for Chapter 5 and sent it back to me. I'm doing one last sweep at the document for missed comments and grammar before I'll start coding.

In the meantime, he's back writing for Chapter 6.

It's been busy town here lately, so not much more progress on anything else. I've mainly been playing games in my down time (see @manonamora-if-reviews, I'm trying to finish the Comp 2 months late!) or trying to hack at projects, or organising secret stuff.

Loads of stuff happening in the close future:

The ShuffleComp entries will start trickling in in the next few weeks. Voting will start just after the New Year!

The SeedComp Round 2 has started! If you are looking for an idea to make a game, almost 100 seeds were submitted this season. Deadline to create a game based on those seeds is end of February!

Made a short game this year (>30min play)? Want people to talk about it? Check out the IF Short Game Showcase! They accept up to 3 entries!

Also recently started, the annual Partim 500. It's like the @neo-twiny-jam but in French and with a theme!

The Second Round of the XYZZY Awards will be happening very soon.

Other fun stuff happening soon:

The Queer Vampire Game Jam starting in January

The Zack Jam starting in January

The Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2024 (parser IF) starting in March

The SpringThing also in March (you need to submit an intent before March!)

Other jams happening with the @neointeractives (TBA)!!

I think that's about it for now :)

I'm going back to pressing business :/

[rainspicestudios]

[DEVLOG] Phantasia Game Jam 2024 - Week 2

Hello everyone! It's Rain, here again with another devlog for Project: Maselosia, my project for Phantasia Game Jam 2024.

A few words to open the devlog?

Asks are open, whether it's for me or game characters! Would you like to see character profiles?

Expect development to be slow yet steady until September. More info in "final thoughts".

Let's start with this week's in-progress screenshot!

Game Art

Everything has been drawn for puzzle number two, except the flashback scenes and tiny imagery for the characters' inventory.

Writing

All good up to puzzle two. I have comments, descriptions, and dialogues left until I reach the first "real cutscene".

Audio

Nothing changed on that front. I'm also debating if Project: Maselosia needs voice acting?

Puzzles

Puzzle two is going well so far. However I'm having issues with the textbox, which I need to fix quickly. Nothing major or game-breaking, but it would be a great improvement to the game.

UI & Menus

Still no design in mind, but I'll get some menus done with the inventory. The main menu is not my priority right now, as I think I'll get it done when chapter 1 is being beta-tested.

Final thoughts

I will not be home in two weeks as I'll be on vacation, and I have an internship report to write before that. I will absolutely keep working on Project: Maselosia, but at a slower pace.

That is all I had to share this week! Thank you all for reading and be ready for next week's update ✨

Project: Maselosia is a is a fantasy puzzle game where two shapeshifters try to escape a cult and go back to their normal lives. According to the Phantasia Game Jam rules, chapter one will be released before October 31st and will be available for download on itch.io!

[within-your-eyes-if]

Chapter 3 Progress Update

Hello everyone!

As promised, it's the 1st so I will be posting some Chapter 3 progress! I gave an update a few weeks ago stating it was around 20k words, it's now over 30k!

Almost 2/3 possible openings and their routes have been completed! "Almost" because I'll going over final drafts for the last bits for two segments today and tomorrow. I'm hoping to have the third segment finished by the end of this week.

I was wanting to have them all done by now, but alas, aside from the work I did on Ch2, real life also happened. But that's okay, I still feel like I'm making good progress all things considered.

Now for today's update! This is explained more in the devlog, but I added a new scene for Gabriel's ending in Ch2, one where if you decide not to ask about a tavern and choose to go to bed. It's nothing too major, though, just some more time with our young knight.

Aside from that, a few things were reported and fixed and big thanks for helping me find them! I also added a some more text here and there to improve the 'flow' in some scenes.

That's about all. Thank you for your support and have a great weekend!