First Developer Update, April 1st, 2020

Hi everyone! It's haru here with the first developer update.

I know I've been silent for a bit, but I wanted to get a good amount of work done so that I could have a big lengthy post to to share all the work I've done in the past few months, lots of things have changed as I'm sure you can see.

First off, I switched engines.

This was an extremely important decision to make as I wanted to make sure I was working in a game engine that would allow me to have absolute freedom over how my game works. And the possibility to add new types of gameplay elements in with ease.

I switched from Ren'py (the visual novel engine) to Unity. I know since this IS a visual novel my switch kinda doesn't make sense, but I also want to port the game to consoles, specifically the Nintendo Switch, and I know Unity has that capability. I also wanted the ability to integrate new features with more ease.

Second off, I switched art styles.

I was not happy with the art style of the game, and I disliked how Ingrid looked. It also significantly slowed my development time, and overall, doing the art myself was just not the way to go in my eyes.

The old, first concept of Ingrid, and the old Steam page capsule.

Fortunately enough for me, stellar artist and amazing friend Polygon joined me on this development journey to produce wonderful artwork for the game, as you can see below.

THE NEW ART STYLE (from Concept to Final Product)

The first concept of the new capsule, drawn by yours truly.

Poly's concept based off of the first.

Poly's second concept.

The final image.

As you can see, a tremendous upgrade. Check out more of Poly and his work here.

Poly has been hard at work on the art and I couldn't be more happy and proud. I can't wait to share more once he finishes.

Speaking of which, I also have some sprites for Ingrid's new design which are absolutely bodacious.

Ingrid's looking pretty adorable here, don't you think?

CLOSING REMARKS

All in all, development has been going exceptionally well, though I still need funds for specific prospects of it, as a result I've been pitching the game to multiple publishers and waiting for their response.

I thank you for reading this development update! Me and my small but passionate team are working hard.

I think you'll love the game, especially it's music, it's really something else. Who knows, we might have some surprises up our sleeves.

(Quick detour to appreciate the game's composer, Ocoenia, she's an amazing musician and artist, check her out here!)

Thanks for reading! Here's some fresh in progress sketches of some new sprites from Poly.

• haru