The digital album is released, and some thoughts of the next game

Good afternoon, friends! This is orscat.

The first free DLC is now live. If you own the base game, it will download automatically. You can find it in the "Digital Album" folder within the game's installation directory.

This DLC includes two parts. First, there are ten additional CGs. Three of them were actually drawn during development but weren’t used due to the main story’s more serious tone, so I decided to put in a little extra effort and share them as a separate gallery.

The other part is a LoRA training set for Delia. These were completed early in the project, and by my current standards, they’re actually pretty rough (laughs), but still good enough for training a LoRA — the LoRA I’m currently using was trained with this very set.

The Ren'Py port is also progressing steadily, but it’ll still be a long while before it’s actually released.

Lately, I’ve also been thinking about a sequel. Here’s what I’ve decided so far:

1. Two new protagonists, with cameos from previous characters acting as guides. This time I want to try writing a sibling story with a bit of an "incestuous" twist.

2. The story takes place 15 years after the first game, in the summer of 1620 in Genoa — right as the Protestant and Catholic forces are at war, on the eve of the Battle of White Mountain. Although Genoa isn’t directly involved, as an ally of Spain, the war affects daily life like an endless stretch of bad weather. I personally really enjoy writing slice-of-life stories from the perspective of ordinary people.

3. The game will include attribute checks, but I don’t want save-scumming to be part of the experience — constantly reloading to pass a check isn’t fun. To achieve this, success and failure in each check will yield different clues, ultimately leading back to the same goal and moving the story forward.

4. To ensure that both success and failure provide meaningful clues, this game probably won’t allow skill respecs. That makes it easier to place clues and maintain story integrity — otherwise, the permutations of unused attributes would be terrifying,

5. The new game will likely launch in Early Access, with chapters updated over time. The exact update schedule is still being evaluated.

6. I want the choices and endings from the first game to have an impact on the sequel. However, since we’re switching engines, directly loading save files is nearly impossible. I’m considering adding a short survey at the beginning of the new game to manually record your choices from the previous game. Players who haven’t played the first game or don’t want to carry over can also start with default settings.

Now, here’s what’s still undecided:

1. I’m still debating between a 45-degree overhead view or a side-scrolling view with a Y-axis. The overhead view is better for exploration and collecting, while side-scrolling with Y-axis allows for more detailed character animations.

2. Regarding attribute checks — I’ve already thought of six different attributes that affect dialogue and exploration — but I haven’t decided how the growth system will work. If players freely allocate points and end up with a jack-of-all-trades build where no attribute is high enough, missing clues in later checks would be a headache.

3. Following up on that point: in this world, magical talent depends on a character’s experiences and obsessions. I might consider adding a "character background" selection at the start of the game to avoid some of the issues that come with free point allocation.

4. Since there are two characters adventuring together, logically they should share skills — letting the character with the higher skill take the lead in different actions. But the resulting branching in dialogue would be terrifyingly complex. Still thinking this one through.