June 2024 Status

State of the game general update for all members! Generally, I try to do one of these a month for a zoomed-out picture of the game’s state and progress (and sorry I'm late to the party!).

Upcoming Releases

Beta build for clairvoyant+ members will probably be over this weekend.

This month’s release (29th or 30th) will be completing the common route and (likely) starting Alexander’s route. If Alex is a part of the next release, it will NOT include any endings or CGs, just the intro. I’m currently programming the end of the common route.

Two important notes about the in game content so far:

1. (Spoiler if you haven't played Part 2!) Since it is story-significant I want to point out that during Sebastian's intro in the common route (where Monika speaks to him directly), I forgot to add the pulse effect and this is added in the next update.

At this point in the story all LIs are doing this. That was a mistake. (You don't know why this is happening yet but it's important to know Sebastian is not exempt from this effect.)

2. (Spoiler if you haven't played anything yet!) You know that 'heartbeat' effect where the characters pulse in the common route? I'm realizing after the 50th time you've seen it, it gets a bit annoying, so I'll be using a 'light' version of this effect after the intro just so it's not obnoxious. There's no story significance there for the change, just want to clarify that.

General Status Stuff

Brandon’s route is next in development line, and will be unlocked after the player achieves 1 or 2 (still deciding) specific endings in Alex’s route for story/plot needs.

In total, the common route has 9 unique CGs! (That's more than most routes each had in Obsession!)

Alex has 1 completed CG ready and 2 more in progress now, more to come. Previews have and will continue to be regularly posted for clairvoyant+ members as they become available.

Brandon has 1 CG currently in progress that had a preview just shared this week (by wintry! She’s returned after her break to do some occasional CGs for the game! Yay! 🍰 Wintry is the artist who did all our main character sprites.) Normally, I don’t do CGs that far in advanced but this image is a unique one I’ve had in mind for a long time.

I cannot express how excited I am to have 3 amazing CG artists on this project. Art was a big struggle in Obsession, so having these people dedicated long term and with such great work is a huge relief and boon to the project.

Currently, I’ve planned 6-7 unique endings for Alexander’s route with a general goal of a minimum of 5 for every character.

There will be some details revealed around the Ethereal storyline during Alexander’s route! The current goal is to have every route reveal something related to that plotline (separate to the Remembrance plotline). You’ll get one small clue about Casper during Alexander’s route (although you might not realize it until later) and more I’m expecting to reveal about Casper (probably) during Brandon’s route.

Writing’s progressing but I admit has been a struggle these last few weeks. I like the ideas and structures I have in place for Alex so I don’t expect dramatic changes, but I’ve just been hit by a creative block and not really satisficed with the impact of the story in Alex’s route yet. I’ve been a little ill and been dealing with life (ugh, life, y u in my way?). So I took some time off from writing to reset and now I’m focusing on the programming side for the moment. Hopefully I'll resume writing late this week and do some large edits/rewrites to Alex's drafted content.

The programming side does take longer now than it did in Obsession. I’m taking a lot more time to pay attention to the smaller details that I often overlooked in the past. The voice acting, the music, sound effects, the little special graphical effects, features, choices and pathing, all those kinds of thing. Obsession taught me a lot about what and how to prioritize. ☺

(I’d like to one day return to Obsession to make those improvements, but that probably won't be until PoR is fully completed. I've thought too if I have the funds available I may include some new CGs in Obsession, but we'll see if that pans out. It entirely depends on the finances.)

Random side note for transparency: I have temporarily hit pause on the story editor I was using for Alexander’s DLC purely for financial reasons (unemployment). I’m focusing all the game funds on CGs exclusively until that’s resolved (hopefully soon but who knows). Once I’m in a better position, I’ll reach back out to the editor to continue that work and have everything written properly edited.

But as always, if you find any errors/typos while playing always feel free to report them. It helps a lot.