Stolen Rose

White Noise

"I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold."

--Alchemy, Sara Teasdale

Content preview #45

There probably were better shots I could pick to showcase, but this one was just so cute I couldn't help myself

Dev Log 14-Jan-2024

Hello!

It's been a pretty exhausting day, so I'll try to keep it short. I've been spending last week writing and rendering stills. I may have gotten overly excited about a part of the story and maybe written more than I intended, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue. As long as I don't keep doing that.

Apart from that, I started making some music. I'm very much not good at it, but I wanna learn and get good enough to make my own. Normally, I wouldn't waste my time learning yet another skill, but getting music you can use in a game with adult content is an absolute nightmare.

Well, next week is more renders and writing. I didn't get to the animation yet, but I expect it's going to happen early next week.

Hope you're having a great day!

--SR

Rayne

"Just because it's a dream, doesn't mean I'm not real."

So I just realized I can make her look similar to her namesake, and...

Content preview #44

Apparently, there's a singer called FKA Rayne and they kinda look alike. This made me happier than it probably should have

DevLog 05-Jan-2024

Hello!

The holidays have come and gone (thank fuck), and I'm starting to get back into the groove of things after taking some time off (I didn't mean to, honestly, I just got sick). But, that being said, status report right now is we're at ~10k words and about 500 images. Around 50% of the flowchart is completed for the next release, but that doesn't necessarily mean the game is halfway done--the scenes in the final half tend to be longer than the scenes in the first half. Still, I'm seeing steady progress and the story is shaping up to be about as moody as I expected it to.

This weekend, I wanna keep writing and see if I can finish the more date-y parts. After that, I'll spend the next week just rendering images, possibly start with some animations.

Since I type these in text documents first, I can't see it, but I should have posted some images. Those are the new deity images I had commissioned, and I absolutely love how they're shaping up. Note: they are not complete right now, just a rough idea that we're working on getting just right.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

HAPPY NEW YEAR

New Year just dropped

Some time in November, Zero End celebrated its first year of development. Well, celebrated might be a bit much since I completely forgot about it (I'd make a horrible parent), but it did mark its anniversary. I figured since the game's been out for a year and we're on the precipice of a new one, I'd look back on everything that's happened and laugh-cry over it, then ponder what the future holds.

First and foremost, a big and thicc thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the kind words and support. I know it might sound disingenuous to say I couldn't have done this without your support, but it's true. I was very familiar with the realities of game development when I started, but I didn't realize just how difficult it would be doing it alongside a full-time job (it kinda tripped me up because the first 6 months or so were easy). I don't think I could have kept the motivation and excitement about the project going for so long without your kind words of support, without seeing you excited to play the next installment, without knowing there are people who like what I'm doing here. I love this game, but you make all the effort feel like it's worth it. So thank you for that.

I feel like I've learned so much in the last year. When I started the project, I didn't really know much about anything apart from writing and game design, so I started to learn about photography and cinematography which has been a bunch of fun and it's awesome (and cringe) to compare some of my first images with what I'm capable of now. I hope this continues and I cringe again next year at what I'm doing now. When I got to developing the game, I wasn't sure what I wanted it to be. My creative process at the start of a project is to have a character, some ideas, and to place them in the world and see how they interact with it. You'll notice this if you go through the first half of the first release--it feels rather rough and unfocused. Still, what I knew is that I wanted an occult mystery that slowly got revealed over time and that I wanted to draw inspiration from World of Darkness and Hellblazer. Bloodlines, specifically, was a large part of that inspiration, and now, a year later, Zero End is fairly well regarded by a relatively small number of people. Much like Bloodlines. Not sure what I was expecting there.

This year, I've also created my own company. So I guess I'm a business owner now. Unfortnately, I've already engaged in sexual relations with the only employee.

Turning my gaze forward, I'm... not sure what will happen. A lot of things depend on the Steam release and how well that goes, but judging by the number of wishlists, it won't be enough for me to work on the project full-time, so it's very likely that I'll keep going as I did in the previous year. On the subject of the project itself, I expect the new release will be ready some time in the first quarter of next year. After that, I'll probably need some time to figure out how to deal with Steam DLC releases. And probably take a vacation, I feel like I'm on my last 10% of battery.

Finally, I really wanted to have a showcase of some of the most heartwarming feedback I've received in the last year, but looking through it all, I just couldn't pick one I liked the most. I will say, however, that I read them over and over when I feel bad and it always makes me feel better, like whatever's happening isn't as bad because I still have this project and the people who enjoy it. So anyway, since I can't pick a good one, we'll instead be looking at the stupidest, most unhinged shit I could find.

>accepts offer for oral sex from a person he's just met

>decides to follow her path

>finds out she's a succubus

>angry that his sex demon girlfriend used to be promiscuous

My brother in Christ, you're the one who picked her route.

I think I might have taken too much modafinil. Reading back through this text, it reads like a chimeric abomination combining a heartfelt thank you and a shitpost. But, thinking about it, that's a very accurate descriptor of my personality, so here's to the next year! May it be better than the last.

Happy New Year!

--SR

Happy holidays!

Personally, I'm not too fond of the winter holidays, but I hope yours are going great!

Content preview #43

It's her again. She features quite prominently in the first part of the release, so she'll keep popping up like this.

DevLog 18-Dec-2023

Hello!

Another week is over and I'd like to take some time to give an overall update. Writing is going pretty well, we're over 7k words and I wanna get to 10k by the end of the year. Now, normally, I'd comment on how much that is out of the projected total, but as I've learned recently, this release is not behaving as I anticipated. What I mean by that is that these 7k words barely cover the introductory part of the release, meaning it's mostly just facing the consequences of what happened in day 3. Moreover, the first 5k of those are fully rendered, and yet it's only something like 300ish images. I think a part of that is that I stopped doing a render for every single line of dialogue, but it might also be the more introspective, relationship-focused nature of this release. There's a lot of talking and thinking going on and not a lot of action. Now, this may very well change by the end of the release, but as it stands now, there might be more text than in the previous release, but fewer images. To complicate things further, I want to expand a lot on the erotic scenes to improve them according to the survey, so the image rendering time saved might be taken by the additional animations. Also, while there's a lot of branching due to past choices, there's a single choice in the first 7k words of story, which doesn't feel right. Now, I don't want to add meaningless choices just to have them, but I also don't want to turn this into a kinetic novel, so I need to find some way to add interactivity to this release. Especially skill checks, those are becoming harder and harder to incorporate due to the lack of action. In short, I thought this would get easier as time went on, not harder, but I do appreciate the constant challenge and that it's not becoming stale.

Anyway, next up: Got a few more scenes to render until I catch up to the writing, which I think I'll manage to do this week, meaning that next weekend I'll need to finish the dating/hangout scenes with the girls. I don't know if I'll manage to finish all of them (there's still 3 scenes left), but I've got the week after off work, so I'll be able to focus on the game and keep writing until I'm done. Once that's done, we can get into the drama, which will be much quieter, but somehow wilder than what's happened until now. Also, I've mentioned this before, I think, but man is it fun to write Lilith <3

Hope you're having an awesome day!

--SR

Content preview #42

Their dynamic is just delectable.

"I'm a ghost and you're the child
Where you end, I start
As we're forever tied
I'll haunt you 'till the end of time"

--The Killing Joke, Volturian

Dev Log 11-Dec-2023

Hello!

I delayed the update a bit as I was sick last week and couldn't get much done on the project what with feeling ill and being too tired after work. So I figured I'd update now as I'm feeling better and have started working hard again. I did manage to write two more scenes and get some renders done, as well as reworking the outline a bit to add more choices (it's starting to be a bit difficult to add in skill checks).

This week, I wanna catch up with renders (got 40+ done today) and hopefully get some writing in as well if I can after work. I'll drop a render with Lilith I thought looked cool (I've been looking forward to writing her so much and I'm so happy I finally get to now).

Hope all's good with you and I wish you a wonderful week!

--SR

Content preview #41

2 previews because I missed the last. About time Rayne had a badass moment

Dev Log 01-Dec-2023

Hello!

I'm back. You may have noticed I didn't have an update last week. The reason for that was that I didn't have anything to update. I assumed the week-long conference at work would take a lot of my time and energy, but I severely underestimated just how much. I was basically leaving at 8 and returning home around 11 at night. Some good has come of it, however, as it was a game development conference. The survey, for example, came as a result of one of the talks there. Speaking of, let's talk about that for a bit.

First question:

As it is, there's not much I can gather from the responses on this question. Considering that there's no clear majority, it could very well be a matter of preference. But that conclusion is boring, so I figured I'd fuck around with the data a bit. If I divide the responses into Narrative, Animation, and Scene Diversity, the responses look like this:

Looking at the Narrative responses, most of them are related to what goes on before and after the scene. Looking back, I have started to improve on this even in Day 3, but this gives me an indication that I should give those parts even more attention.

On the Animation side, the clear winner is the number of animations. Again, something I've started to improve on, but also an indication that there's a lot more I can do there.

Finally, the Scene Diversity responses are evenly matched, so those can be taken as a whole with 6 responses.

The conclusions that I can draw from this are: I need to make each sex scene more emotionally charged (which emotion will have to depend on the character), get more creative with what's happening, and increase the animation count. Somewhat in that order.

Second question:

This one's a lot clearer (surprisingly so, actually): the frequency is right and I'll keep going as is. This is great to know, I don't want to force any scenes just to bring the numbers up.

The rest of the questions were open, so I won't reproduce the responses here, but I'll have a list of things I learned from them:

- Most people are in for the story rather than the smex, which is to be expected, since it's a story-first game

- Brianna is a lot more popular than I thought. Honestly, that scene was supposed to make people uncomfortable, so I'm not sure how to handle this information

- Rayne seems to be the favorite for now. I suspect that's because I can get creative with her

- Nobody mentioned Chloe. Not sure if that's because she was hidden behind the Leave option or because her scene wasn't as interesting

- All of your responses were wonderfully supportive and I thank you all so much for the feedback!

Now that that's out of the way, some progress updates: We're just above 5k words for the story and almost done with the first part. After this, I'll be moving on to the dates/romance part of the release. Renders are finished for the first two scenes, and, considering that we're far enough ahead with the writing, I can start going full production mode on renders from now on.

This weekend I'll be busy, but next week I'll be going strong on renders so I catch up with the story.

Hope you're having a wonderful week!

--SR

Erotic Scene Survey

I got some comments on the webs mentioning that the erotic scenes in the game are mid and figured I'd make a survey to see how I can improve the experience.

If you got time, I'd appreciate it if you could help with some thoughts: https://forms.gle/PdUwg9YQ4Anetpme7

Content preview #40

A snapshot in time, the moment I saw you

Dev Log 20-Nov-2023

Hello,

Sorry for the small delay with the update. I had a very rough weekend due to some very poor decisions, but it has led to a realize that there's no way I'll pull through if I don't take care of myself. And I've been doing just that. This won't adversely affect the development of the game, in fact I think it'll make things better in the long run, I just wanted to explain the weekend I lost to getting myself together. That being said, update:

I've comissioned an amazing artist for the deity 2D art and I have very high hopes for the end result. I'll be sharing as soon as we have something to show.

Writing and rendering static images is progressing nicely. As an estimate, I think the story is 15-20% done and about half of that has images attached. I really like how the story is going, though some bits will need minor edits. As mentioned before, this release will be less-action focused and more relationship-focused, and it really feels like that even with what's done as of now.

Next, I wanna make up for lost time as much as possible, but it might be difficult. This week, there's an event at work that will keep me occupied until quite late, but I'll try to get in as much work as I can afterward. Luckily, the week after, I'll have some time off and I'll be able to focus entirely on the game.

Hope you're all having a wonderful week!

--SR

Content preview

New character just dropped

Dev Log 12-Nov-2023

Hello!

I'll any% speedrun the updates this time as there's not a lot to say. Managed to write another scene (though I feel it needs some editing) and started rendering images for the first scene. More importantly, I spent about two days setting up my new system (yay). I used the money saved up from Patreon (thank you again to everyone who contributed <3) to get some better components. While rendering was decent with the 3060 I bought 2 years ago, setting up renders and animations was hell due to every other component sucking. I've been playing around, making some special renders, and it's going so much better now. While this doesn't affect rendering speed much, it'll do wonders for my workflow. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford a new graphics card, so that'll be postponed for next year. The 3060 isn't doing too bad, but a 4090 would definitely be much better.

Next, I'll do a bunch more writing so I have a sufficient headstart and use this new machine to get a lot of renders set up. Hope you enjoy the special renders that came out of the testing!

--SR

Preview (Kinda)

It's more of a test. While I really like how she looks in black, I think it would be better to use warmer colors so I can contrast how she was before with how she is now (visually). Also, that hair is killing me, it makes Daz insanely laggy. Need to figure out something. I tried reducing the quality here and it just looks bad.

Dev Log 05-Nov-2023

Hello!

This week, I finally managed to wrap up everything needed and submit the Steam build. All that's left now is to wait for it to (hopefully) get approved. Apart from that, I finished detailing every character's development arc for the next chapter, as well as the full outline for the next release. I was hoping to make this release shorter, but there's a lot of scenes that need to be in the next release to set the stage for the next part of the story. Either way, it probably won't be as long as the previous release. There's also some things I'm considering regarding renders to mitigate some of the development time. Apart from that, I also finished writing the first scene.

Next week, I wanna start rendering so I can show some visual progress and, if needed, make whatever changes Steam asks for.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Happy Spooks

"some days        you seem
so disappointed, love   but you knew

what it was.
i am your dread wife.

you will not throw me out 
of eden            i walk myself to the door."

The Other Side

I hear you calling from the other side

Sail away, my little sister
Sail away to the other side
Sail away, my little sister
Sail away far into the night

Felt inspired by the song. Hope you like it!

Dev Log 27-Oct-2023

Hello!

It's been a fun week! I've gone hard on the UI and managed to (I hope) finish everything that was needed for the UI rework. I've actually went in a slightly different direction than what I showed last week. I feel like it was too gothic and not enough modern, so I shifted the look to be more modern with just gothic elements. Apart from that, I wrote about four pages of text for the info logs (there were only the rules there until now) and those still need to be implemented. Today, I still want to implement a tooltip for the cipher so I don't get as abused on the internet from now on. Apart from that, the achievements are all implemented and the build has been scrubbed of Steam-offensive things like this website. Pretty close to the moment I can upload a build to Steam and hopefully not get it rejected. Oh, almost forgot: changed those horrible deity pictures. They're still not great, but they're definitely not as bad.

Starting tomorrow I want to go into full development mode for Day 4. I have a pretty good idea of what's gonna happen in the release, but I haven't assembled the scenes in chronological order yet. Still, I know how it's supposed to start, so the first 2kish words are covered. After I get some words on paper, I can finally start rendering some scenes! I guess that's about it? Back to work.

Hope you're having a great week!

--SR

Dev Log 22-Oct-2023

Hello!

I've been working on getting the build ready for Steam mostly this week. All the achievements have been decided upon and I'm about 70% of the way done with the icons for them. Apart from that, I included a feature for naming save games and with the help of a generous benefactor, there is a textbox opacity option in the game as well. These are some QoL improvements that were very much needed and I'm glad they're finally in the game. Additionally, I've been working with a friend to remake the UI. I'll This post will probably have some images so you can see where we're going with this. I'm really pleased with how everything is coming along.

For the next release, I've done a bit of writing and quite a bit of outlining. As it's gonna be a more quiet release, there's a lot of work I need to do on character development. For the relationships, especially, I wanna have a lot of significant moments and start the "honeymoon" phase of those arcs. Apart from that, I wanna start focusing more on Alice and her dynamic with the rest of the cast, as well as get more into her story altogether.

I was really hoping I could show you the new main menu, but I have to remake the animation (a third time) because it just didn't look right. We'll have to wait until next time.

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

--SR

Where to

Hello!

I'm back with an update (kind of). After taking some time off to rest, I'm ready to get back into development. Considering that I don't have much to update, I figured I'd instead give a rough outline of what comes next and what to expect.

My next steps are going to be getting the game ready for Steam. A first step to doing that is going through the game and scrubbing everything that would get them to reject the game. Mostly it's anything Patreon related, like the link on the main menu and the mention in the credits. Apart from that, I'd like to give the UI an overhaul as there's some elements I feel are very clunky and could do with a makeover. There's also some bugs that need fixing (people have reported getting more than 100% in the infiltration, which shouldn't have happened) and adding an in-game hint system for the puzzles so that people harass me for something else for a change.

Meanwhile, I'll be doing pre-production for the next release. What that means is that I'll be outlining every event that needs to go into the release, as well as outlining each character's arc for the chapter. This will take a bit, but it's a very important step so I have a very clear direction of where I'm going with everything.

Where Day 3 was intense, the culmination of Chapter 1, Day 4 is going to be a lot more personal. A lot of things happened and Day 4 will deal with the aftermath. Also, there won't be any gameplay in this release as a result of this. You can expect something that's a lot closer to Day 1.

That's about it for now. Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Release

This could have done with a bit more testing, but I am absolutely burnt out. I went through it as many times as I could. If anything crops up, I'll patch it afterward. Hope you enjoy. I believe it's my best work yet.

Content preview #38

This will also be the last content preview as everything past this point would go pretty hard into spoiler territory.

Dev Log 24-Sep-2023

Hello!

Sorry for the slight delay with this update, but this will be the last update before the release and I wanted to have something a bit more concrete to present.

That being: I just finished writing all the text for this release. Even though there's images missing, today has been the first day I could play the whole release from start to finish.

Now, there's still work that needs to be done before it's ready, so let's go through what's done and what still needs work.

- Images: We're at around 1400 images and there's about 2-300 left to do. The infiltration sequence is about halfway done. I'll be wrapping that up in the following days and continuing on to the climax of the chapter.

- Animations: I've already announced that these are finished, but some details--there's a total of 11 erotic animations coming to about 40 seconds in total and a few more animated images (effects in premiere and such) that are meant to add some dynamism to a few sequences. A few more of these non-erotic animations may be needed, but they don't take long.

- Code: All done. Still needs more testing and bug fixes, but it looks pretty clean overall.

- Post-production: Not started yet. I want to do all of it in one go. Luckily, I've been more careful rendering this time around so it's gonna be a lot easier than last time.

- Game Design: I still need to add stat xp allocation and affection points, but this shouldn't take long. I think I can finish the post work and this in a single day.

- Credits: Need to make the list and then make the credits video. Shouldn't take long, but I should note that anyone Practicus or above (at any point since the 2nd release) will have their name in the credits. If you want to be credited in a specific way, please message me and let me know how. Otherwise, I'll be using your username here by default.

- Fixes: There's a few images I want to redo, but this is optional. They don't look too bad as they are, but I think they could be better. We'll see how much time it takes.

And that's about it, I think. I can't wait to finish and finally show you what I've been cooking here. I think it's a good wrap to the first chapter.

As mentioned, this will be the last log for this release, so the next time I post will be the announcement of the release dates.

Until then, have a wonderful time!

--SR

Content preview #37

I really liked writing her scene. I think it ended up just the right balance between sweet and funny