SuperNovaVN

August Status Update

Hey everyone! I hope you all had an awesome summer (or winter for those of you in the southern hemisphere that I'll definitely visit one day). 

I hope the patrons had a chance to read my previous devlog, which contains some important information on the future direction of Super-Nova. For now, I just wanted to provide a shorter status update for the public. 

With Superfang update going public next week, I'm not quite sure the choice path that was omitted from the patreon version will be included there. The choice in question won't have consequences until the next couple builds anyway, so there's a good chance I'll leave the missing branch for later and focus on the Baron update instead. 

Speaking of the Baron build, we've been taking some time to figure out the design of one character, and I think the sprite will be well worth the wait. I hope to have a preview up pretty soon for that one. We're going to meet a bunch of new characters in this build, some of whom will be important in other routes as well. There's one particular sequence that (I hope) will be very interesting for readers... 

No promises on the timeline, but I hope that we'll have all the sprites ready by the end of September, along with the script, and from there take a little time for coding/editing. So if all goes well, expect the new build at the end of the month or beginning of October. From there, as discussed in the devlog, we'll focus on Superfang's route for a while. 

See you all soon for the public build! 

Update Breakdown and Future Plans

Hi again friends. To start: the android version of the newest build has been added to the folder. It's a little embarrassing to admit, but due to the long delay between builds, I had forgotten what adjustments need to be made to the script to account for the new UI. I made sure to make detailed notes this time so it won't be an issue in the future. D:

So, onto the build itself. There were a couple scenes here that I had been looking forward to writing for a while now, especially the last part with Copycat. Her perspective is quite a bit different from most of her peers, and she's overall a pretty important character, especially on Fang's route, which means I wanted to nail her introduction. I'm pretty happy with the results myself, but of course the final judgment is up to the readers.

I'm also quite happy with the way the beach scenes turned out. I know some people might wonder why there was so little flirting in a context where it would be expected, but, well... essentially, I wanted to keep the focus of the events on what matters more narratively. Now that we've fairly deep into it, I've had a chance to really consider whether explicit content would be fitting for my plans, and decided that it wouldn't be. That doesn't mean there will be no romance, or even sex, for that matter. The latter just won't be depicted explicitly on screen (perhaps a fade to black scene instead). I want to avoid frustrating readers by having the characters flirt constantly and then do nothing about it. Plus, again, I think those kinds of interactions tend to draw excessive attention, and the things Nick and Vince talk about have quite a lot of importance that I didn't want to be overshadowed.

The fight scene was a ton of fun to write! There wasn't much danger like there had been in the previous update, since Nick wasn't effectively solo this time, but hopefully the diminished stakes didn't take away from the fun of it.

Now, this segues into our future plans. As you guys know, the Baron update is coming next. After that, however, I've decided to focus on Superfang's route until a certain turning point in the narrative. There are a bunch of reasons for this decision, and I'll try to lay them out for you here. First, I've realized that, even without my dayjob and other real life stuff getting in the way, switching between three fairly distinct narratives can be a little draining, since I have to effectively reconstruct my headspace for one particular route whenever the update cycle returns there. And that can take some time and effort. Focusing on one route means that I won't have to try recalling what I had even been thinking last time I was writing this route. This will hopefully make the writing process a bit smoother for me.

Second, switching between routes can lead to some bad writing habits. By this I mean that when the visual novel is finally complete, the readers will likely finish one route before (hopefully) starting another one. At this stage, however, in the middle of development, readers switch between routes because that's how they're being written. And that makes it far too tempting to effectively include interplay between routes that won't work at all once they're being read from start to finish. Brief asides or even entire conversations that are certainly important for that route, but also contextualize things that will happen in your next update. I don't think this is a good thing, and while I can certainly try to avoid doing that, it'll be much easier if I'm focusing on writing one route for a longer period of time.

Thirdly, it makes things easier logistically. We can focus on completing sprites needed for one route, and then, while I am writing new updates, Swaggy can start preparing assets for other routes that will be developed later on.

I know the fans of Mnesis and Baron-in-Black will be a little disappointed by this development, but I assure you that those two won't be completely out of focus. They're still very important characters, even if this is "Superfang's" route. And there's a good chance that there will be occasional Mnesis and Baron builds interspersed with the Superfang ones, so I can take a break if the creative juices are starting to dry up. So we might get three Fang updates, then a Mnesis build, another two Fang updates, Baron, etc.

Another thing I want to briefly address is that, for the time being, I'm choosing to skip having any CGs and focus our art budget on sprites. CGs are great, and I would've loved to have one of Nick and Vince building a sandcastle together in this update, but the utility of sprites is far greater, and since our budget (and time) is limited, we will focus on those. I do hope to include CGs for older scenes later on. Maybe we can vote from time to time on which scenes should be illustrated.

Finally, I am planning to revisit the introductory parts of Super-Nova and make some edits that will improve the story and make the visual novel more attractive to new readers. Nothing substantial will change narratively, and the events will play out more or less the same, but I'm planning to cut a lot of the beginning fluff and start the novel at a point where Nick and Lucas are already at the construction yard, which will get us more quickly to the arrival of Templar and Jacob. I also plan on slightly rewriting the scene where Nick first summons the armor - it feels a little too mundane to me right now, and I think it will be helped with a change of setting. The updated version of the scene might even feature a new CG (yes, I know this sounds funny after the previous paragraph, but I do think the scene really needs an illustration asap).

I hope I managed to convey my thoughts clearly. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me. 

For those of you who haven't had a chance to play the new build yet - enjoy! And if you've already read it, we'd love to hear your thoughts on our discord server. :) 

Expect some new previews soon. See ya! 

Build 0.9 (Superfang route)

Hi guys! With lots of apologies for the huge delay (work has truly been kicking my ass this year), I'm happy to finally post the second build of Superfang's route. 

Note: the Android version is having some issues (heard that one before...). I'm hoping to have it all fixed tomorrow. Be on the lookout for an announcement either on our discord server or twitter.

The current version doesn't have one choice path implemented, which will be added to the public version. It would've delayed me further, and I wanted to have the build up. Note that the Extras are also not updated, but will be soon (possible when we post the android version as well). 

I'm going to publish a very detailed devlog soon on my plans for the future, but I'll mention now that after the next update (Baron route), we will be focusing on Fang for a while.

April Status Update

Ok so my job has been a bit stressful lately and I knew I was forgetting something, so let's pretend this was posted a week ago. D: 

I'm sure you have all seen the two sprite previews we've already posted, and a third one is almost done. In truth, there's a fourth sprite that would be good to have for this build, but at this point it would take too long to complete, so one character will have to be spriteless for a bit. Maybe we'll get it done by the time the Fang build goes public. If not, we'll figure out the order the side characters introduced so far (Jess, Jose, and the third mystery one) will get their sprites through a future poll. 

Depending on how long it'll take to finish up the script, we might also not get a look at Nick's hammer quite yet. 

All that being said, the build is close. I can't say the exact day it'll be done, but aiming for a May release. This month happens to have a bunch of national holidays, so I'll have some days off that I can devote to finishing it. We'll get some time with the buff tiger man soon.  

I hope you're all looking forward to that. =)

March Status Update

Hi guys! Hope spring is going well for everyone. 

I know I skipped doing this last month, but it was mostly because I had already done a devlog for build 0.8 where I touched on how the next build was going, so I figured there wasn't much more to add. Now that March is practically over, I wanted to provide an update on the development process. 

All's going well. The work on the script is underway, and Swaggy has completed several new assets and is currently working on a brand new sprite for a character I'm very excited to be introducing in the upcoming build (actually, we're gonna meet a couple new people, but the sprites for others will have to wait a little). 

Since the Extras are mostly done, the coding workload should be much more manageable. There are some features I'd still like to add, though: 1) Firstly, shuffle and loop buttons for the music player and other general improvements; 2) A calendar screen to it's easier to track time progression in the plot, as we skip days at times and I don't want readers to be confused; 3) A screen to track which Badger Pubs you've seen; 4) Looking into adding some other Extras, like a News app that will contain supplementary materials on the Super-Nova world. 

I'll be taking my annual vacation to visit family in Greece in the middle of April, but I don't plan on that to slow us down much. As before, I won't give a specific release window for build 9, but the goal is to wrap it up before the end of April. 

There might be a Superfang route-exclusive interlude at the end of the build if I decide it fits there once the rest of the chapter is written. If not, then it will be in the next Superfang build, but either way, I think people will find it interesting... 

Look forward to some more previews. Talk to you all soon! 

Patron Q&A: Setting Edition

Heya friends. As stated in the last devlog, I was thinking of doing an exclusive Q&A where you, the patrons, can ask questions about Super-Nova. If this one is successful, we'll do some more of these periodically on various topics.

This time around, I'll be taking questions specifically about the setting of Super-Nova! While sharing a lot of similarities with the real world, there are obviously lots of differences as well, and I'm sure you guys will have some interesting questions for me (for clarity's sake, these questions should concern the world, organizations, history of the setting, and other related topics that aren't specific to any of the characters in the story). 

For this Q&A, there will be a special channel on our discord server where you can submit your questions for the next 3 days. The channel will be only visible to patrons until April, when I'll make the answers public. Couple ground rules though: please limit yourself to a maximum of three questions, so that I'm not overwhelmed, and try to ask questions that won't require me to write a dissertation in response.

The Q&A will close on March 3, midnight my time (GMT+4).

Build 8 Devlog

Hi again friends. Coming at you with a devlog after the newest update.

First, why it took a while: well, frankly, because coding is a bitch and a half and I'm not good at it. Even with GruntSteel's help, it took me the entirety of December to get the UI up and running, and we're still dealing with some visual issues. And that's on top of coding the new Extras menus, adding text for the character profiles, etc. And in January I got hit by a pretty bad case of writer's block and a bout of depression. Thankfully I was able to work properly once this month rolled around.

So, the actual update. Firstly, I was very excited to get to two particular parts—the dialogue with Omen at the club, and the subsequent action scenes. The former was actually the first scene I wrote in this build, as usually I write all scenes in order. But I had been looking forward to getting into some of the more substantive worldbuilding for a while now, so I decided to start there and fill in the gaps later.

I also just really, really enjoy writing Omen.

Figuring out the action took a long time. From what I've seen, FVNs don't usually do action all that much, and I wanted to make sure that my attempt to have the story go there would be good enough by my standard. Which means lots of tweaking small details—timings on chains appearing, proper sound effects, sprite movement, etc. It's tedious and time-consuming work, but I'm quite happy with what we have. It's not perfect, of course, and I expect to come back to these scenes and refine them even more, but with the resources we have at the moment, I think it's about as good as it could've been.

In terms of story content, the biggest changes between the first draft and the final result came in the scene with Unbound and the last scene of the build with Mnesis, especially the latter. With Unbound, the exposition about Copycat was initially covered by GIL, but the beta readers found it a bit dull and forced, so we moved it to the conversation with Unbound instead. I think it works much better there. (By the way, we'll be seeing her husband fairly soon). The scene following Omen's departure changed a lot more. Initially Mnesis's reaction was much more resigned, and he didn't talk about himself or the issues he sees with Nick becoming Templar all that much. Ultimately, we decided that the scene could use a bit more drama, so I revealed more about Mnesis's true feelings earlier than I had initially intended. I'd say it works well here, though, since the build started with us learning more about his backstory, and now the final scene ties well into those revelations.

On that note, I really have to thank Rov and Sakudoshi. Their feedback has been incredibly helpful, and I don't think I would've been able to get it done without their help. Same goes to Vanillabell for the cool new UI (be sure to compliment him on his work!), and GruntSteel for helping me actually code that UI and other new features.

So, next up is Superfang! Without spoiling too much, look forward to finally meeting Copycat, learning some more about superpowers, and of course more action with our favorite tiger and Hex. I've already posted a couple previews for higher-tier patrons of the art Swaggy has been working on. Copycat's sprite is the next in development, and I'll be posting a preview of that as soon as it's ready.

I hope to have the Extras fully enabled by the time this build goes public. Most of it is coded, it's just those pesky details again. Thankfully, it won't take nearly as much time to code as it did in December. Just squashing those bugs and applying extra polish.

In the long term, I want to revisit the intro to the game and make some changes there. I've already talked about spicing up the first fight we see more, which is still in the works. But I'd like to make the entire introductory sequence punchier (pun intended), and to better establish Nick's personality early on. No concrete dates on that happening, though. For now, continuing the story takes priority.

So, yeah, hoping to be back with more soon. I'll write a monthly status update in a week as well, just to keep everyone in the loop on development status.

P.S. Would you guys be interested in a patron-exclusive Q&A? I was thinking of doing one specifically on worldbuilding questions. If there's interest, we could do one, and have other themed Q&As in the future.

Build 0.8 (Mnesis route)

Heyo friends. The Mnesis update is finally here.

It's a thicc one. Not only in terms of new scenes in the actual route, but also because we have a new UI, courtesy of Vanillabell, and a bunch more stuff.
Unfortunately, the Extras (music gallery, character profiles/sprite viewer, etc.) aren't quite as polished as I'd like them to be, so I've temporarily disabled them. You can currently access the CG gallery from the main menu. I hope to have the rest done soon, so I'll either upload a patch to the same folder here with the features enabled, or let you guys discover them once the build goes public.
I'll talk about the process more in the devlog, but this one took so long mostly because I spent most of December figuring out the coding side of things for the new UI and features. I got some help, but it was still quite a challenge, and it's not even over yet. I also skipped doing a minigame I wanted for this build, but that may have been a blessing in disguise, since I think the scene I had for it will work better in a future update.

As for what we do have in the new build:

• New story chapter (approximately 13k words) for the Mnesis route;
• Another 1k words for the Badger Pub (I'll let you discover what that is when you play);
• Two new sprites (Michael and Temper) and several new versions and accessories for old sprites (primarily Nick, Mnesis, and Omen);
• 3 new music tracks by Hop-Skip & The Chewtoys: "Were It All in Reverse", "Nobody's Walking out of Here Today", and "The Poison Underground";
• Updated UI, featuring a new textbox and namebox, buttons, etc., by Vanillabell;
• A new chapter select screen that allows you to customize your choices and skip to either the beginning of each route, or the newest current content of a specific route.
• CG gallery, currently accessible from the main menu screen;
• Minor typo & error fixes.

I suggest using the quickstart option from the main menu to skip to the current content, to make sure that all flags are set correctly. There's some chance that your saves might be broken, and the feature should make it easier to get back to where you left off last time.

Note: the Android version is having some issues with the new UI. It will be uploaded a little later, either with the issues fixed, or with the old UI (for now).

I really hope you enjoy this build. Everyone worked very hard on it, and I'm quite proud with the results. =)

P.S. I got a lot of coding help from GruntSteel, and it would be really cool if you guys checked out his projects, Steadfast and Distant Travels. The latter even recently got a sprite overhaul!

Profile/Dress-Up Menu Preview

Hi guys! 

As I've mentioned before, lots of coding going on behind the scenes for new features. Here's a preview of just one of them: the profile menu, along with a sprite viewer, where you can look at your favorite characters in different clothing and all their various expressions. 

The profile menu will be accessible only in-game, due to certain limitations of the code. Readers will be notified every time it's updated with new information. 

This is still a wip, of course, but I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I hope you guys will have fun reading Nick's thoughts, as well as learning a little extra stuff like the characters' birthdays and such. 

More previews coming soon! 

November Status Update

Heyo, friends. Hope everyone is enjoying the last few days of autumn (or spring, for some of you). I'm here bringing an update on the status of development as of end of November. 

We're making great progress on the Mnesis build! Swaggy has already finished one new body sprite for our fox, which I'll preview here soon, and is almost done with a new one for Omen. After that we'll get working on the design for a new marsupial character (I won't spoil more than that) and an actual showcase of Nick's weapon from this route. 

The build will feature the first proper action setpiece with Nick's participation, and as such, I want to make sure that it's as polished as I can make it, so that the action is portrayed in an engaging manner, albeit with our limited resources. This is really important to me, as action will be a huge part and, hopefully, appeal of Super-Nova going forward. Of course, you guys will be the judges as to how well we manage to pull it off. 

If you've seen the recent poll,  you'll know that I'm also finally working on coding the gallery. Not only that, Vanillabell has done some great work on new UI assets, which will also be added to the VN very soon. I'm hoping that the new UI, at least, will be there for the Mnesis build, but I'm hopeful the rest of the features can be implemented by then too. Which means a proper CG gallery, character profiles with a sprite gallery, a music player, and a chapter select feature. 

As before, I won't give a precise estimate of when to expect a build, but I believe we might have something for the patrons before the year is out. The Mnesis update is going to be bigger than any of the previous ones, with more choices leading to different outcomes, both within the context of the build and in the long term. 

I'm confident the wait will be worth it!  

October Status Update

Happy Halloween! 

Just bringing a quick update regarding the status of development. 

Not really that much to say here. I'm very happy I finished the interlude chapter just in time for the Baron update going public, despite not having much time to work on it. We now begin work on the next part of Mnesis's route, with a much more substantial build to come. I have a lot of plans here, some of which will require more complicated coding than I have done in the past. I'm hopeful I can make it work. If I feel like it's delaying things too much, however, I will cut the gimmicks and maybe add them later with the help of a properly experienced programmer. 

I won't give an exact estimate for how long it'll take, as we'll need a bunch of new art on top of the coding stuff I mentioned earlier. But I think it should be smoother than it was to get the previous route updates done.

I might make a couple surveys soon to gauge what you guys think of the project so far, what would you like to see more of, areas for improvement, etc. Of course, such feedback is always welcome, and my (Rotshild's) DMs—here, on discord, or on twitter—are always open. If you have any thoughts, don't hesitate to share them.

If you haven't done so yet, make sure to enjoy the interlude chapter—I'm very happy with how it came out! 

Build 0.7 (Interlude)

Cheers, friends! Hope you guys are enjoying spooky season.
We have a shorter update for you this time around, but I promise it's going to be very interesting to read. You can access it from any route. 

I won't spoil too much, but do make sure to share your thoughts once you're done reading.

Post-Route Update Thoughts

Hello hello, friends. 

I'm here with a much overdue devlog, well I'll ramble a bit about the writing process so far. I'll try not to make it too long. If there's something I didn't cover in this post that you're interested in, please let me know in the comments and I'll take it into account when writing future devlogs. 

With the Baron build, we finished the first round of updates for individual routes. It's certainly been interesting to write builds that were largely focused on one character, instead of having a single narrative like in builds 1-3. 

In terms of difficulty of writing the script, the Mnesis one was definitely the most challenging. There's... well, frankly (pardon the pun) a lot going on with the fox, and it's not so easy to balance revealing enough information about him that readers aren't getting frustrated, but not so much that I end up spoiling some future reveals. I did get a couple reactions saying that Mnesis is still too secretive and they're getting a bit impatient, but I hope that's not the consensus here. We will definitely learn more about him soon enough! 

The penultimate scene in his build was also a bit of a challenge, since I wanted Omen to make a certain kind of entrance, but it took me a while to figure out the best way to make it happen. The marten also saw some change in characterization as I was writing the build - in the initial concept, he was supposed to be way more crass and rude, but I realized that this no longer suited my purpose. I'm excited to showcase much more of him in the upcoming build.

The Fang update, in contrast, was much easier in terms of the writing process. Not so much outside of that, as I had some real life issues that delayed the build. Still, I think it's a funny reflection of how much more easygoing the tiger is that writing him gave me way less trouble. There's honestly not that much to say here, as everything progressed just about how I had outlined it before I began working on the script itself. The biggest development here was me becoming a little more comfortable with coding in Ren'py and trying more tricks to enhance the way the story is delivered to the public. 

Finally, the Baron update saw another round of real life issues causing delays. I'm so grateful everyone was patient with me through all of this. Moving out of the apartment was a seemingly interminable process, given that I also had my dayjob to occupy me, but it's finally over! I'm so hopeful nothing else is going to come up to distract me from Super-Nova. Although we moved out, we haven't moved in to the new place yet, because it's not ready, but fortunately once the time comes, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. 

Either way, the Baron build was a bit shorter than the others, but I had known prior to starting that it would have the most worldbuilding, with us diving deeper into the superhero world of Super-Nova and how it operates. As such, I'm pretty happy with the results. I know some found Nick to be acting a little dense this time around, and there's certainly a degree of truth in that, but I'd say it's more of a reaction to the Baron's behavior than actual disinterest in the intricacies of the superhero "profession". But everyone is welcome to make up their own mind on the characters' actions! 

Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the discussions people have been having. Some interesting ideas were raised. Some that even I hadn't considered, which is always a delight to read. We'll have to wait and see if some speculation and predictions turn out to be true... 

Now, writing the scripts wasn't all I've been up to. Something I'm excited about is revamping the first (and so far only) superhero fight we've seen in the VN. Swaggy did an excellent job with the CG, but I thought that it could be enhanced a lot more with some extra assets and better coding, which is exactly what's in the works. We should see the results pretty soon, I think. 

As I've teased already, I'm also at work making a proper gallery. Naturally, you'll be able to look at the CGs you've unlocked there. But I also want to add a music player, a fanart gallery, and some extras that I'll post previews of very soon. As I learn more and more about coding, we'll see more of these new features. I'm lucky to be getting some truly excellent help from GruntSteel (the dev behind Distant Travels and Steadfast - go read them!) in this regard. 

I'm also starting to think about getting a proper, custom UI, although we haven't really began any work on that yet. 

Anyway, I think that's enough from me, for now. The interlude should be online soon, after which we're getting started on the next round of route updates. Hope you're as excited for that as I am!

September Status Update

Heyo, folks.

First, wanted to mention real quick that the android version of the newest update is up.

Now, onto the status of development. As mentioned in the last post, I've paused Patreon for October, which means you won't get charged at the beginning of the month (but you will if you're subscribing for the first time or re-subscribing, so keep that in mind).

The reason for the pause is both the fact that the Baron update was delayed, and because I'm taking a vacation for a couple weeks, during which I won't have my laptop with me.

That being said, we're still working on the next couple builds. The assets for the next update are done, and Swaggy has started doing art for the build after that. The upcoming update will be a short one, featuring some new characters and a new perspective... I won't spoil more than that, but I think readers should find it very interesting. I estimate that it will be about a third to half the length of previous updates. I won't say exactly when I think it'll be up, but I hope to have it ready soon.

I was initially going to run another poll on route priority for the next round of updates, and while I still might, right now I think it's for the best if we do the same order. Omen can't wait for us at the club forever.

I'll be posting some new sprite previews while I'm on my trip, and I'll also tease the extra features I'll be adding to the visual novel in the future (among them, gallery and a music player so you guys can properly appreciate Lesli's banger ost).

And, of course, a detailed devlog on the last three updates, where I'll break down some of my writing process.

And that's pretty much it. Hope you enjoyed the Baron update, and I'll talk with you guys soon!

tl;dr: Patreon is paused for October, the next update will be a short interlude chapter, more features to come soon.

Build 0.6 (Baron route)

Hello hello, friends. I am, in fact, alive. After thirty boxes, lots of car trips, and a whole lot of stress, I'm all moved out, and, more importantly, I have the long-delayed Baron route for you.
We will have a proper status update post at the end of the month, as well as a devlog breaking down the three previous builds in a bunch more detail very soon.
However, I'll say here already that the patreon will be paused for October. Not that this doesn't mean a hiatus. We're still working on the next build, and I have some new art and feature previews to share with yiu guys, but I'm also taking a vacation, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to reset, get things back on track, and make sure the next few build come out in a more regular and timely fashion.
With that said, enjoy the build! Even if you're not a huge fan of the rat, I suspect you'll find the build very interesting.

August Status Update

Good day, friends. 

I'm here with another short update on where we are in development. I know you guys are waiting for the Baron update to be published, and trust me, I'm very anxious to have it up as soon as I can. Unfortunately, real life is very stressful right now - I have to move very soon, and it was unexpected for me, which meant spending a lot of time looking for a new place, and now yet more time spent on packing, something I can unfortunately not delay.

That being said, the build is almost ready. I had hoped to publish it before the month expired, but I don't think I'll make it there. However, I'm setting a hard deadline for next weekend for myself, even if I have to take a day off my dayjob. 

If you were a patron in July or August and aren't renewing the membership, shoot me a message (here, on twitter, or on discord) so I can give you a link to the build I owe you. 

I'm truly grateful for your support and I feel bad about having had to delay the build so long. However, it's coming soon, I promise. 

Again, make sure to dm me to get the build if you aren't on patreon when it gets published!

July Status Update

Heya friends. Hope the summer's going well for everyone. 

Just wanted to take a moment and assess where we are in terms of development right now. The Baron build is coming along, with Swaggy working on sprites for a certain badger while I do the script/coding. Unfortunately, my dayjob dumped a whole ton of work on me right in the middle of the month. While I'll still do my best to try and publish this build before July expires, there's a chance it'll instead be posted sometime in the first two weeks of August. 

Should it be in August, and you haven't renewed your subscription, please DM me (here, on twitter, or on discord) and I'll give you access to the Baron build, as it was initially planned to be published this month. 

As for the build after that - it won't be attached to any route, and will be a shared piece of story instead. I won't go into too much detail for fear of spoilers; I'll only mention that the build will likely be shorter than usual (I estimate around 4-5k words), but will also be published quicker than a route update would be. 

Tying into that, we'll have some new polls for patrons soon. I'd like to have another round of voting for route priority, and I also want to hear from you guys what features you'd like to see in the project in the future. 

And... that's it for now. Be on the lookout for the Baron update - even if you aren't a big fan of the rat yet, I promise there's going to be lots of interesting content there that you wouldn't want to miss. 

See you all soon! 

Small Update

Hi, friends.
For those of you who didn't see the announcement on our discord server - the Superfang build has been updated with some extra content, including around 4k words of story and new art. There's about a week before it goes public, so please enjoy your early access until then. 

I also realize I owe you guys some devlogs for this and the previous update. At this point, I figure I'll just write a more detailed introspective once the first round of route updates is done with Baron, which is coming in July. 

As always, thanks for the support, and see you all soon! 

Character Preview - Hex

Hello again, friends. 

As promised, we're posting a preview of a character that will be appearing in Superfang's route once the current build is updated (soon!) - Hex, a hyena superhero. 

I won't talk too much about him, since we'll be seeing him in the story shortly. 

Since he was supposed to appear in the build uploaded a couple days ago, the preview is open to all patrons. 

Build 0.5 (Superfang Route)

Heyo friends! Before downloading the build, please make sure to read the message below. 

First, good news: the build is finally here! It took me a while to get it out there, I know. Like the Mnesis build, I had hoped to publish it 2-3 weeks before I did. I'm very happy to have at least delivered content before May expired, so all current patrons have a chance to download and enjoy the Superfang update...

...which leads us to some bad-ish news. I had hoped to work on the update during a vacation I took at the end of April, but as some of you may know, my laptop died right as the trip began, which left me with two weeks of almost no work done on the build. Because I wanted to make sure to have something for May, I ran out of time to finish some scenes towards the end of the build. Which means that the build isn't quite done. 

There will be more - a little action, and an introduction of a brand new character (whose preview I will post for all patrons, regardless of tier). I will be working on the unfinished portion now, and will re-upload a version of the current build sometime soon to the same folder. This will happen before the update goes public, and all current patrons will be able to download it, even if they don't extend their subscription into June. 

In the meantime, I sincerely hope you guys will enjoy spending time with Superfang. There's still plenty of content! Around 10k words (with more to come), a brand new CG and music track, and a couple new sprites.

Watch out for an update regarding the missing scenes - it should come in the next couple weeks.

Build 0.4 (Mnesis Route)

Hi, friends! The first build of the Mnesis route is finally here. 

I again apologize for the delay - I was hoping to have this published 2-3 weeks ago, but life kept getting in the way. I should be much less consumed by my dayjob in April, so I'm expecting to be able to complete the Superfang update in about a month - around the same time this build goes public. 

I expect no significant changes to be made to the story content of build 0.4 when it goes public, beyond routine edits.  I have, however, enlisted some programming help, so expect some better transitions, animations, and overall level of polish.

I hope you enjoy the build, and thanks for sticking around despite me having you guys wait.

As always, make sure to let us know if you have any feedback, be it typos, bugs, or general thoughts on the story so far (Discord is the best place for that, but feel free to message me directly as well). 

Small Progress Update

Heya, friends.

If you've been following some of my posts in our discord server, you're probably aware the build is almost finished. There's just a slight bit of coding work left to be done, so expect the update in the next two days, and absolutely before the end of the month -- even if I need to take a day or two off work, I'll make sure it doesn't roll over into April.

Thank you all a lot for your patience.

Build 3 Thoughts

Howdy, friends. 

Sorry for the delay with this log. I've been meaning to write one for a while now, but one thing or another kept coming up. 

First, I want to quickly update everyone on where we are right now. The work on build 4 (Mnesis route) is well underway. I am hoping that the art assets and editing process will be both done by the weekend of March 12-13th, and I will upload the build for patrons then. If not, it'll definitely be the week after that. The build after (Fang route) will likely take less time, a month or so, and I'm hoping to release the patron build for that at the same time as the Mnesis update goes public. 

With that out of the way - Build 3. It was the most challenging build to make so far, both from a writing standpoint and in terms of art. Swaggy deserves many thanks for putting up with me, given how many revisions we had to make to the assets, especially Nick's armor. Settling on the final design was not easy, but I'm very happy with what we came up with in the end. 

While I had written a lot of the script a long time ago, editing it into a proper shape and adding new scenes was not easy. I wanted to get all the emotions in every scene just right. It was also important to me to showcase a bit more of Nick's personality. Making an interesting protagonist has been one of the goals for this project, and while I'm not sure if I've been successful so far, I hope to get there with future updates. 

Of course, you all know that the public version of the build had some extra content that wasn't there in the build I uploaded for you guys. The reason for that was the fact that I really struggled with the scene where Nick reads the information from the tablet. I didn't want it to be too heavy on exposition, and trying to come up with ways to convey some fun worldbuilding in an unobtrusive manner wasn't easy, but I thiiink it worked out in the end. It'll probably be even better if we get the tablet to be interactive, but that's a goal for the future. 

I hope you all enjoyed seeing Nick's portrait, the CGs, and all the new sprites. Again, Swaggy is incredible for putting in so much work into this update. 

With that, I'll take a moment to thank you all for supporting us. The patreon has grown quite a bit since we launched, and I'm very grateful to have these extra resources to put into the project. Really, thank you! 

See you all soon with new content! 

Build 0.3

Heya, folks! The third chapter of Super-Nova is now available to all of you guys. 

Do note that the public release of this build will include two extra scenes at the end. As the writing process was giving me some trouble, I decided to release the build as is rather than delay it any longer. Hopefully the stopping point won't be too jarring, and you'll have something extra to look forward to once the public release drops (including some new art assets). 

We will also be conducting our first patreon polls soon. You might notice while reading that Nick doesn't describe the breed of a new dog character. That's because we decided to put it up to a vote. More importantly, we will have a poll regarding the direction of the story in terms of route progression. Stay tuned for that. 

As always, make sure to let us know if you have any feedback, be it typos, bugs, or general thoughts on the story so far (Discord is the best place for that, but feel free to message me directly as well).

Build 2 Thoughts

Heya, folks. 

Now that build 0.2 has gone public, I figured I would write out some thoughts about the story direction so far. 

The intent behind this chapter is to allow the readers to get to know the principal cast a little better before the choice of mentor (and route) is made. While none of them really talk about their backstories, my hope was that their varying reactions to Nick's presence and potential assumption of the role of Templar would convey their personalities enough for this purpose. 

Of the three, Mnesis's conversation went through the most changes during the writing process, for reasons that I will probably discuss at a later stage, when it won't reveal any spoilers. As much as I love writing the fox, he's quite difficult to figure out sometimes! 

The repercussions of Nick's choices in this build will be felt down the road, naturally. Even beyond the obvious choice of who becomes his mentor. But, again, I won't spoil anything here. 

We didn't have much in the way of new art assets for this build, but to compensate, there will be a lot more interesting stuff in the next chapter. 

Speaking of which, while the route choice took place here, there's still some story to tell in the common route before the narrative branches out. As such, we're going to have a patron poll soon (sometimes after build 0.3 is posted) about the story direction. 

I'm excited to go into the New Year with this, and I hope you guys follow the rest of our journey. 

See you soon! 

Build 0.2

Hello everyone! The second chapter of the story is now available for all tiers.
We hope you enjoy the build. Make sure to let us know if you have any feedback, be it typos, bugs, or general thoughts on the story so far (Discord is the best place for that, but feel free to message me directly as well).

First Build Ramblings

Wow, it's finally out. 

The first build is a culmination of months of work done by me and Swaggy Tamago. It's certainly been a ride! 

I came into the FVN scene back in May, with no knowledge of Ren'py and no experience leading a project like this. Fortunately, I did have some writing experience (albeit as a hobby). The idea for Super-Nova first came to me when I was watching Invincible. I thought it'd be neat to have a story where the protagonist join an existing team and gets to choose to hang out and potentially date one of these superheroes. After a long call with a friend, I already had ideas for the core characters forming in my head, and I soon sat down to write. 

Of course, I would've gotten nowhere if I hadn't had the fortune of Swaggy reaching out to me regarding the project. His art truly brought my ideas for life and kept giving me inspiration for more. 

Then there were those wonderful people from a couple discord servers who agreed to take a look at my demo (then consisting only of generic backgrounds and text). Their positive response and the feedback I received gave me the motivation I needed to bring the project to fruition. 

As for the writing process itself, as mentioned earlier, I had ideas for the Sentinels from the beginning, although it took a while to give them proper form. Figuring out everyone's personalities and backstories took a while. I initially planned on having four routes, one for each pre-existing member, but ultimately decided to limit the scope and make it more manageable. 

While I quickly thought of the overall shape of the story and the themes I wanted to work with in each route, coming up with a compelling cast of antagonists and villains was a big challenge. Still, I hope that the story develops in ways readers find interesting and that the cast is met with the same enthusiasm I had while writing them. 

Aaand I think I've rambled on enough for today. I'll have more to say as we release more builds, but for now, stay cool, and have a super fun time! 

Build 0.1 of Super-Nova is now public!

After months of work, the first build of Super-Nova has finally been released on itch.io!
We're really excited for everyone to experience it for themselves. We've come a long way, but the journey ahead is longer yet, and there's much more cool content to come.

Stay tuned!