What I'm working on now.

First of all, thank you for being the first one's here! Despite the new patreon page, you guys pledged. It feels good to have some people looking out for your work. 

Now for updates. (I'm allowing public posts for now but in future, such updates and thoughts will be restricted to patreons as you guys are the ones that value the game most.)

I've been busy taking feedback into consideration and judging the responses of the demo. 

I've only posted the game on one site and I wanted to see how it fares before doing mass promo for it. The initial wave is important for a game's long term success. 

I'm very happy that the art and premise of the game is received well. I'm confident that this idea is a good one and the art style will carry the game forward. 

However, there are several major downsides. Here is some criticism that I have reflected on so far. 

1. The MC. 

- My initial thoughts was to provide the MC with less assertive personality at first because I have many events planned in future that will develop his character. However, it does turn off many early players and I totally see and agree with their point. The dialogue is childish at some areas and MC might be too weak. Good writing develops character, not intentionally making him weaker at the start. It's ok if he's weak and he has reason to be, but I did not communicate it clearly enough in the game. 

- I need to do more with the 3 traits presented at the start. Even in minor dialogue, the player should feel and experience the trait they had selected right from the start. I've always given myself the excuse that it's just a demo and it would be apparent later on. But if I can't display my best work on a demo, players will not be able to relate to the game even if it looks nice and promising. 

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2. Characters

- Good design. I feel the majority genuinely enjoy the way the characters look.

-However, I don't think they are able to relate and feel a connection to the girls. Again, it's the same problem as the MC. It's just a demo and such emotional connection takes time. Yet, I should be able to at least trigger a deeper response towards the characters.

So far, Mia feels fine, because I've had a few events to develop her a little bit. But I think Sophia falls really flat. We should be annoyed at her but still feel a sense of connection and care enough about her to want to see more. For now, Sophia is carried just by looking good in the renders. And while that is great, renders alone cannot replace good writing. 

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Thus, for the moment, I will not market the game outside of f95 yet. 

Here is what I will do instead to solve the problems outlined above. 

1. I plan to rework the some of the MC's inner dialogue. To reflect a deeper thought process and mature themes instead of just childish and weak generic responses. 

2. The responses will be tailored to the traits you choose. Example, street fighter will reflect harsher and more brash dialogue. 

3. Add a couple of more response choices. 

4. I will add more dialogue interaction between characters such as (moe and sophia) to allow players a choice for the mc to respond more assertively and unique to the player. Aiding immersion

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3. Design

1. It is clear that the buttons are too small. I will enlarge them. 

2. The stairs is unnecessary until more floors and dungeon is added. I will remove it and allow the player to move straight from second floor to living room in one click until it progresses to the point where it is necessary.

3. Do you think a mini map is crucial? If so, I might consider to add a map at the bottom right so you can navigate any room in house with one click. But this is not priority for now. 

This will not take long as I do not need to make renders. 

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At the same time, I will fix the bugs present in the game. 

1. When mc is holding the Slurpee, if you knock on door, you will jump straight to Mia's drawer. 

2. Voice sounds are located in sound channel. 

3.Some programming errors. 

Please if you find any bugs, do let me know. 

One last thing. Should I include the option to hide MC profile picture in his dialogue?

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This is it so far. I will take maximum 2 days to finish this minor update and post it because I don't have work for 3 days :D:D Awesome that I can spend the time working on this. 

(SIDE NOTE to PATRONS. Please allow me a bit of time to structure the patron rewards and stuff. For now, I'm focused on the initial launch of my game. I have not forgotten you.)

I really want to see this project to completion. I've made several mistakes in my initial post such as not having discord ready for the initial flood but no worries. 

I hope I hit our target of 100 patron so that I can immerse myself into developing this game next year. I  enjoyed the process massively. 

Thanks for reading. And feel free to comment your honest opinions. Criticism is ok as long as you're not rude about it.

Much love!

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