Kitsune NPC + Devlog #117 + Alt costume poll is on!

New Kitsune NPC!
Her name is Chieko. It's been a hot minute since I last drew a character, but I'm happy with how she turned out! Futomo had a big tail, so I gave Chieko a smaller one and big hair and ears instead. She's also the first character with glasses (by default)!
Now that Cookie has her actual role in the restaurant, I needed a new alchemist in Biscotti. Out of all the NPC poll winners, Kitsune felt like the most appropriate choice for Biscotti.
I hope you'll like her! ^^

As for the game's progress, the public demo is just about ready! Here is what's changed:

- The Voleia's festival minigames have been added!

- Vanille now has a small intro and improved behavior

- New Sablee NPCs have been added

- Some freeze frame effects have been improved

- Improved/added Biscotti related NPCs

- New dialogue has been added

- Almost all the new SFX have been implemented!!!

- Removed a noise that would play when clicking on empty space in alchemy

- SMASH is a bit funnier

- A bunch of minor fixes

Some really, really good stuff that had been on the back of my mind for over a year now has finally been added. I think the new Vanille changes will be greatly appreciated! ^^
The Voleia's festial sequence is also finally finished. There are new character interactions and, most of all, minigames! These are a great way to prepare you for what comes after. The dark Biscotti sequence also now has NPCs who will give you hints about where to go, and some NPC dialogue after that sequence ends too. It's a good thing I aimed wide with my plans' timeframe for this month because as always, things took longer than I hoped.
This left me with a bit less time to take care of the SFX than I wanted, but I still made strides toward finishing that task and I'll be completely done with it in just a few days now. Actually implementing these was pretty taxing since I had to place some SFX, test them, fix them if needed, repeat, over and over again for a total of over 250 SFX... These are here to stay though, and I'll now be able to implement them as I add new content instead of having to go back through everything at once again! Good stuff.
These were the main tasks this month. A bunch of minor changes and improvements happened as well, but nothing really worth getting into!

And now, I'm entering the final 2 weeks before the release of the demo on Patreon. I'm expecting it will take a week to finish adding the SFX, clean up some character battle sprites, and add an actual credit screen. The rest will be spent on making sure everything works right! After the patreon release on December 15th, the demo will be made public and finally replace the old Itchio one on, tentatively, January 2nd. It won't be 2024 anymore but I'm worried about being buried during the holidays as I'm switching to advertising mode... I'd be curious to hear what you think if you have an opinion on this actually!

I'll be busy for a bit longer but this will be another very big step for me, as well as a big relief once it's finally done. As always, thank you very much to everyone who supported me so far!!! ^^

This month, we're doing an Alt costume poll!

The next Alt costume poll has begun! You can now vote if you are a patron!

As the name implies, Alt costume polls determine which characters should get a secondary costume. This is how Futomo (Kitsune) got hers for example (https://www.patreon.com/posts/92082536).

The first round of the poll will be active until the 10th of this month. The second round will take place from the 11th to the 20th, and the last round will take place from the 21st to the 30th! The first one is popularity based, and the other two are patronage based. You can find all the rules about the Alt costume polls in the Discord server!

And this is it for now. Soon! ^^