Sunday Devblog – August 31, 2025

Happy Sunday!

August is wrapping up, and it has been a packed month. Between all the story, art, and community feedback, I feel like we’ve made huge progress toward Chapter 6. Looking ahead, I want to remind everyone that from September 7th my work time will be more limited since I’ll be away for travel and wedding prep. That said, I still plan to put in hours every morning to keep things moving.

For free members, a quick recap of the recent poll: I asked whether you would prefer a smaller early September release or wait for the full Chapter 6 later. The majority voted to wait, so the plan is to deliver the full package before the end of October.

Progress this week

Worked on the post time-skip queen labs event (teaser in the header of this post: Ryouko). The less I say the better.

The rest of my time went into finishing up the exam week content. I’m already glad we decided not to rush a release, because taking a step back gave me space to rethink how the exam system should work.

Now, the week leading up to exams will have teachers reminding the player in their lessons. To pass the exams and rank higher than all the girls, you’ll need 20 knowledge and to answer all the questions correctly.

At the end of each exam the player will reflect on how they did. If you aced it, the dialogue will hint at that with something like “I feel confident about my answers”. This way you aren’t left completely in the dark until the next week when results are posted.

I’ve also finished all the unique reward scenes for each girl if you get a perfect score. Each girlfriend reacts differently and rewards the player, so these are highly missable moments but I hope the payoff feels special for those who earn them.

I think 20 knowledge as the requirement is fair. You can pick up plenty through random encounters and answering correctly in class, and the week before exams gives you time to catch up if you’re behind.

(Of course each girlfriend does their best to motivate the player ;) )

I also had fun writing each girls reaction to the player's perfect score. Naomi being the one grading the player's paper, and Hino grumbling about how the player ended up smarter than her.

On top of that, I spent more time working on post-timeskip scenes. I need to be careful about spoilers here, but I hope to share more pics soon.

Work in September:

I brought Beriya on board again to write the Kaz sidestory. Not going to release it before ch6 but I am making sure that September is a productive month and that earnings go back into making StrongGirls better.

Thanks as always for your support. With September right around the corner, I’m more fired up than ever to make sure Chapter 6 is worth the wait.

-Jon