Ch5 devblog 12/15/2024

Hope you're doing well with the busy December month!

This week I've been working on finishing Yuka's scenes and the art for all the story scenes, as well as playtesting to make sure it all hangs together well.

In addition to wrapping up Yuka's dates and story scenes, this week I worked on a number of FMG scenes. These take time to make and I don't want to spoil it so I will keep the screenshots more vague (I will keep the Yuka bikini shots for the release, though I felt compelled to share the restaurant date image in the header.)

On the Queen route we get introduced to a new character in crutches. She gets brought in as a volunteer. Her name is Ryouko and she may play a bigger role in future chapters. I guess I don't need to say much more here, it's an FMG game after all.

I also workshopped another new character:

 Shiori is a classmate of Yuka's.

The gang is surprised with Yuka acting weird so they go ask one of her classmates if they noticed anything.

Shiori is a small and intelligent girl. She reads a lot of detective novels and loves a good mystery. She is very observant and often narrates her own actions. She likes to use long words (maybe to make up for her small size?)

I had a lot of fun with Shiori. I already have plans for her in chapter 6 and beyond. I even made a unique character theme song for her.

She is the smallest girl in the game, being slightly smaller than Kaori. I will make it clear however that Shiori is 18+ just as every other character.

For this scene here I wanted a close up of Yuka and I realized that all the art is high resolution enough that I can actually make the sprites move closer to the screen without any jarring pixelation. So I made a new 'move closer' function that animates the sprite to move up in a smooth ease motion. Just a small technical thing I felt like sharing. I will add close up shots to some scenes where it makes sense.

Release:

With only about 2 weeks left of December, I honestly do not know if I can make a release in 2024. I've got Manami and Naomi to pull together to round out the roster. I believe I can finish one per week, but there is still polishing and playtesting to be done as well as proofreading.

I want to release it when I feel it's ready. Thank you for your continued patience!

Side story update:

Our winner this month is Mrs. Jiro!

We have some interesting runner ups, with second place being tied between Aria and the bouncer from Kasumi's club.

Since I want to prioritize working on the main game release, I will keep Jiro as a January project. It also makes more sense time-line wise to have Jiro's encounter with the serum happen after chapter 5.

I will stop writing now so I can continue working on the game, thank you so much for your support and encouragement always. I can't wait to get the game out!

-Jon