dev diary: plans plans plans

so! i just did 2 month-long game jams in a row, which means i really gotta take it easy this month! i still need to share the psds+scripts for charm studies for higher tier patrons--those will be coming this week! but i don't think i have any other obligations this month aside from my weekly patreon posts (hi, this is one of those) and translation updates (many are in progress due to the new releases).

so this post is like, a bit of a "state of affairs" update, and a bit of thinking out loud about which project i wanna tackle next.

translations!

i've got a pretty good workflow for adding new translations to games, and i'm able to build stuff in a way that saves me a lot of work when it comes time to implement stuff. plus i have dedicated translators for A BUNCH of different languages, which makes things go really smoothly when i drop new games!

i know translation stuff probably isn't that exciting to people who just play my games in english lol, but it's something i'm constantly working on and the #1 thing my gamedev funds go toward. it can get overwhelming at times to have to stop what i'm doing and juggle a bunch of translation work, but it's felt pretty manageable lately--manageable enough for me to start contacting translators for my older games and fill out some of the missing ones!

vietnamese and german were the main two where a translator has been like "just contact me whenever you're ready!" and i'm slowly building up the energy to get files together to send to them lol. i hope i can do that this week since i feel like i've kept them both waiting a long time now... writing it here so i'll actually follow through on this! wahhh!!

lonely wolf treat chapter 8

in january i said i might have a treat 8 build in may... or should i say, i MAY have one... ahahaha...... ok so that date was assuming i didn't do a bunch of game jams instead!!!!!!! oops!!!!!!!!!!!! there's no way i can finish the game in may. but it would be nice to have the first test build by then, so people can at least play through a bit of the story...

a huge roadblock to me right now is that have to draw the tiles and map out the world for a ton of new places for this game. it's unfortunately just the way it is.... it's a game about trick, and the story is that they're traveling to a bunch of different places. so i have to draw those places. and tilesets are hard!! so i just need to like, gain the mental energy to tackle something that big...

luckily, doing the game jams has made me more confident in just making random decisions and going with them, instead of feeling stuck whenever something comes up--so i think i can start building things out this month. i've been having a lot of fun doing ren'py games, but it'd be good to go back to rpgmaker soon. gonna try to relax and draw some new sprites, since cute characters are my #1 motivator for finishing games :)

i always say this, but i'm sorry to treat fans for keeping you waiting so long!! i really really want to finish the game this year, but i also don't want to pressure myself so much that i rush the ending and make it a less satisfying game than it would've been. it's intimidating to finish a project so big, so i'm trying my best to set myself up to end the series as best i can <3 (i mean, i still want to make the epilogue after this, so there's a lot more treat to come...) it's coming soon, i swear!

i wanna write more SAS, aaaaaa

the response to Sex Advice Succubus was super positive (it got ranked #1 overall in the jam?? wow!!!!!) and as soon as i finished it, i had ideas for 2 more characters to add as the next "chapters"

one of them is from the same era chloe was drawn, so i'd be reviving another ancient oc... and the other is someone you all know and love!!! but i don't want to reveal them just yet, since i don't know when i'll be able to actually sit down and make the new chapters.

on one hand, writing them would be super fun and probably take less than a month each, considering the underlying structure of the game already exists. on the other hand, it's just one more thing that would delay treat 8, so i don't want to dive back into it so soon. plus, it's nice to give the original release some more time to breathe, especially since i know i will still be motivated to write the new chapters even if i don't start on them right away.

SO.... maybe in between making other games (or, the next time i get to a stopping point with treat 8), i'll write new chapters for SAS. i don't have an end goal at this point, i mostly just still have some topics i'd like to explore in that game... so this is a backburner thing, but something i'm really excited for nonetheless!

vinegar game?!

i've been REALLY REALLY REALLY wanting to write a game starring vinegar, and lately it's started coming together in my head... i have the main premise/gameplay loop (it's a pure VN this time, lots of branching paths) but i'm at the point now where i might need to start writing it so i can start to see what it's missing.

there's still a lot of worldbuilding to be done (gotta come up with more characters since that helps a lot with giving the plot a more specific direction), and it's feeling like kind of a bigger vn (maybe syrup-sized?), so i can't use a game jam as an excuse to finish it. i don't wanna plan for it to be TOO big, since larger games are much more difficult for me to finish, but there's a lot of ground to cover with the story and i want to do it justice.

anyway umm i drew this girl yesterday, her name is tamarind. i'm in love with her. i have no other details atm, i just think she's super cute and wanted to share.

vinegar's game is definitely not a love story, but if these two end up having chemistry, who am i to deny them a little romance... and if they have bad chemistry, forget i said anything. maybe they're just pals. we'll see what happens when i start writing it!!!

i always make these posts too long

as you can see, i'm uhhhh torn between many projects and i want to do them all! but i'll make sure to rest this month... disgaea 7 came out (in japan) and i haven't had time to sit down and play it yet, so i will definitely be doing that soon. it's not all gamedev all the time! but it mostly is... just because i love everything i'm making.

thanks for reading :)