dev diary: strawberry jam!!!

i have been making A BRAND NEW VN for strawberry jam (link is nsfw-ish)

if you don't wanna know anything about it before i release it at the end of the month, you should click away now!

otherwise, im gonna talk about the premise and why i'm making this! LET'S GO!!

mature themes ahead

so, the theme of the jam is to make a horny game. eevee (who is hosting the jam) wrote a lengthy post about what this means (it's a good post!)

the point of it is that "horny" can mean a lot of different stuff! so i decided to take the opportunity to make a game that talks about sex without any explicit content.

my main reason for this: since it's a jam game, i want it to be free for anyone to play. but i didn't want 18+ drawings to be made freely available, so i'm not including any in the game. and because of that, i'm able to share it here on patreon! (according to their guidelines, it looks like educational content is ok, which this game is def a lot closer to than the other stuff)

ive been feeling very "uhhh is it ok to make this???" but like... yeah why not. it's a nice little chat simulator. the subject matter just happens to be more mature... so i'm still advising that only adults should play it, but it's kinda in the same category as starry flowers. it's a game about intimacy, without being there for the intimate parts! my favorite type of media as an ace person lol.

characters + premise

you play as Qmin, a succubus who works for a company that provides sex advice to paying clients. you chat with the client over IM with the goal of improving their sex life. today's client is Chloe, a ghost girl! she's planning a visit with her online girlfriend soon, but she's worried she won't be able to show her affection physically (being a ghost and all). so it's up to Qmin to give the right responses and find a solution together :)

it's a pretty straightforward VN, just choosing whatever answer you think is best as you go along and trying to keep chloe's comfort level up. the conversation evolves based on what you choose to say--it's still pretty linear (i'm ~3k words in) but there's some replayability if you like seeing incidental lines, or reading all the different conversation threads.

instead of a regular soundtrack, you get a music player in the top left so you can choose what to listen to during your playthrough, or just let it play on shuffle. a couple friends asked to contribute songs, so we already have a bunch of cute tracks!!! i'll see if i have time to compose a song for it myself, but i'm really happy with what we picked for the main theme already :) this game is turning out to be super unique and cozy, so i hope people will enjoy it.

looking forward to release!

once i finish the full script i'll share a patron build! i've been writing it pretty fast so it should be sometime next week.

there aren't a ton of assets i need to draw for this, so i'm hoping i can finish the game a week or so before the deadline, just so i can get some rest in before nanoreno starts...! honestly i got off to a slow start with this jam (i was busy irl for the first 2 days) but now i don't feel behind at all! which means... it'll be done before i know it!!! doing jams back to back isn't the best idea, but i'm super motivated because my ideas are so cute and i love them... no one can stop me... >:)

anyway, i'll be sure to take a proper break in april. i'll still have a release that month thanks to finishing date mochi in advance :) then i'll go back to focusing on treat 8...! i promise!!

thanks for reading~