Last post before the next update

Hello everyone!

This is the last post before the next update. As planned, things should be ready next weekend. The timing allowing me to do it without forcing people to pay twice, the first week will be a pre-release for the 2800 Yens tier and the game will come out for the 1400 Yens tier the week after (and two weeks after for the 700 Yens.)

That was a bit obvious but it's on the art part that things are taking time. The artists are giving their best to make sure everything will be ready next week. I remind you that we had to hire a new colorist because the one we worked with until the first release decided to quit so even if he's good, there are always a certain amount of time needed for adaptation. That doesn't help speeding up the process ^^'

I'd also like you to get mentally ready for something. The amount of new pics is not equal to the amount of new scenes. I suppose I won't spoil anything to anyone who played the original SoV but of course, the scene between the wounded horse, Yuki and Ayame will be part of that update. But we didn't want to replicate the original pic look. Peak and I try to stray away from profile pics as they're usually a bit too bland. So even if it required 3 times the work time, Peak drew 3 full pics for that scene alone. Meaning that out of the new pics of the games 3 of them will be used for a single scene ^^' (things will be cut like the Naomi/Yuki scene). Of course, those images will be reused at some point later in the game, don't worry. You'll have the possibility to see them in all their glory at some point :p

On my side, for the first time ever, I'll have finished what's on my to-do list before the art is finished. Right now, the only thing I have left to do is the whole conversation between Yuki, Ayame, Riki, Tetsu and Kentaro about the 3D-printed figures. That and the writing of the H scenes, of course x) (Need the pics to write them, though :x)

I have to admit it feels strange to see my to-do list almost finished (I ALWAYS postpone stuff for future updates). But that's probably because of the huge gap between the canon story and the post-game content. I do have a lot of things to work on, but these are meant for after, and I can't really work on them right now (at least not on RPG Maker) so I'm mainly trying to write as much documentation as I can to have a clear idea of where I want to go for the post game content.

We spent several hours yesterday trying to find idea to improve the UI. As always it's as exhausting as it sounds. We ended up with an idea or two that we'll try to materialize into something more concrete but that will be for a later update. No way we'll have the time to fit that in the next update ^^'

I spent some time trying to find a nice font as well. Trying to tweak everything and leaving the least possible amount of base RPG Maker content is an important thing to me.

In the same kind of field, I've also changed the base menu SFX as well. I swear it doesn't look like it, but just for that, it took me a whole afternoon -_- At least now the cursor moving, selection, cancel, save, load sounds are custom as well.

Then there are many small elements that were added because they're necessary like Yasu's model after Naomi's birth.

There are also black shapes for NPCs to help with immersion:

So yes, lots of polishing. Things that won't change the core version of the game, but since I have the time to add these, might as well do it. I'm aware that despite the size of the changelog, if you put aside the new H scenes, there's almost nothing new in that update (in terms of non-H playable content.) But I'm still satisfied by the amount of elements I managed to fit in. Even if there are a couple of things that will require more updates to be improved (like a custom save screen, the improvement of Soul Mate etc...), I'm satisfied by what will be v0.2. And I'm sure the H scenes will be the proper icing on the cake for that update :p

That's all for now. I'll see you for the release! o/