Update Time II

Demo Completion: Still around 50%. It's a two steps forward, one step back kind of situation. 

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Demo Art Stats:

RO Sprites: 8/8

Side Characters: 4/6 (two are design rewards for the Kickstarter, so they won't show up on screen yet)

BGs: 14/15 (I might not need the last one, so I'm holding off... but I knocked a lot of these out since the last update where I only had 2 done! All I drew for a month were backgrounds...)

CGs: 0/?? (still not sure how many CGs I'll put in the demo.) 

Other: 4/4

GUI: complete, though I'm still playing around with dialogue boxes because the simple black one is just... too boring for me lol. It'll do for now though. 

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Writing Stats:

Demo is currently at... 186 words. So! The month of February was a big overhaul month. I needed to scale back from my original plan if I ever wanted to finished this game in a timely manner. I had too many locations, too many extra scenes, too many side characters, and at that rate, it would take years to finish this project. And I don't want that. I have other projects I'd like to get to before I go gray. 

I have been writing more than the demo though because I would like to have Parts 1&2 in a finished draft stage before I release the Kickstarter, but the demo needed to be completely rewritten to change some things, tighten the pace, and cut out extra stuff I didn't need. I started that today, hence the 186 words. 

Starting over is a pretty normal part of writing, but since changes have been happening, I wanted to update you all. I have a word goal every day I'm trying to hit for the next week so I can get this demo rewritten. I'm trying the pomodoro method? So, we'll see how that goes.

Pretty much all the art assets are done, save for things that are KS rewards. The CGs will be the absolute last things I draw. I'd like to include a couple in the demo to give everyone a taste, but I've also scaled back on my art goals for the game. I'm planning on at least 24 CGs across all 6 main routes, more if Wren and Rook are funded, but 1) I sadly do not have endless time to draw a CG for each RO for every chapter, and 2) Even if I had the time, that would really increase the budget for the KS, and I'm trying to keep that as low as possible. More CGs will be a stretch goal, however. 

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Kickstarter Stats:

I have all the rewards and tiers figured out. They'll all be digital because 1) shipping is a bit unreliable right now, 2) it's more eco friendly? and 3) honestly, I just don't have the time or bandwidth to get items produced, package them and ship them out myself, and deal with possible shipping drama.  

I'll post a list of the rewards, tiers, and stretch goals soon so you all can take a gander if you're curious. A few rewards will be MC portraits or a CG style illustration with your MC and the RO of your choice. The later will be more of a "your character here" situation so the process is more streamlined. As I am the only artist for the game, I can't take on too many.

Still working on the copy for the campaign. And art/graphics. I'll need to make a video as well, but I'm holding off on that until the demo is done so I can include screen recordings. 

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What else... what else...

As I said above, the game went through an overhaul. Not like the previous one where I burned everything to the ground, but I took a big old axe to the outline and draft and cut out anything I absolutely didn't need and I decided to just rewrite the demo since it needed a lot of work to make it work and rewriting something from scratch is sometimes the best way to fix something. The story is still more or less the same, though a bit svelter and it's had some work done. At the pace I was going, the game would have been 600,000 words. Which sounds great... unless you have to write all those words in a year. I did the math and I would need to write 1,643.84 words a day, every day. Maybe... in some world... that could be possible, but I also have the... well, rest of the game to work on and the adjacent jobs that go with it. And if all goes well I'll have the Kickstarter rewards to make too. 

I want this to be my full time job for the next year, so I'm ready and waiting to hit "full speed ahead" on this project after the KS, but I also have to be realistic as to what I as a solo creator can accomplish in a year and a bit. The game will still be hours of playtime and probably the length of the full length novel for each playthrough, so most of you probably wouldn't have guessed I'd scaled down, but these updates are all about letting you know what's going on.

That's been the last month and a bit for me! It's going to be all about writing as much as I can for the next week and I'll post some sneak peeks since some of you enjoyed the last one I posted. I'll also be posting BGs, side character sprites I guess I'm not using (yet), and just some game related art I doodle when I need a break. I need to learn to pace my Patreon content more, so there will be a mix of silly posts like memes between more official game stuff. And maybe some non-game stuff for a palate cleanser lol.  

OH! Just one more thing before this update gets too long... (too late, Sam)

I mentioned this in a Tumblr ask, but Dom, Maya and Rhy will not be fading into obscurity! I love them too much to let them go without giving them their own visual novel. It seems Twin Coves has split into two projects, and the fluffy small town dating monsters game that was taken out of TC will hopefully become its own thing with its own world and a new title. And maybe some new friends to date as well.

However, this project will not be a solo endeavor! I'd be the direcrtor/ lead artist, but I'd like to bring other artists and writers on board to help give Dom, Maya and Rhy the story they deserve. It's not something I'm actively working on now, but it will be once Twin Coves is well on its way.