Devlog 0.34 Part 2 - Expectations
Added 2026-02-22 11:49:40 +0000 UTCComments
Thanks for this, this is a much needed perspective for me to hear
zed225
2026-02-27 11:13:26 +0000 UTCThanks for the update! While the cell phone mechanic is commonly used in other games, I don’t think it’s as useful and impactful for this game in its current state. It’s pretty easy to find Shion everyday as you set her schedule, and there really isn’t much else you’d be doing besides following her. If all the routes were triggered and you couldn’t control where she was, maybe it would be more impactful? Moreover, I find the other ways that you’ve implemented the “hidden” aspect of an event happening more fresh and exciting. I enjoyed the Draxx interactive scene where you had the scene changing as you peek through the hole or finish searching the garden. Little tasks while an event is happening nearby like in the Peach Garden also is more immersive than clicking a phone constantly. Obviously it’s nice to have more features, but I’m only speaking from the context of having to spend development time on this feature over expanding the existing ones/progressing the story.
archer123321
2026-02-27 10:39:25 +0000 UTCThis might not really belong here, but im looking forward to Mayor route will start heh :D ! This old dude seems perfect as an antagonist !
Zellemate
2026-02-27 08:46:25 +0000 UTC1) I hope I am too! 2) somewhat similar but not to that lengthy extent 3) lumberjack's unfortunately linked with village so he won't be playing much of a role (or any) in beach bar/peach garden's route. There's some consideration for special minigames that only appear in side quests but because they are still "side" quests and I don't want to overload myself..I'll have to sit on that. For farming/gathering segments, yeaaah its a shame that I can't expand on them now since they're all located in the village (village route in the future)
zed225
2026-02-22 21:07:51 +0000 UTC1) Love to see how the phone mechanic is coming along from your last devlog discussing its addition. I think you’re arriving at a good sweet spot of additional spice vs development overload. 2) Interested in seeing how the side quests pan out. Am thinking of things similar to how we restocked the bar’s special liquors and that lead to additional scenes. 3) Or is this meant to develop some of the gathering side quests like the lumberjack and his dad and the fishing? The lumberjack I’m certain is on the list for at least some scenes at some point but don’t know if it is linked to the Mayor’s/Town’s eventual route or not. But it would be nice for there to be something to spice up the fishing and other gathering stuff needed for route progression for the player to get at least slightly distracted by. Maybe for after you’ve finished out your route development? If not, no biggie. Just crossed my mind while considering the broad notion of “side quests” and recently replaying Masaru’s route and doing some of those activities.
Elmer Fudd
2026-02-22 20:54:42 +0000 UTCHmm.. the end result will likely be 80% shion and 20% other stuff(girls/characters) for side quests. Right now for the upcoming update, its mostly Shion. Alot of the characters introduced in the main route of Beach bar/Peach garden will be given side quest so that not every segment has to have a dozen of them involved and it feels more organic. Regarding the pixel art-only scenes, I've considered it but the reason I'm branching out to side quests is because they are scenes that makes less sense to happen in the main storyline and is more viable in side quests (either based on location/situation) and where I have more freedom to draw scenarios that are more creative. That's really why I'm slightly resistant to reusing assets(CGs) or pixel-art only. Not to say that we can't be creative with pixel-only though, thanks for bringing that up because now I surely will remember that. Content/story wise for Beach Bar, it'll certainly exceed Masaru's route (and even that felt long for people). But that's for H stuff. If you're talking about character writing, lore, story-story, I don't think I'll necessarily remove them but more like I'll be more direct and fast-paced with them. The story beats I planned will happen but just without it feeling too much of a journey to get there.
zed225
2026-02-22 19:21:35 +0000 UTCI just hope that the side quests feels meaningful, what I mean is that I wouldn't care about any other girl but Shion doing bad stuff right now, they need some kind of build up, or a hot story, you know, like the classic tropes, a teacher with a student you see in the sidelines while playing the game... a wife cheating on his husband with her husband uncle/boss, etc. Right now there are no side girls that are actually close to the MC for us to actually care for NTR, so I feel like if we dont get that level of interesting stuff for them it would not be worth to use dev time on them. Also I'm gonna say that you should really consider creating/improving/reusing the pixel art you are already using for different Shion scenes, maybe you can use them for the side stories and 0 CG (sometimes), thats really good and enough most of the time and probably wont use that much dev time. Talking about pixel art, do you feel like you reduce the content/story because you want everything to have CG?
pedrofuentes1995
2026-02-22 19:07:42 +0000 UTCThink of it as quests that you can access in the open world that is only available at point A of a route and can only be continued further at point B of the route. Obviously cos of corruption being furthered too!
zed225
2026-02-22 12:49:18 +0000 UTCSide quests sound fantastic but I do assume they have to be tied to current quest progression in a way (like the bar progression of sorts but smaller scale)? The inclusion of more characters sounds really good to me, I believe you will get it figured out. The phone mechanic is very cool, can't wait to see it in action. Oh and don't worry about delaying the story progression, having more systems ready in place for when the breaking point of the beach bar progression actually comes sounds good (at least in my eyes) :)
FakerFan73
2026-02-22 12:17:17 +0000 UTC
