So last week – due to me breaking the code and spending the better part of 3 days tinkering away in a panic to get it fixed and running again – we decided to skip our usual weekly devlog. Now that the storm has passed, let’s take a look at our progress for February, shall we!

☐ Script

In February, I finished the 1st draft of Day 2 & 3 on Zanas’s route, and started work on Day 4. To be honest, I expected to get more writing done this month so I’ll definitely try and pick up the pace in March ___〆(＠_＠)

Day 3 ended up being a little shorter than I imagined, but it’s ok. It’s as long as it needs to be, considering that it contains fewer scenes than the other chapters.

Zan is such a hopeless flirt, and writing for him is so much fun. It also makes it extra hard to write the “bad” options, where the heroine rejects him. (Girl, seriously, why, what’s wrong with you.)

Also, as we say here at TotES, the plot plottens as we head to the Act 1 climax on Day 4. Who even thought for a moment that the company’s big dinner party would be smooth–sailing?

Overall, some 20k words have been added to the demo, which is perfectly (?) in line with our initial expectations of the game’s total length. So, all’s well what is well lol.

☐ Sprites

Moon finished a bunch of Zanas sprites this month with the new outfits and touched up all the existing ones.

Let’s take a look at Zan’s (ever-expanding) wardrobe.

Which is your favorite? I’ll go ahead and admit to my hair fetish, that acting outfit is pretty hawt (♡ω♡). I love the new style Moon is using to draw the hair, and I feel a revamp of ponytail Zan is on the way ...

(･ω<)☆

Two more outfits to go for Act 1 (though they are both mostly naked hahaha, so do they even count?)

As I mentioned, we’re in the process of converting all the sprites to layered images to save up space, and it’s been less straight-forward than I imagined. We’re by trial and error finding a balance between optimizing the script and minimizing the amount of redrawing required (and hopefully stop breaking stuff on the way). In our next game, we will definitely set up the sprites for layered imaging from the get-go!

☐ Backgrounds

Zanas’s route introduces a lot of new locations, including a whole new area of Wingate. While most of the backgrounds are still in WIP stage, here is a peek at Zan’s dressing room.

I’ve also added a few variations to known locations to fit the different time of the day.

☐ CGs

Moon spent most of the month tackling sprites, so the new CGs are still in sketch stage (I’m sorry Moon, it’s a sprite-life for you, after all). I do love the special wallpaper Moon drew for Valentine’s though, and believe it deserves to be included in the game’s gallery (maybe even with a special short scenario to go with it hehe) so let’s count it towards CG progress done this month!

☐ Music and SFX

I heard our talented composer Hiroki has been working on a special character song *wowow*. I love his singing, so I’m pretty excited for this one. More details to come next month!

☐ GUI

The new Notes screen (which includes the character profiles and access to all the extras, among other things) is for the most part up and running but … I can’t believe I’m still lacking the last batch of graphics before I can show it to you! (T_T)

On the other hand, my thug-of-war with the side screen continues (it’s a tie for now).

The original screen code was unhappy with our new layered images, but the new code blurs the sprites a little (not featured in the above screenshot). It’s acceptable, but still annoys me. (Y u so buggy!)

☐ Other features

Of the new additional features that were not included in the demo, I’ve started working on the “side events” (short scenes where you interact and develop relationships with the side characters) and “environment interactions” (where clicking on the backgrounds allows you to perform a variety of actions such as accessing hidden menus, picking up items, triggering events, etc).

The environment interactions, together with access to the map, were the most requested additional features in our survey (since both offer promises of additional scenes, I’m not in the least surprised lol).

Talking of surveys, here’s a choice for you:

Which team are you on? Let us know in the comments!

- Wavi -