Her Choice
July Summary - Play the Side Story and some thoughts going forward
What do you mean "but it's already August?" No, it's not, it's just our timezones are not matching up, don't worry about it.
First of all, I missed you guys and I missed working on Her Choice so much
( ; ω ; )
The last two weeks passed by in a whirlwind, and I have so much catching up to do, getting back into the flow of things, I'm just happy to chat with you again.
If you're wondering what in the Empire I'm talking about, we participated in the O2A2 Visual Novel Jam and released a little side story that you can play directly in your browser here on itch.io. Moon did an outstanding job with the CG, so do check it out and maybe leave a comment and a nice rating (^_<)〜☆
https://totes-studio-p.itch.io/our-summers
I know some of you were looking forward to a Higre route, but I hope that after playing Our Summers you will understand why it has to be a friendship-only one. It's ok also if you don't want that route at all anymore now. I'll be more than happy to discuss this with you all.
That being said, please know that it's also ok to leave if any of the characters or their relationships cause you discomfort. Her Choice has dark themes and features lgbt+ content. If these are things you don't enjoy, our games might not be for you. I just ask you not to hate on the characters, on the game, or on the team.
Actually, I'll say that again because I want to be very straightforward about this: it's ok to dislike us or our games. It's not ok to troll our social media and it's DEFINITELY NOT OK TO DOX OR HARASS OUR ARTIST or any other TotES member because of it.
*oompf!* sorry, but I had to get that off my chest ( `ε´＃)
Here's a random WIP of baby Zanas, because I just can't stay mad at anything when he's so grumpy and adorable ( ; ω ; ) ♡
Moving on to today's main topic, and trusting that I'm now talking with people who enjoy our games and want to have a constructive discussion about how we can improve them for you:
Would knowing upfront the gender, sexual orientation, relationship status and race (Her Choice takes place in a fantasy world, after all) of all the characters significantly improve your game experience? Let's discuss!
We previously didn't disclose this information in the bios for various reasons, first and foremost because we would like for you to enjoy the story and the bonds that develop between the MC and the love interests, regardless of their gender or sexuality. Other reasons which influenced our decision include:
- we thought the info was irrelevant. In the case of Higre and Shur, neither was ever meant to be a love interest and I actually did mention before Higre's route would be friendship-only.
- worldbuilding wise, it doesn't always make sense. Gender and sexuality don't work the same across all of Kingar's races, and we found it hard to translate some of them into the smaller scope of the visual novel without bogging it down. Also, in the case of a character poising as human, this might spoil the race reveal.
- the MC was unaware of the info.
- the author was unaware of the info. Her Choice is still a work in progress and not every side character's past relationship has been fleshed out.
Apparently, this decision angered some players. But if we all come to the conclusion that it was a poor judgment call on our part, we'll fix it. So let us know your thoughts. As always you can drop a comment here, or @ us on any of our socials.
If you read this far (because you actually read it and didn't just scroll through, right? right?), here's a "WIPs be wilding" moment to reward your patience.
(Yeah, nice outfit Lawnce, I'm sure it fits the dress code to a T)
I might drop another update end of this week, but we will definitely be back to our regular schedule by next Friday, so catch you all next time!
- Wavi -
Comments
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I'M BACK- anyways- I'M STILL SORRY FOR GHOSTING YOU GUYS ABOUT THAT COLLAB ABOUT MC'S DRESS- I'M STILL GUILTY ABOUT IT-
Anyways- Quite sad that I can't romance Higre since I'm a simp for him- I guess that's only in my dream now :')
and I saw that there's a new game and a new character? I'm gonna check that out and download it cause my computer's okay now- but since I can't romance Higre I'm targeting Lawnce and Scai, I really really really hope I can still romance Lawnce and Scaisen T^T (in the future tho- if you guys would make them a love interest-)
And just as @ReaperBabe said if it's possible maybe you guys could make a little bio or profile for each character. (only if you guys have time for it)
Maybe put what the food they like, color they like, dislikes, their personality, I really really love learning more about these characters since I'm that kind of person who likes to know the little things fictional characters does/likes (creepy isn't it?)
I replayed the demo this morning and I also actually want to know what kind of rumors the King of scandals (Scaisen) have ;))
P.S. I'm still sorry about the ghosting I did... Please forgive me T^T (btw Lawnce looks hot-)
Welcome back Tsum-tsum (＾▽＾)
And don't worry about the dress collab, it's still available (I replied to it on the other devlog).
I'm sorry you were disappointed, it was our miss to not be more upfront about this. We can still simp for Higre in our fantasies, though (^_<)
I don't know if this is of any consolation or not, but the new game is from Higre's POV, so more content about him, though probably not the kind you were hoping for.
So many people have been asking for Lawnce and Scai, so we are all for writing their routes in the future. I've also been adding a lot of new scenes featuring them in the other routes, so look forward to those!
And I think it's cute you want to know all those little details, it's not creepy, don't worry. We have more info about the characters on our Tumblr https://herchoicevn.tumblr.com/
(Likes and dislikes sound like real fun things I'll be adding soon, so make sure to check it out)
First off, I love updates <3
Second, I am here for Zanas, anyway (I wanna squish those grumpy, baby cheeks in that picture!), and am ace (not aro, I *am* a sucker for romance x_x), so I welcome friendship-only routes when they are presented. They are just as interesting as any romantic route. I've been busy catching up on other things, but will definitely get to reading Our Summers soon.
Third.... I'm of two minds on the race/sexuality/gender identity thing. None of those things inform how much I appreciate/like a character, their personality does. And, I *do* like learning these things as the MC does. That being said, as odd as this sounds, I don't like using the improper pronouns, even for fictional characters, so I kinda like seeing that in bios. Other than the pronouns thing, I don't think it would bother me if I didn't know it up front. BTW, will there be something like a codex? I am a sucker for world-building and reading lore. If not, I totally get it.
Thanks for the updates, and everything. This was one of my favorite demos I've stumbled upon, and I can't wait to see more!
Thank you so much for the reply and the kind words! ❤
So glad you enjoyed the demo!
If you want to read more about the world and get all the random trivia about the characters you can check out the "cast" and "locations" pages on our Tumblr: https://herchoicevn.tumblr.com/
And it makes me really happy to hear you'd still want the friendship-only route. Higre plays such an integral role behind the scenes in all the other character's lives, and Our Summers (due to it being so short) just scratches the surface of his story.(I just finished doing a "50 random questions interview" with Zanas that I will be posting to his profile later this week, just saying (¬‿¬ ) )
Also thank you for your input, it's an interesting point of view, and we will definitely take it into consideration. We're seeing more people asking for pronouns, so we will definitely fix that and add them (MC will still be using improper pronouns because she knows no better, but the correct ones will be made available behind spoiler tags in the character bios)
Oh, nice! I'll definitely check out the tumblr stuff :D
Also, yeah, MC using improper pronouns make sense. Seeing them in the bio was more for my sake, in case I wanted to comment on posts or something, or my own internal thoughts. A spoiler tag would definitely fix that. <3
Welcome back~~
In regards to the character information,, I personally like to go into stories blind hehe. Tho maybe the profiles could be unlocked after the first playthrough, I often see that in other games.
Thanks for your hard work!~~ Baby Zanas is too cute ( ; ω ; )
We're back (＾▽＾)
Thank you for the reply. I too prefer to dive in blind!
At the moment we are thinking of adding the character information to the game menu and locking it behind a spoiler screen, so everybody will be actively choosing by themselves how much information they want to see. Hopefully, this can be an acceptable compromise.
(Baby Zanas is just too precious (≧◡≦) )
If it's possible, you could do a little bio for each character with that info in a tab in the main menu and maybe label when info gets spoilerish. Personally the only info I'd like to know is pronouns, because I agree with finding things out through the story. With bios, people can read if they want and ignore if they don't.
However, I'm not a game dev and don't know how much work that would be.
Also thank you for the fanservice!
Thank you so much for the reply, Reaper!
I'm giving you free rein here, so don't worry about the workload. We'll accommodate as much as we can, and let you know if anything is beyond our abilities.
And we can definitely add pronouns and squeeze in a bio for the side characters somewhere. As you suggested we could put the additional info behind a spoiler tag and let players actively decide if they want to see it or not.
PS. Fanservice is always on the house around here, you know that (¬‿¬ )