Hello everyone, how were your holidays? I hope you managed to get cozy, relax, rest and get a little fatter over the last few weeks.

The first log of the year always has me wondering what exactly is it I should be writing about. Everything feels fresh and new, but not quite, if you get what I mean? It's been hardly a week since we published our 2022 Yearly Summary, but it's the start of a new year now. There is a lot I would like to cover, but taking into account the holidays, there hasn't been that much progress. The dilemma hahaha

So this time, I've decided to start our 2023 devlogs talking about just that, progress.

Up to this point in my indie developer journey, the most difficult thing I've come across has been: tracking progress. 

One of the most common pieces of advice I hear being given to beginner developers is "start small". But nobody wants that. Every game is a labor of love, and only when the final product matches your vision does the long development slog feel repaid in full. 6 months into working on Her Choice, did I finally realize that there is truly no greater advice than "start small" (I'd add "start simple" too, though I find that advice much easier to follow). We re-scoped the story, reduced the number of routes, removed all the extra features.

I thought I had learned my lesson. Spoiler alert: I did not. 

It was only when we joined the O2A2 Visual Novel Jam that I finally started to grasp the kind of scope that fits into "start small". O2A2 is at the extreme of the spectrum, true, but Her Choice — with its 200k words spanning 22 chapters over 3 independent routes and its 500+ assets — suddenly appeared massive by comparison. We'd been working on it for almost 1 and a half years by then, a point by which it had become almost impossible for us to re-scope again.

It also became glaringly apparent that I was still setting us unrealistic timelines. At the end of the day, I am a single person writing the story, rendering the backgrounds and coding the game. Similarly, all the rest of the art is done single-handedly by Moon. And we do enjoy every moment of it — which is how we have been able to commit to it for the last two years, to always make time between our jobs and personal lives.

A couple of months ago, ReaperBabe (which btw not only streams but has a great YouTube full of otome content that you should definitely check out) convinced me to try out infographics as a better way of sharing progress with the community. 

I posted our first one in November, and you guys loved it. And I did too! It gave me a fresh and much clearer perspective of where we are at (gotta attack that CG art, Moon!) and — most importantly — how much we get done each month compared to the whole. It's so simple, I don't know why I never thought about doing it this way before *facepalm*.

I can finally set % targets as our monthly progress goals, and I'll keep tracking for a few more months, after which — hopefully! — we will finally be able to estimate a more realistic release date! (You all are so sweet and patient, but I can imagine you have been waiting to hear about that just as much as I am hahaha)

I'll also be tweaking the chart according to the feedback I've received, so don't forget to check back at the end of January to see the new updated version!

Hiroki's new profile picture. 
All the team members are enjoying a good soak and I'm so jealous (T_T)

See you next time!
- Wavi -