Hello everyone! (♡°▽°♡)

Before we get into our usual update ...

Have you seen the new game we just released?? (☆ω☆)

My Spring With You is a short extra featuring Erline, our favorite Guard Captain, and introducing Noraka to the cast of Her Choice's characters. While the game can be enjoyed as a stand-alone and doesn't touch on the main game's plot, it takes place only a few months before your arrival at the Totes Studio and includes many easter eggs we hope you will enjoy discovering!

It's a sweet, feel-good game, that touches on themes of gender identity, acceptance, and unconditional love. A typical playthrough takes around 10 minutes, so if you're looking for a short story to relax to during a coffee break, please check it out!

And if you enjoy the game, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a good rating, a review, or a comment. We love hearing your impressions and feedback, and it helps boost the game within the algorithm (♡˙︶˙♡)

The game was made in collaboration with Tymedust (the developer of Pitstop in Purgatory). If you enjoy the dialogue in this little game, I highly recommend playing his other games for more of that delicious writing.

In the desktop version, Erline is fully voiced by Jordan DeShong (which you might know as ReaperBabe Gaming). Jordan streams on Twitch and has a Youtube channel where she shares tons of indie otome and amare games, so do check it out. We're really happy and proud we had the opportunity to work with her in her first VN role!

And now back to Her Choice!

April 14th marked TotES Studio P. 2nd anniversary °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

The whole team was planning on taking time off, but we ended up spending 2 weeks working on the jam game, so none of our monthly goals for April were met.

I think it's still ok, because we released a new game and were able to take a much-needed break (that's what devs do, take breaks from making games by making more games lol), so I'm confident we'll be able to make up for it in May. 

☐ Script

At 180'000 words, the script is now almost complete!

ヾ( `ー´)シφ__

(Hano and Kanzen's route are complete. There are only a few straggling scenes in Zanas's route I want to fix and a couple of extras)

I do my best to keep these devlogs fun and positive, because game dev is my "happy place". I truly enjoy it, even when I'm tired or struggling, and I want you to have a good time on this journey with us. 

So be patient with me for a little while, as I'm about to share a very un-positive moment.

At the beginning of April, I was feeling extremely burnt out from all the writing. Last month I was happily breezing through Kanzen's route, but the moment I finished it and started on the extras, I was stumped. I hadn't planned the extras with the same detail I did the main plot, and struggled with writing to the point of feeling sick and crying. I felt awful, since I was sooo close to finishing the script. 

After talking it out with my dev friend Tymedust (who, as always, offered great advice and many words of encouragement), I decided to cut the bulk of the extras from the game. Among the things that will not be present in the final game are all the side characters' subplots (including Scai's and Erline's), and Hano's memories.

I know it's disappointing, and I'm just as disappointed in myself, I am sorry, but I just couldn't do it. (｡T ω T｡)

If possible, I still hope to write those stories in a future DLC when my mind is more rested and in a better place.

(For Hano's memories, don't worry, I will make up for it with interests in Act 2, but I have nothing that works with the events of Act 1)

I was truly happy we got to make My Spring With You, because Erline is a character that is very dear to Moon. They worked so hard on her design, I hated to see their efforts go to waste since Erline won't be appearing at all in Act 1.

Another great thing about the jam, was that it forced me to switch off my "writer's brain". For two whole weeks, I didn't spend a thought on Her Choice, because I had to focus all my efforts on programming and helping Moon with the CG background.

By the end of the jam, I was actually feeling impatient to get back to work on Her Choice hehe. I have since added back Kanzen's memories, which I ended up writing at 4am after waking up with a flash of inspiration.

I've not completely lost hope for Hano's memories, but I've decided I don't want to force myself anymore to write the way I did before

(シ. .)シ

☐ Backgrounds

This month I finished modeling and rendering the backgrounds of Mrin'Varmun, the ancient capital of the Elven Princedom of Tilltelai. I made the mistake of describing this location as having "beautiful gardens", "floating towers" and "gravity-defying architecture" in my notes lmao (In my enthusiasm I apparently forgot that I'm the one who actually has to do the background art. On a potato computer. In a reasonable amount of time)

That said, I'm still quite proud of the final result ♡ It was also my first time painting water and waterfalls, so I'm happy I managed to make it work out somehow hehe

☐ CGs

And it wouldn't be a proper monthly summary if I don't sneak in some Zan share a CG (￣ω￣)

Aside from the regular landscape CGs, you'll also find a few square images appearing in the texting segments of the game. Try collecting them all!

And that's all from me!

See you all next month,

- Wavi -