Hey hey folks, RFM here. TopHat is doing something stupid, so I have the honor of writing the blog posts for this week! I guess it’s an honor (not really, not at all).

So first off, lets get something stated and out of the way. We think that two blog posts a week may be a little too much right now. Don’t get us wrong, we’re working quite hard. But seeing as that we are mainly focusing on writing right now, there isn’t much to show off to the public. It sucks, because we WANT to show you progress, but that’d give…I think about everything away. We have to work on setting the foundation of writing before we can start doing mass concepts and brainstorming for character looks/designs. There will be a HUGE boom of artwork once we get Act 1 finalized and finished, and I assure you, it’s getting done.

 Now onto the next topic, when the blog will be updated? We’re thinking that we will generally update the blog with important information Every Friday. Kind of like a nice treat for starting off the weekend. It’s really not going to be that much different. If we have something we want to share then and now, we will probably post whenever. That aside, we will still try to make every Friday worthwhile.

Now time to talk about boring things!
-The Act 1 timeline is finished, so we know what’s happening when and why
-More scenes have been finished, and are awaiting final review/revisions
-Mass production of asset lists for everyone (including nobodies like me)
-Fun ideas have been floating around for coding (effects and whatnot)

Since we’ve been just yelling at eachother about scripts, we really don’t have a lot of new art. This past week has just been full on writing. Sorry bros.

[2021/01: snipped old content as it was insensitive]

Have a kick-ass weekend~

Well, okay.  As promised last week, development blogs are going to be a little scarce in terms of content.  TO DRIVE THIS POINT HOME, let’s go ahead and get this started.

WHAT’S HAPPENED SINCE FRIDAY:
-Another scene was written up
-A single character concept was drafted

IT WAS A HOLIDAY WEEKEND, WE COULDN’T HELP IT.  With that out of the way, I think we can afford to share the previously mentioned character concepts with you today.  So, no fancy words or descriptions today, just ART.  Enjoy~

(PS her name is Allison even though at this point that doesn’t matter)

Yeah, that’s really all we have for you today.  Sorry, but thems the breaks anymore.  We’ve gotten to the point where it’s all “business” work and we don’t really want to over-spoil you.  Please don’t hate us too much~

Friday again?  Alright, time for another update!

What happened since Monday:

• Art assets and writing continue to get done

• Feedback has been taken into account and we’re discussing the best way to fix some problems the “leak” had.

Okay, so we’ve gotten to the stage of development where the amount of cool stuff we can show has slowed down and we’re producing stuff like script and coding moreso than anything else.  Because of this, the blog posts may end up being empty-ish.  We’re still getting work done, it’s just not stuff we can actually really show, else we’d be spoiling the whole story and assets before it’s even released.

So, to make up for the lack of content, tonight we’ll be showing off some concept ideas.  Early in, an idea was pitched to turn the VN into a more comic-book format.  Obviously though, this meant a LOT of extra work for very little return.  It was a fun idea though, so we’re going to go ahead and share it with you.

Our choices would have been built into this style as well.  We actually wanted to try and salvage this even if we scrapped everything else.  Like the rest of the idea, it eventually ended up in the trash heap, unfortunately.

Oh, and have a couple early Jackie concepts.  Just because~

So yeah, apologies on the_ lack of any actual content_.  We promise we’re still working on it, it’s just that we don’t really have much we can actually show you because it’s either boring or spoilery.  So as a forewarning:  blog updates will typically be a bit smaller, but we’ll still try and have** something** for you, even if it’s a minor status update or a piece of art.

Until next time~

Wow, what a weekend!  Let’s get this rolling proper.

So, what happened since…yesterday?:

• Removed the android plot twist from the game

• Took earlier-mentioned team member out to a fancy dinner and apologized

• In a moment of weakness, re-added androids

• Removed them again after sobering up

Productivity!

But really, what is there to say?  What we gave you yesterday sums up everything we have that isn’t “did more writing and made more art assets.”  Instead, we figure now would be the time to get some feedback from you, so we’re going to keep today’s post short.

Yesterday’s build was a joke, of course, but you did get a preview of things like the menu, sprites, transition effects, music, etcetra.  Any comments on ANYTHING in the demo would be greatly appreciated; this may be a joke but we’d still like it to be as enjoyable as possible.  You probably won’t need to tell us that you got headaches from the red laser eye flashes though, we doubt those will make it to the final product.

Oh, and finally, we can leave you with this:  a small collection of art from yesterday’s thing.

You can download all of the sprites+CGs used [HERE]

Ugh.  Okay, so this morning a staff member got really upset over some harmless jokes in our dev channel IRC.  Being the babby he is, he decided to take revenge on the ST devteam by leaking our current build.

So, yeah.  It’s been a SHITTY morning.

We’re faced with an issue, namely that he decided to post the leaked build directly on Capschat.  We decided internally that there’s no point in trying to cover this up, so we’re going to go ahead and publically release it here.

Before you download it, please remember that it’s still a work in progress.  Save/ Load menus have been disabled, there’s some minor graphical hiccups, etc.  On that note, feel free to download the current build below and let us know what you think afterwards.

Without further ado, download the build [HERE].