Hi itch followers, and especially Rastagong who's the only one who answered to the questions I asked in the last Chim Issue out of the HUNDRED PEOPLE WHO SAW THE POST! *points gun at you*

I hope you guys are alright! Personally, I'm beaming, if you don't count the OBNOXIOUS heat (I'm this close 🤏to melting). So remember to stay hydrated, to use lemongrass to fight mosquitos, and to use sunscreen to protect yourself from UV rays (actually, you should also do it in winter....... i don't)!

So, this post will be less lengthy than the previous one: I'm working on my games, but nothing much haha! Especially since I've spent a lot of time reading because I got admitted in a literature master's degree, which is quite insane! You may not know my life, but I actually studied maths and history and philosophy of sciences so, you got it, I don't have a bachelor formation in literature. But hey, I tried my luck because I had a good research project (or at least, I thought so), and well, there was an "artistic portfolio" section so I put The Daughters of the Sun trilogy in my application. So the fact I ended up getting enrolled is quite epic, so trust me to try my best!

It also means I'm going to have less time for game dev (especially considering I should get more responsibilities at work: which means I'm going to get more money, which is great for me, but that gnaws at my time!)

So, less time means that I need to focus on less projects. Yes, I know: dramatic!!!!! Even Sophocles never wrote anything more tragic!

And if I really have to focus on a few projects, I will focus on finishing the games I released this year and Waterlily on the Froth.

However, I would like to commit to the idea of making a project "thought for itch" (whatever it means looool). At first, the point of this issue was to present four projects I've been willing to work on and have a poll to let you choose which one you were most interested in.

HOWEVER

While writing it, I realised there was one of them I wanted to work more than the others right now, I won't lie. So I've decided instead to introduce this one, and you guys tell me if you're interested in this or not!

This project is named... Happy :). Yes, with the smiley. And yes, quite the simple name! And yes, horrible for SEO and stuff like that, so maybe I should add a subtitle or something... who knows...

If I were to give a summary of Happy :), it would be the following:

Sixteen year-old Helio is a cynical teenager, deeply convinced that the world is a bad place, and that it is going to rot anyway; and even the optimism of his childhood and best friend Akira isn't enough to tame the growing pessimism of the teenager. Someday, however, something strange happens at school that only he, Akira, and two other boys notice: some sort of monstrous entity is on the school grounds, somehow harming their classmates' psyche. They are then granted magical abilities beyond their imagination and are told that they were chosen by Princess Lumina, the incarnation of hope, to be the ones fighting the despair and nihilism growing amongst teenagers. The closer the four boys get, the more change they can bring to the world: but how is Helio supposed to achieve that, when his views on the world make him exasperated with Akira, and when the two other boys in his team are Bob, his years-long bully, and Charles, the most popular boy in high school who constantly criticises Helio's homosexuality, despite secretly making out with him?

So, you guys can deduce one thing from this summary: if you don't count my baby Akira, the three other characters, protag included, are jerks, so quite different from my usual protagonists, who aren't goody-two-shoes, but are overall good people. And so, you can deduce they all have a lot of room for character's development!

This game's genre falls under the following categories: Boys' Love, Magical Boys, coming of age and psychological horror! It is also meant to be 18+ due to triggering content, but the game itself doesn't include any pornographic material (which should go without saying considering the characters are sixteen lol).

So, yeah, it's been obsessing me ever since I started working on this second issue of Chim issues (because I have issues <3), and I've been doing a GUI mock-up (ignore the colours of the GUI and the art-style, it was mostly just for structure loool)

I've also drawn quick sketches of the four main characters:

(Yes, the love interests' name start with A, B and C... because it's cute, no deep reasons lol)

And finally, a first more "proper" concept art of Helio, our abominable lovely protagonist:

Yes, as you can tell, our boy is EDGY, and I'll admit I have never had a protagonist like that (well, there's Yanette, but that's a VERY DIFFERENT KIND OF EDGY JUST TRUST ME FRIENDS)

So, that's it overall for Happy. So I would HIGHLY appreciate if you guys told me whether or not you'd be interested in a project like that and I might WANT to show my gratitude *heavy wink* *like heavier than any wink ever winked* *please get the clue*