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A really annoying thing that started happening to me is that I will be having a nightmare and then realise it's a nightmare during the dream because I suddenly can't speak or form words. And I slowly feel my body start to go numb. And that is definitely a sign I'm about to wake up and be in sleep paralysis. If I can wake myself up in time, I don't experience sleep paralysis but I get the full body tingle thing which is so uncomfortable.

So of course I make my MCs suffer the same thing. LoL. If I have to suffer it, so do they! ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Thank you Grey!

Hehe. I intend to have a more overt one later on but I managed to sneak the Damon ref in early. >=D I love being to do references like that for the games my friends are making. 

And UGH. Sleep paralysis. I hate that even when you know what's happening you brain is still going "PANNNNICCC. SOMETHING IS HEEEERE!"

I hate false awakenings too. I've had days where I "wake up" 3-4 times before I finally wake up. At some point you've gotten out of bed and gotten dressed so many times that when you finally wake up for real you're just like "I'm not moving!" >=( But at least they aren't *usually* terrifying. Sleep paralysis though. I hate it.

The scenario ends with Wil throwing them out the airlock. LoL 🤣🤣

*gets the broom out and sweeps up the glass for safety* ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Aww thank you! I hope you like the new episode. That said, I'm really excited for Episode 3 and onward because that's when things get interesting. >=D

You are allowed to rant about it but I doubt I'll change how I draw ears. It's just kind of a part of my style. I've been drawing for a long time and that's just kind of how the style developed. It is what it is. 💪

Not every player is going to like every aspect of every part of my art style (indeed, not everyone likes how I draw lips, faces, hair, etc etc.)

Sometimes it's just like that. =)

Kav looks like Yren almost without the beard. That's actually how I noticed it - I was looking at a thumbnail of it and thinking that I'd mixed a Yren CG into the Kav section only to realise that no.......It's Kav without his stupid beard! LoL 🤣🤣

(Funnily enough, you do get to see him shaved and cleaned up at some point during the game but not yet!)

I have multiple BG artists including some I've worked with on other projects. Unfortunately I've had a lot of BGs created that I can't use due to style differences but all the artists have done really lovely work even if I ultimately had to replace some of the artwork with more stylistically appropriate art.

The one I showed off here was done by Son Huynh, who also did some BG work for Gilded Shadows.

Thank you for letting me know.

Unfortunately issues with these kinds of hot keys are nearly going to boil down to Renpy itself and your machine. There's nothing in my code that I can change that is going to affect that. 

For instance, I alt+tab in and out windows frequently when testing and never run into issues, but do sometimes hit a bit lag when using alt+enter to go between display modes. This happens not just for this game but all games I play (though it seems more likely to happen when going from full screen to windowed rather than the other way around).

If you're running into issues using hot keys, I recommend toggling the window in settings instead and see if your PC is able to handle that a little better.

~Steamberry

Fair enough. None of the devs who worked on the game really write games where the MC does not have a pre-established personality since that really isn't our style preference. 

Sorry you found that you couldn't relate to Aell. =)

*gives you honey lemon tea because this ritual seems hard on the throat* 👀👀

No problem. Sorry for the trouble. Itch seems to be really picky about how it's downloaded this time around. I'm not sure why. 😭😭

I believe someone else had a similar issue where their machine was telling them it couldn't find the file.

Their advice is to uninstall and remove the demo if that is installed as well as try to download directly from the website and not the itch app.

Beyond that, I am not sure what advice to give. Unfortunately download issues are a little outside my wheelhouse if the game build itself is working because I can't say for sure what is happening between your computer, Itch, and the game build itself.

It's all good! I've mentioned it before but honestly, it's scattered across various devlogs so it's always fine to ask again. LoL!

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Hello! So for the record, I don't typically refer to the game as 'free' since it is being monetised through Patreon where patrons get additional content (art, lore, etc), early access, a game guide, etc.  

I don't intend to change this pay structure and the base game will remain available without payment here on Itch, so there will not be a hard paywall on the game.

Thank you so much. (☆▽☆)

Thanks! Originally I didn't think the new UI would make that much of a difference but it really changed the vibe, I think.

I'm glad you like Yren. He turned out so fun to write. He's such a sweetheart.

Thank you! (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Yay!! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Thank you. 🥺

Yeees! The save system was a stroke of genius. Ha ha. I love it for testing too. I know that's such a dev thing to say but it's so useful. Rofl.

And yes, Kav shows up in Chapter 3! Buuuut. I did want people to get to meet him so he does have a bonus scene that unlocks at the same time Noel's unlocks. So you can get a brief glimpse of the space hobo. But he won't appear in the story until the next Episode.

Yeah, the new BGs definitely gave the game a nice look and feel. The ship looks quite slick now.

Yay! I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed it. The first episode is really just setting up the scenario and introducing the characters. But subsequent episodes will start introducing more story and plot stuff so I'm looking forward to getting the next one out to people. 🥰🥰

I hope you enjoy it. 🥺🥺

╰(*°▽°*)╯ Huzzah!

Thank youuuuuu. (～￣▽￣)～
*is supposed to be going to bed*
*is not going to bed*

Time zones are sneaky. 😭😭 Curse our round planet!
(╬▔皿▔)╯

Esper is really just kind of a preferred word. Psychic has too many weird associations so I only use it in a more tongue-in-cheek kind of way. And any time I try to come up with a unique word for Espers, it typically just feels too quirky and unrealistic for the setting when a word like "Esper" is convenient and right there.  

That's why I tend to default to it in any settings with people who have some kind of psychokinetic ability. It's just simple, to the point, and sounds good.

All my settings are somewhat connected by thin lore similarities but the time lines for WSC and GS don't align well enough for these to really be in the same universe. I think I was originally considering if they would be but there were just inconsistencies that wouldn't really work out.

Always lurking and waiting for my chance to burst into your feed like the kool-aid man. ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Thank you! I am hoping maybe we can add his route during the next Amare Fest. It requires several new assets so it'll come down to time constraints on when we do it. I'd love to include it since that route is the one that somewhat wraps up some of the elements of Aell's backstory. And also, Lachan is just adorable and I love him. 😌😌💖

I also sometimes have no idea how long it takes. ╰(*°▽°*)╯ 

Seriously though. I am thinking that the public version of Episode 1 will be able to release sometime in November. So we're only a couple of months away! After that, I will release an episode (2 chapters each is my plan at this point) every few months.

So it'll a while for the full game but I should be able to maintain a steady release schedule since the writing is done and all the remains is the coding and art!

Thank you! I am so looking forward to finally releasing the public version. It's been such a long process. Way longer than expected. But we're nearly there!
( •̀ ω •́ )✧

It is a lot. Somehow it felt like less. Ha ha. The months are going by so fast.
(┬┬﹏┬┬)

╰(*°▽°*)╯ *tries to catch the bouquets*

Thank youuuu. (～￣▽￣)～

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) Masterpiece feels too generous but thank you for the encouragement! =D

Couldn't have done it without youuuu. (☆▽☆)

╰(*°▽°*)╯ The dev cave is definitely cosy!

Hi Lance.

So to explain the art, Wil's sprite is coloured in greyscale. The dynamic colouriser Feniks made uses RGB channels to help increase the flexibility of the tool. This means I can use a red channel, for example, to add a rosiness across certain areas of the sprite to increase the depth of the shading.

Fen and I played a lot with my sprites and art when they were developing that tool to see how close to my original colouring style. And we were both sometimes astonished by how close it can get. It is a really phenomenal tool.

I can set some defined skin tones that have a range of swatches correlating to the different levels of shading on the greyscale sprite. These are, in my case, based on the fully rendered skin tones that I did previously.

I defined 5 different skin tones, each with this full range of shading and then the slider extrapolates the in between skin tones.

In my case there was a lot of tweaking of the art to figure out how to best set up the files for the colouriser.

It gets a little more complex when you have something like a smiling mouth where the lips need to get recoloured but the teeth do not. So you end up with a sprite file that looks like this:

The blue channel is adding depth to the lip shading and the green channel is keeping the teeth white.

Once I figured out how the colouriser was going to affect my art, then from an art standpoint it wasn't actually hard because you're just colouring in grey scale. Then adding these red, green, and blue elements for coding purposes. And honestly, for me, shading in greyscale is pretty simple.

The difficulty in the colour slider was really testing swatches (which wasn't difficult per se, but was a little time consuming until I got the hang of it - like any new tool) and the coding itself as far applying the colourised art to a sprite, then CGs, then a gallery.

And I think the coding was harder for me because frankly, I'm a very low level coder. Windchimes helped me with it and was subsequently traumatised by those bright green teeth. 🤣🤣