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As said in one of the recent devlogs, I have started re-coding the demo in Ren'Py, as I won't be using TyranoBuilder anymore, which takes priority at the moment. After I'm done with that, I will resume development of the full game.

DEVLOG #1

To be honest, production isn't going as well as I'd hoped. It's true that there's still more than a month left until the jam's deadline but I can't help feeling like I'm falling behind.

The script isn't done yet. I'm getting close but I also feel like I'm not too proud of the direction I've taken. I constantly feel like changing stuff but having a second writer who's basically fixing my language (they make everything sound so good, damn) is stopping me from doing it. I don't want to add more work for them, plus we're on a time costraint, so I'm telling myself it's fine as it is.

(Gwen, the protagonist, and her two outfits)

I also haven't even finished designing the UI... I've started coding, designing, drawing but there is not a single thing that is finished. Definitely not happy about that. I'm lacking music and backgrounds as well.

I wonder how firm can you be with team members until you sound too controlling or seem like you're asking for too much? If anyone can give me any pointers I'm all ears. I want to be a good director who they won't regret working with, once this jam is over.

I guess that's all for now. Hopefully I can get back to you before the end of the month with another update!

ANNOUNCEMENT

Like last year, I have joined the Yuri game jam and will bring you a juicy game with both hot and cute women :p

Trying to learn from my past mistakes, I have already found a background artist, a music composer and a 2nd writer to help me with the script. If everything goes according to plan, and I'm quite optimistic this time, you will see a complete game, with a beginning and an ending (sorry Synthetizing Love, I haven't forgotten about you).

As for the genre, I have strayed from my usual romance/slice-of-life games and moved on to horror/creepy. As the protagonist, you will find yourself alone in a forest during a thunderstorm, forced to seek shelter in a mysterious mansion inhabitated by a beautiful and just as mysterious woman. What will happen inside? Will you be able to go home? Find out in two months!

As announced last week, I decided to switch engines from TyranoBuilder to Ren'Py and I'm now working on coding the demo from scratch. In the process, I also decided to update the UI and this is what I worked on this week.

For now the main menu and textbox will look the same, as I think they still look good even with the updated UI, but I'll consider redoing them in the future for the complete game. 

The rest has changed considerably! The menus now have much more personality and are quite colorful, acting like a sort of personal diary/notepad for Hannah. Everything works as intended (I'm only missing the "confirm" screen and the language selection button) but I had to put the credits screen on hold until I reach a point when I know exactly who to credit.

I'd like to change a few things, maybe work more on the music, add sfx and have only custom made backgrounds. I also plan to polish the writing a bit, mainly in the first part of the game which people found pretty boring, but hopefully it's just a matter of deleting a few sentences, so that I can still use the translations from last year. I feel bad for all the people who helped me and still can't see their work put to use because I felt too overwhelmed to continue the project. Certainly I wasn't in a good place mentally but I have to admit that Tyrano's unwillingness to collaborate wasn't helpful. Yes, the only reason this game even exist is because of that engine and I'll always be grateful for that, but its strenght of being so easy for beginners was also its weakness. 

I'm still a newbie in game development in general and with Ren'Py, but after my first Ren'Py project "Sprint down memory lane", I already learned so much and I'm able to design and code UIs that I never even thought were possible to do! As I probably already wrote in the past, the main protagonists of this game have been my OCs for years so I want to write this game's story by myself at all costs, which means it probably won't be the best so let me apologize in advance! I'm just stubborn, I want to be able to do everything and asking for help feels like cheating, although it totally isn't. I'd like to collaborate with a writer in the future to bring my stories to life, I know I'll definitely enjoy the process more if I won't have to worry about people disliking my writing ^^"

Anyway, I digress! This is all I can show you for now and I won't hide that I'm so proud of myself, comparing these screenshots to the current demo! Next I'll add all the text in the game (which will be so, so much easier this time around T.T) and then polish it as best as I can. In the meantime, I should think of a plot for this year's Yuri game jam...

See you soon!!

Thank you!

Hi! Unfortunately the game's developement is on hold for now, so even I don't know

Hello! First of all, I'm happy you liked the game ^^

As for MousePSD, I think I still have it somewhere but I'm not sure how I would go about sharing it.
It would feel weird to put it on github since it's not mine but I could momentarily upload it to dropbox for you to download, if you want.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it 😁

She kinda does!

Super cute!

Parto già ringraziandoti per aver scritto una recensione così esaustiva!

Ho scritto varie fanfiction storie in passato ma avendole tenute per me non ho mai avuto nessuno che potesse darmi dei consigli, quindi era prevedibile che la mia prima opera pubblica non sarebbe stata perfetta. Per lo meno sono stati tutti gentili e costruttivi!
Di certo non toccherò la demo per ora (altrimenti non andrò mai avanti), ma una volta finita tutta la storia vedrò cosa tenere e cosa tagliare per rendere il tutto più fluido.

Devo dire, comunque, che mi fa davvero piacere che Chikara sia piaciuta a tal punto da essere voluta come love interest (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑ Ma il trio è nato come gruppo di amiche e non ci sarebbe mai stata una romance, in ogni caso.
Posso quindi dirti che, sì, le commesse e la volontaria sono le love interest! (Non dovrei dirlo, ma per quanto riguarda il design, anch'io preferisco la commessa del WcDonald's 👀 Caratterialmente... si vedrà) Sinceramente non so se sia una cosa originale o meno, però l'idea del gioco è sì di presentare una storia romantica, ma anche creare un percorso di accettazione e amicizia prima di tutto. Forse non sarò realistica al 100%, ma spero che risulterà per lo meno interessante.

Per tutto il resto, grazie ancora per tutti i complimenti, mi spingono a lavorare ancora di più! Potrei prendere in considerazione l'idea per il title screen, visto che sto anche pensando di cambiare engine, ma è ancora tutto un forse. Vedrò cosa mi riserva il futuro!

Once again, I'm open for commissions and this time I also offer UI designs!

If you're interested, fill out my google form to receive an estimate https://forms.gle/jpW7fM2XkW5VpE348

Unfortunately writing isn't my thing and I won't deny it 😅
I'm sorry the intro is so boring but I'll try to learn all I can from this experience. Knowing that I somehow got things right at least at the end makes me relieved.

If there's one thing I'd like to say, is that I don't really agree with your "right-wing activist" comment. I barely even know what that is, to begin with, but I don't see anything political in this.
For almost 10 years Hannah has told herself the words she heard from her former best friend over and over, to make sure the same thing didn't happen again. Does it sound like propaganda? Not to me, at least.
A smart and research-oriented person like her could only give "it's not natural" as her response. Doesn't really sound like she was so prepared for this, given she's lacking other arguments.

That said, I appreciate your comment and your honesty, it will definitely help me grow. Thanks for playing the demo till the end!

I'm so happy to see new people interested in helping out!

Just like I said to the other person, send me a friend request on discord at tenshiyoru ^^

Hi, thanks for your message! I already have a French translator but not a Greek one.
I'd like to ask you a few questions first, though. Send me a friend request on discord at tenshiyoru so we can talk ^^

Sorry, just as you realized, Chikara (and Yvonne) cannot be romanced! I am considering spin offs for them (no yuri though), but I won't actually say anything until I can finish this game first.
Also, if you think the cashier is hot already, I'm sure you'll like her even more in casual clothes lol

As for the backgrounds unfortunately my BG artist, z.rose, couldn't finish all of them in time, so I had to use some free assets (no stock pictures though, you can find the artists' names in the credits) for the rest. But they haven't stopped working, so I'll replace the assets with original backgrounds in a later update! They made the animal shelter and Hannah's room ^^

Story-wise, you're not the first one to tell me that and I've taken note for the future to hopefully not make the same mistake. Creating a nice pace is harder than I thought.

Finally, thank you so much for reporting this bug! I'll fix it immediately and upload a new build asap.

That said, thank you very much for writing your honest thoughts and I can't tell you how happy I am you like Chikara! She's always had a special place in my heart <3

Thank you very much for your detailed review!

I'm glad that I could make you feel something during the most important scenes, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to convey the right emotions with my writing. I rewrote the whole script so many times and there's so much I wanted to add! But it wasn't the right time.

Will do my best to deliver an even better full game ^^

I see, I will definitely be careful about this in the future~

Thank you for the feedback!

You say it took you some time to get into the story, is it because it drags on too long before getting to the point? Or was the writing just not that entertaining?

The demo is finally out!

You can download it here

I can’t believe that I not only made a full fledged demo but I even did it for a jam, in three months. This is insane.

To be honest I didn’t have the confidence to even last a week, in the beginning. In the past I tried twice to work on a game but I didn’t even manage to write the story, I just abandoned the projects as soon as the initial excitement wore off. But it was different this time, especially thanks to a friend.

Thanks to the jam’s discord server, I found other people who showed interest in my game and I found some interesting projects as well. Seeing how everyone was working hard really drove me to give it my all.

Of course, despite doing most of the work on my own, I couldn’t have made it without all the other people who supported me either morally or materially (or both) with art, music and translation. The demo may be not “perfect” yet, because it’s still missing some original backgrounds and music or translations, but I will slowly add them to the game with later updates throughout the month of December.

Right now the game is only available in English, but these languages will be added in a few days:

• Italian 
• Spanish 
• Portuguese (BR)
• Polish

In the meantime, the translators are also working on these other languages, which will be added as soon as they’re completed:

• Russian
• Danish
• French
• Malay

If you can help translate the demo (unpaid, unfortunately) in any other language, please contact me ^^

The game has a discord server where I am managing the development with the other volunteers but if enough people are interested, I may open it to the public! Let me know what you think.

That said, I just want to thank you all and hope you will enjoy the demo~
I will now take a couple of days off (I say, although I’m sure I won’t lol) and then go back to work. There’s still the rest of the game to work on!

I'm working on a visual novel, Synthetizing Love, and already looked for composers a while ago. Unfortunately one of them completely disappeared and now the other one has to work alone, leading to all of the work falling on his shoulders. Which is why I'd like to find someone who can assist him in creating original tracks for the game.

I'm looking for someone "professional", which doesn't mean I'm looking for a pro composer, especially since this is an unpaid position, but I want someone who is able to communicate, update me frequently and actually get their job done. If you can create sound effects too that would be a plus.

The game is being developed for a jam that will end on December 8th. Right now the soundtrack is a mix of original pieces and free assets found online and this is probably how the game will be released initially, but I plan to replace all the unoriginal assets with original music in a later update.
At the moment I'm busy trying to complete the game in time, so please leave your portfolio/samples in the comments with your discord name and I will contact you after the jam is over, so 1 or 2 weeks from now.

Don't forget to take a look at my game's page (or try the game, once the demo is out) to get an idea of the type of music I'm looking for. You can also look a this document for some info on the characters and plot.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions, I'll try to reply ASAP.

I don't remember if I mentioned this in a past devlog, but a while ago I got two composers to help me with the game's music. Well, one of them has been silent for more than a month, so I had to take them off the team; the other made a couple of tracks for me but, due to personal reasons, can't finish the rest of the work on time. So for now I took some time to find some emergency free music tracks and added them to the game. I really don't have the time to test how well they fit each scene or if there are any problems, so I asked a friend to test the game for me. Hopefully I'll have some feedback soon. I really like my composer's music, though, so I hope to be able to replace the free assets with their tracks in the future, or to at least add them to the full game.

(preview of two CGs, showing Chikara and Yvonne)

In the meantime I'm working on CGs and I'm doing quite well but not too much. In total there should be 14 CGs and I've completed 6 of them, plus I'm halfway through the 7th one already. I'm doing what I can but some of them require backgrounds (it would be awesome to give all of them a background but I'm taking some shortcuts) and they're my weakness, so it takes some time to get something decent.

As long as I manage to complete the most important CGs, my artist finishes that one background I really need and the music is somehow ok, the game could be released in time for the jam. I really, really hope I can do that!

Thank you ^^

It's been a while since my last update but I'm not really sure what to say. Have I actually made any progress?

Technically, I have. All the menus are now fully functional and I've had to fix a lot of things, which really stressed me out.

- I still don't know how to create functional pop up windows, so I had to find a workaround for the language selection.
- Language selection now works perfectly, but I won't be able to implement languages other than English before the jam's deadline, which means I'll have to do that in a later update. At least this will give time to my translators to test the game.
- The save function wasn't working because of a software specific issue and so I had to find a workaround, deleting quick save/load and replacing them with normal save/load. Now the game's menu feels a little empty, but at least it works and who's to say I won't add something interesting in the full game 👀

Is this everything? I don't rememeber, honestly, but it still feels like I haven't actually done much. The music is still missing and I've only completed 2 CGs so far. I'm trying to focus on the most important ones but I wonder if I'll be able to finish them all in time?

Time is running out, help T.T

I'll probably have to add the translations in a later update (so the game will be first published in English only), which means I can extend the deadline to Christmas/end of the year and I'm open to more languages if anyone is interested ^^

I can't believe I'm finally saying this: all the character sprites are done! It took a while and I'm more tired than I thought I'd be, but at least one of the important parts is done. I think I'm going to work on the title screen next.

(There is actually one more character I haven't shown but I figured it wouldn't be fun to reveal everything :D)

I haven't made any progress with music and backgrounds yet but I'm relying on volunteers, who obviously have stuff going on with their lives, so I'll try to give them a hand when I'm done with all the other stuff. Still, I'm loving the stuff I've received so far and I can't wait to show you~

On the other hand, translation in going really well! Three languages have been completed and in a while I'll start adding them to the game, hoping to have it tested before I have to publish the demo.

I've already decided that I will release it for the jam no matter what. It may be incomplete, it may need at least one or two updates, but I'll make sure that it's playable at least. It would lose all meaning if I missed the deadline.

Now, I'll take at least one day to rest, maybe playing some video games! And then I'll come back, hopefully, stronger than ever~

I haven't had the time to update my post but I've already found a Russian translator.

Thanks for the interest though!

As I've said in my post, the script is around (or a little over) 11k words. 

I'm not using any specific software and I surely won't ask you to buy anything! You will work on a google sheets file, easy to access and edit. 

Honestly, if you think you can translate the demo at least by the end of the year, then I can already send you the translation sheet.

Just send me a friend request on discord (preferably) or an email when you're available and I'll give you the link ^^

Thank you, but I only need one translator per language at the moment.

I'll keep you in mind if I ever need more help though, if you're still available! 

I do! We can talk on discord, send me a friend request 

Just a quick update to let you know that I've decided to start looking for translators!

I'm not looking for any languages in particular, but I'm already set for English, Italian, Spanish and Russian, so anything other than those four would be good. There's only a little over a month left until the jam's end, so it's important to start soon if I want the translations to be ready in time. And as I've said before, this would be an unpaid position unfortunately.

(screenshot of settings menu, just to show you some progress)

If you can help with any language other than the ones I mentioned before, please contact me! You can do that on discord at tenshiyoru or by email at tenshi.yoru.art@gmail.com

Your word's enough for me, don't worry. I asked more out of curiosity than to actually test your skills.

Mine's a small project so it's enough that you're willing to help!

Is there anywhere we can continue this conversation?

HI! Do you have any previous experience?
Feel free to contact me on discord ^^

Hello! Have you translated other games before?
Feel free to contact me on discord ^^

Hello, thank you for your interest!

I completely understand wanting to finish your ongoing projects first, I set a deadline because it would be nice to have as many languages as possible before the jam ends, but I'd still like to translate the full game anyway, so I'm accepting all kinds of help. If men are challenging for you, I wonder if translating a game full of women will be easier?

I guess I didn't specify it in my game's page, but it will be fully SFW. It's about accepting and allowing yourself to fall in love, meaning nothing physical will be described (might be implied in the full game, though, but I'm not sure yet. What's important is that there's nothing of the sort in the demo).

Let me know when you're done with the other games, I'd love to work with you if I haven't found anyone else in the meantime!

Hello! As the title says, I'm looking for translators.

My game is called "Synthetizing Love"  and it's a yuri romance visual novel, with a script that's roughly 11k words long, plus the various UI elements that need translation as well. 

The demo (I will work on the full game after I'm done with the demo) is written in English and I will personally translate it into Italian too, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. Any language will be greatly appreciated, so if you're interested feel free to let me know. I'll gladly contact you when I need help translating the full game too, if you're still available! 

As of now, I have found translators for the following languages:

• Spanish
• Russian
• Danish
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Polish
• French
• Malay

Unfortunately I can't pay you, as this is a hobby project and will be free to play, but I will credit you! 

I'd like to have the translation ready by the end of November, since I'm trying to join a jam, but it's not that important so don't feel too pressured. 
I have still too much work to do and won't be able to add the translations to the game before the jam is over (although some of them are complete already and I need to thank the amazing people who have helped me!), so the game will be published in English only at first. Which means I'll add them in a later update, possibly around Christmas/end of the year, which is my new deadline.
Hopefully things will go according to plan this time around!

I think this is all, but if you have any questions just ask! 

You can contact me on discord (tenshiyoru) or at tenshi.yoru.art@gmail.com 

I've found all the help I needed. Thanks to everyone who reached out!

As of today, all the text from the prologue has been added to the game! Along with all the respective expressions for each sentence. As it is right now, it could actually be played, but a lot of things are still missing or incomplete, like sprites, backgrounds and CGs. Speaking of CGs, I may need to take a few of them out, at least for the demo. It will depend on how much time I have left. I will take a general look at the game to make sure everything looks good and then I will finally jump onto the menus. I still need to create the title screen and I'm not really sure what to do with it yet.

On an even more positive note, I have found 2 composers and a background artist! I still need to figure out how to efficiently communicate with them, since it's my first time leading a project, but I love their work and hope to create great things together~

Ideally I would have a fully functional demo ready for the end of the month but I don't want to make any promises because I easily get overwhelmed.

Objective for next update: check that all the text is working, check that all the choices work as intended and create and implement all menus.

Still looking for a background artist!