Progress update - January (remasters and animations) (Patreon)

Hello everyone! How are you doing? On my end, it’s been a busy month. I’m already animating things and replacing some old CGs that really needed a fresh coat of paint.

Remasters

If we really start from the beginning, we have to go back to how the game originally started. Honestly, I feel like expanding this part a bit, but for now I’ll focus on redoing the most urgent parts and then see where it goes. For the piece you see below, especially the background, I used a mix of 3D modeling, drawing, and AI (nano banana pro).

I know this is a sensitive topic, and I hope newcomers don’t mind me using AI to optimize some assets. In this case, it’s only used for the background. I ran my 3D model render through AI, tweaked a few things, and then added the MC on top.

I personally don’t have an issue with using AI as a tool, and the main reason I don’t use it more often is that my drawing style doesn’t seem to work very well with it. If I see other chances to save time with something like this, especially blurry background elements, I’ll use it unless you tell me it doesn’t fit and pulls you out of the story.

Another scene I’m remastering is Rea’s. I’ll probably release a small update once it’s ready so you can try it out, although I’m still undecided on whether to just drop it into the game or do a small reboot with clean code, basically rebuilding the game with the new assets.

Extra scenes

Besides remastering old content, I’m also adding new scenes to the game. I’ve been lucky enough to get enough commissioned pieces to actually integrate them into the game and build a scene around them. This one involves Ruri, as you may have seen in the previous sneak peek.

This new scene is animated, and I’m already working on it. Releasing everything that belongs to "Chapter 1" will take some time, since it goes up to after the locker scene with Emi. Because of that, I’m not sure if you’d prefer shorter updates where I can show new animations as I finish them. What do you think? Would you rather have short updates with the scenes accessible through the menu, or wait until the scenes are fully woven into the game? Please let me know in the comments.

That’s all for now, I hope you liked it. More content soon. Bye!