31 Mar 2026Developer post

Now developing a mobile version of Time To Live!

We have entered the great mobile era. Although I am a rather old-fashioned person who knows nothing but PC games, I cannot go against the flow of the times, so I made a momentous decision: to create a mobile version of the game. However, my motto is "to create anachronistic games

31 Jan 2026Developer post

Base Price Reduction

Time To Live has already been out for a year. Therefore, I've decided to lower the price. This is not a sale, but a permanent price reduction. Thank you.

04 Jan 2026Developer post

Game manual uploaded

I've received several requests asking me to upload the game manual or provide walkthroughs. However, I felt it wasn't quite right to simply hand out the entire game strategy guide, so I've responded vaguely to such requests until now. I figured pressing F1 in-game to view the hel

31 Mar 2025Developer post

Time To Live box edition is coming soon!

Here is WTFMAN, a creator of anachronistic games. My ultimate goal is to make a big box game. I've been thinking more about it, and CD-ROMs just aren't enough... A true retro game should be on a diskette. Not many people remember diskettes anymore, so let me explain. Diskettes ar

29 Mar 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-03-29

- Fixed an issue with icons not displaying correctly when scoring over 5000 points on leaderboards. - Fixed some awkward staging in the 'Hero Of The Another World' route.

13 Feb 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-02-13

- Fixed a game over error when running out of money in hardcore mode. - Fixed duplicate ending hint wording in the gallery. - Fixed an issue where food items would disappear from the store when purchased when you have more than 9 items in your home.

09 Feb 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-02-09

- Updated to prevent two routes from progressing at once. - Fixed an issue in the Robot Story and Hallucination Story where the next event wouldn't happen if you didn't work a part-time job, making it impossible to progress. - Minor typo fixes.

08 Feb 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-02-08

- Added an “idle” behavior to the Superhero route, where can wait her. - Fixed an issue where the play ending earlier than 30 days in the Isekai story. - Minor translation fixes.

04 Feb 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-02-04

- Fixed an issue where the Manage Fish Tank command would not trigger certain events that only occur when APs were consumed.

02 Feb 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-02-02

- Fixed an issue where progression could be blocked in the police station during the Progamer story.

31 Jan 2025Developer post

Bug fix 2025-01-31

- Fixed an issue where if you don't have a computer at home when has the 'Game' item, she won't consume also book items. - Fixed an issue that would turn any food into a barbecue if you had a grill and coals at home. I like grilled fish.

25 Jan 2025Developer post

Time To Live is coming to Steam!

January 25, 2025 09:00 Pacific Standard Time January 26, 2025, 02:00 Korea/Japan Time Time To Live is now available Thank you for your long wait!

14 Jan 2025Developer post

Dev log #6 and about the delayed release

It's 2025, and I'm belatedly wishing you a happy new year. Originally, I planned to release Time To Live at the end of 2024, but I wanted to explain why delaying the release and explain the new system working on. 1. Why was the release delayed? At the end of 2024, I participated

It's 2025, and I'm belatedly wishing you a happy new year.

Originally, I planned to release Time To Live at the end of 2024, but I wanted to explain why delaying the release and explain the new system working on.

1. Why was the release delayed?

At the end of 2024, I participated in a few indie game events, and I've been revising the game based on the feedback I got there.

The biggest feedback was that people didn't know what the goal of the game was and that there was nothing to do, so I needed to create more content to do and improve the help.

Also, I had to test and debug the game. During this process, I caught several bugs and made endless adjustments.

2. How Complete is the Game?

The game itself is already complete. What remains now are test plays, bug fixes, and the implementation of new systems.

Here are some examples of the new systems:

Help Menu

The help menu has been greatly improved. It now shows players exactly what they need to do, explains the meaning of the numbers and graphs on the screen, and details the effects of certain items.
I recommend taking a look before you start playing.

Quests

Unless you're on a specific route, you can take on quests every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Completing a quest grants a bonus, while failing results in a penalty.

Upon Completing a Quest

Upon Failing a Quest

Rewards and penalties for quests vary depending on the quest itself.

Leaderboard

After clearing the game, your score will be calculated, and you'll be ranked on the leaderboard.
Since it's a single-player game, the leaderboard doesn't hold much significance, but you might as well aim for a high score, right?
(By the way, I put a lot of effort into getting the Steam leaderboard to work through Ren'Py, but unfortunately, I failed. Sorry about that. Calling the Steam API from Ren'Py causes the game to crash.)

Additionally, the build is still undergoing review, so it may take a little more time. But in any case, the game will be released this January! Please look forward to it.

Thank you.

Original post

05 Oct 2024Developer post

Dev log #5

Hardcore mode is for those who want to play a more difficult game. You can select it after watching the ending of the game, and the changes are explained in the screenshots. In hardcore mode, manual saves are not possible, and your game will automatically save every morning. In a

16 Jun 2024Developer post

Reached 1000+ Wishlists!

Thanks to a lot of support during Steam Next Fest, my game's wishlist has reached 1000. Thank you to everyone who added to our wishlist! I'll make a great game for you! Have a great day!

13 Jun 2024Developer post

EGA LULZ!!! 16-COLOR LIVE DRAWING SHOW!

For Steam Next Fest, I am hosting a live show on June 16, 2024 from 12:00AM to 03:00AM KST(June 15, 2024 from 08:00AM to 11:00AM PST) where we'll be drawing using only 16 colors. What I'll be drawing is a source that will actually be used in the game.Stay tuned for the full relea

10 Jun 2024Developer post

Steam Next Fest is here!

Starting June 10th (PST), Steam Next Fest is here. Time To Live will be participating in Steam Next Fest! Check out our gameplay videos, download the trial, and have fun! If you have any questions, suggestions, or bug reports about the game, please leave them in the discussions a

08 Jun 2024Developer post

Dev log #4

Deciding what to order for a long weekend is a big deal. If you have a roommate, it's even harder if they don't have the same tastes as you. Why not order for both of them? What if you can't afford it? After all, it's more efficient to have one menu. The food ordering battle is s

02 Jun 2024Developer post

About updates to the demo version

Recently identified and fixed a bug that prevented multiple save files from working independently (e.g., if a product list was modified in save A, it would be reflected in save B), but this changed the way the files are read, causing existing save files to lose the product list i

14 May 2024Developer post

Dev log #3

One of Time To Live's biggest selling points is its 16-color graphics. 16-color is a essence of the classic IBM PC games. My personal goal is to recreate the graphics of the EGA. The color table consists of eight basic colors, eight brighter colors, and 16 colors in total. These

One of Time To Live's biggest selling points is its 16-color graphics.

16-color is a essence of the classic IBM PC games. My personal goal is to recreate the graphics of the EGA. The color table consists of eight basic colors, eight brighter colors, and 16 colors in total. These 16 colors are very sufficient for drawing, and I believe that having this constraint pushes human creativity even further, because it forces us to use our brains to overcome scarce resources.

Drawing in 16 colors is a technique that's been perfected by many before me, so it's a simple matter of following suit. There are classic games like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, and so many more.

In the beginning, I was thought, “Just draw a picture and modify it with a indexed 16 colors.” but I soon learned that this was a grave mistake. Index colors don't translate as well as I thought they would. For example, here's an example of my failure.

The figure on the left was dithered too much, which made it look quite ugly. The dithering pattern is also not uniform, so I drew it again. On the right is how it will look in the actual game.

The biggest problem is that the lines are inconsistent in thickness - I want them to be clean, one-pixel lines, but the program is too dumb, you know.

Eventually, I decided to throw away these failed drafts and start drawing it myself.

Here's how I drew them in 16 colors.

Let's start with photography. I usually travel to different places and take pictures of impressive views, which are very helpful when I'm creating something. I'll use this photo as a reference.

Start with a rough sketch. For reference, all of the background pictures have a resolution of 475 x 275 (actually 950 x 550 by 2x). I'm assuming that Time To Live will have a resolution of 640 x 360 (again, this is actually 1280 x 720 by 2x).

I drew the pixels roughly based on my sketch. Pixels should only be drawn with a mouse. If you draw with a tablet, the pixels will clump together, you won't get uniformly thick lines, and the result will be ugly.

Draw the trees to be dense.

These leaves are not hand drawn, but I created a pattern of these shapes, which I then duplicated.

You might be wondering why the color of the leaves is dark blue + dark green. Personally, I think the light green+dark green color combination is too bland, and it's a very obvious leaf color, and the outlines don't stand out. Real life leaves don't look that light green, either. Anyway, that's why I don't use light green very often.

I flipped it over and drew the leaves on the other side, then cleaned them up a bit. Then I drew the background mountain, the water, and the bridge in the distance. Since I have a limited number of colors, it's all about how much natural dithering I can add. For this reason, I often change the pattern and color of the dither as I draw. I save my dithering patterns as patterns in Photoshop.

I drew the overpass in the background. I really wanted to draw an overpass. One of the things I personally look for in art is how Korean it is, because when you go to the countryside in Korea, you always see overpasses. I want to recreate the scenery that I see around me. At the BIC exhibition, someone once asked me, “Isn't the background too Korean?” but that was my intention. The game is set in Korea, not some faraway country or other world.

This is the finalized look. I adjusted the dithering pattern of the sky to change the color a bit.

Since the game will have different backgrounds depending on the weather, we'll just change the color and dither pattern to represent a cloudy day. When I'm done, I convert it to the index color and save it, just in case. This will correct any small pixels that I didn't catch that are outside the 16 colors.

This is what it actually looks like in-game.

So there you have it, the process of creating a 16-color background illustration, and I hope you like it, whether you've played the game from this era or are seeing it for the first time.