Happy May everyone! It's high time for another development update. I'll start with PoP stuff, then get into Game 2.
PoP: Thanks to everyone who's played Epilogue 2! Epilogue 3 is underway already and will focus much more on changes between relationships as the ladies progress through their pregnancy. I won't give too much away, but the title will be "Late Night Snacks", so you can expect Michael to go on a very fun miniquest. :)
Game 2: The next game will be a combination of a reverse trainer game and mini "city" management game. You'll be working with one of the two main LIs (a fiery redhead tsundere) to help uncorrupt our other main LI, who's been possessed by a succubus. You'll be balancing this reverse training with managing food, water, and other resources in the rather bleak and desolate magical hellscape you find yourselves trapped in.
That's right - there'll be actual gameplay to go with your wholesome story and handholding! It'll be a far more difficult game to create than a simple VN on the technical end of things, but my hope is that the limited number of environments will allow me to create even more cool and detailed custom environments in Blender. :) I'm sure my Blender skills will progress over time as I create more and more art in the system, but my dream goal is to have animated sprites over animated environments, all with physically realistic effects (ie. clothes draping nicely, water flowing, beds deforming when you sit on them, etc.). There'll still be regular CGs (full renders) for important scenes, but sprites for your more "basic" interactions.
As much as I'm looking forward to the fun of creating all this cool art and designing gameplay systems, the primary focus of the game will always be the plot and characters. By focusing on just three characters and putting them in an environment where they'll be constantly interacting and reacting to one another, my goal is to make each of them feel complex, interesting, and real. I think I achieved that to some extent with PoP, but the best way to develop character is to show it in the way they interact with one another and the world. That's hard to do in a fairly linear VN format, but when you can perform in-game actions and see how characters react to them and see how those reactions change over time... That's when you really feel the character development. That's really the fundamental purpose of the gameplay and art for me; they exist to bring the story and characters to life.
I won't go on for any longer, but hopefully that's a good insight into the near-term plans for the PoP and the longer-term plans for Game 2. :)