Hello, everyone! This is Lucky Cat, the solo dev behind The Silent Kingdom.
I'm very happy to announce that I've reached a milestone with chapter 2!! I was able to finish the main tasks during May, so I gave myself the rest of the month to test, improve things, and even add extra scenes and maps (one of them has become one of my favourite scenes in the game: a dialogue between Seneca and Thibault that barely anyone will see hahaha). I've been crunching myself for the past two months, but I promise that I've been getting more sleep.
Completed tasks:
Script. (DONE) (533 pages)
Mapping. (DONE)
Chibi sprites and animations (DONE)
Character portraits / avatars (DONE)
Programming (DONE)
Pending tasks:
30+ CGs.
Translations.
Battle stuff.
With all the main tasks done, chapter 2 became completely playable, so my friend Chivs (who designed the battle system skills) could test it for the first time. I was terrified, though his impressions turned out to be positive. I don't know why I'm still anxious. Will most people like it too? Only time can tell.
As an anecdote, while my friend was able to experience some romantic interactions with each LI, he couldn't see the full romance because his princess accidentally friendzoned her LI at the beginning of the chapter. This made me aware that the dialogue options might not have been very clear, so I rewrote the friendzoning option as "I don't want to lose his friendship". If you seek romance, please don't pick that option hahaha. The princess won't act in love if you do.
In the end, my friend's mighty sacrifice might have saved future players...
As promised, here's the portrait for Zephyr von Lectica, king of the Sacred Kingdom of Lectica!
And here's a part of the castle that will be barely seen ingame, but I had to make it anyway for a certain scene. Since it was a pain to make, I might as well share it.
This month, I can either start working on the script for chapter 3, or work on ch.2's English translation + CGs.
Since I have many CGs to draw and I'm in the mood for it, I'll work on translation + CGs until I simply feel like starting the script. I never care about the order so long as I get all the tasks done.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your patience, for always giving me encouragement and even caring about my well being. Making a game like this is a lot of work, but whenever someone tells me how excited they are to play it, I always feel a rush of energy and a sincere wish to dedicate all my time to crafting this. I really hope everyone will feel it'll be worth it in the end. See you at the next update!