Dearest Allies,

We’ve been a bit negligent in posting about our progress, in part because it didn’t feel very exciting to keep saying that we are writing, particularly when the world around us is perpetually on fire. What’s a little project like ours in the face of all that? 

But we are still writing. 

We just finished our first draft of the baseline version of Lillian’s second mission. It clocks in at a whopping 770+ pages. For comparison, most routes in the first mission were in the 300-400 page range. It’s a significant leap in scope–intimidating to us as creators, but necessary to tell the story we want to tell. So while this process is taking no small amount of time, we hope you will find it worth the wait. A lot of care is being poured into making this the best possible thing it can be.

Now that we’ve labored through a first draft, we’re switching gears to edit. It involves a lot of cringing over our older work and ironing out inconsistencies. It’s not quite as bad as facing a blinking cursor on a blank page, but there are still hurdles: beloved lines must be cut where they don’t serve the story as a whole, some scenes must be thrown out entirely, not to mention incorporating the new things we learned about our characters only discovered later in the writing process. 

There’s still a lot to consider with how and where the story should branch and what might be different where Anton is involved versus Émile. We’re even toying with a possible third love interest (!) for Lillian. There are many rabbit holes to fall down, but before we do we want to pause and get some feedback on what we have so far. To that end, we’re going to be looking for some test readers soon. More to come on that.

In the meantime, let’s talk about some celebrations!

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of Love & Country, which is wild and crazy for us (we will probably say that every year). We decided, as a treat to both ourselves and you, the audience, that some merchandise was in order.

Et voilà ! 

Stickers! We’ve made some lovely die-cut vinyl stickers of our beautiful babies that will soon be available for purchase in the brand new Merch section of our website. 

And, guys, if that weren’t enough for you, please enjoy Love & Country: The First Mission for 30% off during the Steam Summer Sale! If you liked the demo but were on the fence about buying, you’ll finally have the chance at a discount starting June 25th!

As always, thank you for the continued support! We are so grateful to everyone for reading our visual novel, for leaving such kind comments in reviews, and for sticking with us on our creative journey. 

Yours,

Team Gu <3