Dear Lords and Ladies of the Ravensburg Court,
My dear husband tells me: “The time you spend polishing your demo and marketing on social media is time you’re not spending working on your game!” And he’s completely right, of course.
But… How can I not show off what I’ve been working on since the last demo, especially when I’m participating in Fall in Love Festival, which kicks off TODAY?
So, let’s take a look at what you’ll find in the latest demo (Demo 4.0) that's just dropped today!
Story Tree
One of the biggest updates in this demo is the new Story Tree.
I’ve taken an audacious move and gotten rid of the traditional Save/Load pages. Instead, your progress is now represented by a story tree made up of circular “nodes.”
[This is a major system change, which unfortunately means your previous saves will no longer work.]
The game automatically saves your progress at these nodes, and you can return to them later to continue the story from that point. This means you can now wander through the tree, revisit your choices, and see where all those wild decisions might have taken you.
The code for this entire system was done by my loving husband, who just happens to have a degree in Software Engineering😁. Thanks, hubby!
Art
As art is the soul of any otome, I update it periodically when inspiration strikes, and Lucian has had yet another character redesign. This time, he has shiny new hair and a new prince suit to make him even more bling bling. ✨ (Oh, and he has a shadow now, so it doesn't look like he's levitating.)
Victoria has also received an art upgrade, with shinier hair, a fancier fan, and a detailed dress.
Nerissa, Amelia, and Mother all got new hair as well, with more detail and higher resolution.
And Amelia was redrawn to appear more like a baby faced 5 year old!
Animation
Inspired by some awesome Live2D models I came across on YouTube, I decided to re-rig ALL of my major characters in Live2D.
The princes now have several different arm positions, different angles, and can even lean in *squeal*
Yes please. I would very much like to be embraced. 😂
Script
The majority of my time since the last update really has been spent working on the script.
As the story gets more polished, the world gets more fleshed out, the court intrigue gets more complicated, and the characters become more 3-dimensional.
Which means… rewrites. So. Many. Rewrites. 😭
Maximilian’s draft is once again back at 100%, although it still needs plenty of polishing.
And Lucian… well… I had to go back to the drawing board with his route to make sure his story reflects his controlling and scheming personality... and how our protagonist might tame/crush him.
But rest assured, these edits aren't just impulsive changes. I’m using them to raise the stakes and give you players crazier choices and more interesting endings to explore (including non-canon endings with Nerissa and Victoria)
And some of those changes have already made their way into the updated demo! So you can get a little taste of where things are heading.
That’s all for this update! Lords and Ladies, what are you still doing here? Go and play the updated demo NOW! 🎉 I’d especially love to hear what you think of the updated art, animation, story, and especially the Story Tree as a replacement for the traditional Save/Load system.
Humbly Yours,
Small Serenity Studio