Hello everyone! Dakno here. :)
As you may know, I've been a bit absent over the past two months, mainly because I changed to a new job and had to readjust my life in several areas.
On the other hand, at the end of January Lumen left the Naventu team for personal reasons. The departure was sudden, and Eón and I had to reorganize our roadmap, but don't worry, the development of the game continues. Lumen worked with us for six months, and we are very grateful for her contributions to the interface, the first animations, several renders, and the initial draft of the French translation.
Now that both Naventu and I are back to a stable situation, I'd like to share some thoughts and updates about FP, as well as announce a small update for version 0.1.
Our vision for the game
Our goal is to create a different and inspiring story about the future of humanity. For that reason, we aim to reach a broad audience, regardless of sexual orientation or interest in sexual content. We have a lot to tell!
At Naventu, we don't see this project as just an entertainment product, but as a serious story with its own message, where relationships with the characters develop at a meaningful and appropriate pace. Because when there is sex, we want it to feel meaningful and memorable. ^^
Since the release of Chapter 1, we've received a lot of feedback, both publicly and privately, and overall it has been very positive! We're truly grateful for our growing community. <3
However, we've also noticed something important: part of the audience comes to the game expecting an experience focused exclusively on adult content, with expectations that don't match what Fiction Paradox actually is.
Marketing changes
Over the past few weeks, we've made several changes to the project's communication in order to attract the right audience.
For example, our previous description was too generic: we talked about an "adventure" in very broad terms, briefly mentioning that there was "mystery, love, and sex". We did this to avoid spoiling the end of Chapter 1, but it turned out to be clearly insufficient. We've now rewritten the descriptions to better reflect the essence of the game.
We've also changed the game's cover. Previously, Diana and Lu were shown in underwear, and now we're featuring Evelyn (the female protagonist) wearing what will be her standard outfit in the game:
We're still quite new to marketing, and we have a lot to improve. We hope these changes help to communicate better the type of story we're creating. ^^
Development status
Regarding Chapter 2, most of our time has been spent on migrating the pipeline to Blender. Last week, Eón published a post summarizing her experience (I recommend checking it out if you're curious), and it looks like we've already overcome the main obstacles.
Over the past week, we've been working on the renders and dialogue of the first scene of Chapter 2, so we'll soon recover our previous workflow, and even improve on it. Now that we're working in Blender, we have no limits!
On my side, the latest thing I completed was the DLC system, which will allow us to release the game divided in parts on Steam without breaking anything (or that's what I hope xD).
I've also planned all the scenes and a large part of the music that will be commissioned for the next version. For me, music is the heart of the game, and I spend many hours designing each track so the composer can convey exactly what I want.
When I create a scene, my workflow is roughly:
General script and draft dialogue.
Music design.
Render planning.
Final code and dialogue.
Then, once I have the music and renders, I make additional adjustments to the dialogue, add sound effects and transitions, and that's it.
As for Chapter 2, it will be longer than Chapter 1, with more than 20 scenes (3 or 4 of them with explicit content), and you will see many new characters. I'll keep you updated!
Oh, but there's still more to say. :P
Fiction Paradox 0.1.3
We've just released a small update for the current version.
The main addition is a full French translation. The first draft was written by Lumen, and afterward I revised the spelling and expressions with help from other people. For Chapter 2, we'll be looking for a professional translator to handle everything, since neither Eón nor I speak French.
Another new feature is the option to skip the Prologue after character selection and start directly from Chapter 1. I also took the opportunity to adjust some dialogue and sound effects, and clarified in the sexual orientation selection that we plan to include a bisexual route in the future (some players got the impression that this option wouldn't be supported).
We've also refined the SFW mode. A few suggestive moments had slipped through, but now it is fully 100% SFW. This mode is primarily a long-term investment, in case we later decide to release a version of the game without +18 content that is suitable for all audiences.
Finally, several bugs and dialogue typos have been fixed, and the last profile skins for Evan and Evelyn have been replaced with new renders made entirely in Blender.
For now, we don't plan to release any further updates until Chapter 2 is published.
As always, thank you for your support and patience during these past months. From now on, we'll try to provide more regular updates on the project's progress.
Also, if you've purchased the game on Steam and already played it, consider leaving a review on our store page. <3
See you next time!
— The Naventu Team 🚀