Hello everyone, this is a different post than our usual. If you're here for a game update I'm very sorry this isn't about that.
I'd like to go over the state of the game so far and share some extra information and plans with all of you.
I appreciate all of you for sticking around and following our journey.

• Builds

Currently our updates follow a specific word count that ranges between 8k to 10k words. It could be bigger but never too small.

It's a balanced approach that takes 1 hour of gameplay to complete. (Average)
It's good for new readers that won't have to climb huge obstacles to reach us
It's good for me because these updates don't take a toll on me as the first 3 updates did.
It's good for old players to never forget the game and keep the hype going
And it's good for everyone that the game gets more fast paced because free time is a limited resource.

Of course this is not always the case, special days, special updates, when the story gets more serious things could drag longer.
Previous updates were me testing the waters, trying to figure out my way of doing things and I can safely say this is it.

The average production time of 1-2 months stays unchanged. I'll always keep in touch with everyone on both Discord and Twitter if something should change.

• Choices

This is something I personally wanted to bring up, unsure if people actually questioned it or not.

Choices do matter but not all of them do or, at least, not all of them will cause a bad ending. So… relax, enjoy the game, pick what you feel like picking. In the future we will be making it easier to go back and change your choices. We want you to have an easier time going through all the branches and save your game!

I also would like to mention the "lack of diversity" between routes and similar events repeating on the same day. I understand that the expectation must've been to see something completely different from one another but that moment hasn't arrived yet.

The routes are slowly splitting and changing. They will take their own different shape soon, after a certain "event" happens. I'm not going to say more about this but it's getting close and you'll understand immediately once you see it. Some routes go faster, some take a slower approach and then we have the story centric ones.

• UI

In the future we plan to have our own unique UI so you can totally expect more QoL changes planned.

We were thinking of two sets of UI that alternate when you're outside, living the academic life, and another one, more sinister and dark, for the castle exploration. It's a possibility, can't confirm if that will truly happen but it's there.

• Affection

This is a new future mechanic we plan to add when the time comes, related to our previous discussion that choices matter. Raising affection with both your love interest and friends will change the story, causing extra events to trigger. Joel won't necessarily be the hero. Someone else could take action too if certain requirements are met.

That is also both good and bad haha, who knows, I love making things complicated for myself but fun to experience. So far this feature hasn't been added yet but it's in development and I'll let you know when the time comes.

• Romance

Yes guys you can also call it porn. Everyone wants it, everyone's thinking about it, where is it, when is it, give it to me! Stupid jokes aside my approach with NSFW comes from the lens of an Ace writer and, well, I don't enjoy it randomly thrown on the screen. It has to feel special, earned, I want to build up both parties to get closer, feel nice and eventually rewarded.

TLDR Yes there will be porn but it's too early for this. I have discarded the idea to use Nsfw as a bait inside the game. Fanart? Hell yeah, I love that. I just won't ruin the magic inside, that's all.

• Characters

This is about which character goes first/last when we update. It's a quick reminder that you guys decide which character gets updated faster than the others. In our Discord we have a popularity poll that tells us which one you'd like to see more of.

Currently the ranking is

Blake>Ryan>Dylan>Patrice>Clyde>Russell=Liam

Feel free to join and vote yourself. You can also join, vote and leave, we don't mind. Vote stays even if you do that.

• Donations

This is a quick one. I want everyone to know that donations from both Patreon and Itch are welcomed but, if you can, we prefer Patreon due to itch taxing 30% of the money you send our way. 

We don't mind one tap donations on Patreon, feel free to quickly join, download the game and unsub. Our Patreon has been set in a way that, no matter when you donate, it will be valid that month and reset the next starting from the 1st.

You pay the moment you join, keep that in mind.

• Sprites/CGI/Music

All the things you've seen in the game are either royalty free or paid by me and, as such, it's hard to keep adding more into it. Your donations do help and I thank you for that but don't cover everything. It helped me pay less, that's nice but I still use my own money.

This is to say that the game's budget might decrease as I cut costs and focus on what's most important only. So… until things get better and we grow the only thing you'll see "new" will be CGIs because I have a weakness for those and even then they'll show up less.

• Reviews/Ratings

This is also very cut and dry. If you like the game and want to help without donating or you just enjoy our work please, please, spread the word, write a feedback and a 5* rating.

The algorithm boosts up games with 5* ratings with reviews. We want to be as visible as possible in order to reach a wider audience, please help us out!

• Discord

We're trying hard to grow a community on Discord so if you didn't know our game does have a server for everyone to talk and have a good time. I'm also there, ready for anything if you need me.

• Final notes

Ever since Ryan B got released I've been taking a break, a vacation to relax, rest and reset. I haven't done much for the next update so I ask you to wait a little longer for it.

Patrice is next in line because, when I started writing, he was ahead of Dylan, sorry Dylan fans. The switch happened recently and it was too late for me to change my target.

Thank you everyone for reading all the things I had to say, love you all.
Your words, your support, your love really made us happy and we will keep producing more.