#amare game festival 2024

[hummingbird-games]

THE KNIGHT DANCE IS LIVE!!!

GAME FEATURES

2 endings

~10 mins gameplay

All the storybook feels!!!

Partial voice acting

[wings-of-ink]

Chapter 3 is Live!

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well.

Just wanted to announce that the demo for God-Cursed has been updated to include chapter 3. It has been submitted as part of the Amare Games Festival 2024. I don't believe it will be game-breaking if you do not fully restart, but I recommend that you try to zip through the first chapters if you are only wanting to see what’s new in chapter 3.

https://wings-of-ink.itch.io/god-cursed

Some notes on the update if you are interested…

Chapter 3 is quite large and has more than doubled the word count - but keep in mind that includes coding and text that is entered for multiple passages. This chapter was actually shortened from my original vision to accommodate time constraints and as the current ending point provided a natural break after a very hefty segment. Unfortunately, you will have to wait a bit to meet the last of the ROs.

Several general updates were made and even to chapters 1 & 2 were touched up. This includes:  simple corrections to typos and grammar, the altering of some values for certain variables, the addition of MC hair customization options (white hair added, option to have MC go grey as well), and some general improvements to some of the text.

The Codex was also updated with a good bit of pantheon information, the contrast color for dark mode links was improved, a link to a bug/error report form was added to the menu, and trigger warnings were updated to include things that will come up even beyond chapter 3.

Chapter 3 will continue to be refined as it did not get the amount of editing and testing that I would have liked, and there’s one or two smaller extras that I didn’t have time to add. Please report errors to me via the linked Google form in the game menu - nothing is too small. I think I caught the biggest, game-breaking, errors over the weekend, but there’s likely some issues with code floating around. If you are uncomfortable using the form, you can send me an Ask through Tumblr as well.

I hope you enjoy this little update! I found it enjoyable but not as exciting as I would have hoped (personally), though there are some very fun antics you can get up to. The next installment will have a lot more adventure (and mishaps), and you’ll finally get to meet all the main players of your story!

Take care!

~ Lunan

[amaregames]

Announcing the Amare Games Festival 2024

Amare Games Festival 2024

Join us in April for the 2024 Amare Games Festival, a celebration of love and diversity in story-focused games!

For this festival we invite you to create or update a game that you believe falls under the Amare Genre tag!

What is Amare?

Why a festival?

Jams are an awesome way to get the creative juices flowing and challenge yourself to create a game in a short amount of time. However, there are already a lot of amazing projects in progress, so it's important to celebrate those and give people the opportunity to focus on setting and achieving goals with their existing projects as well.

Examples of Submissions

A new game.

A new demo or Vertical slice.

A new chapter update to an existing game.

Adding new features or content to an existing game.

The festival has fairly relaxed rules, but in general, we would like all participants to keep these in mind:

Rules:

You must Release or Update during the festival period. Work can be commenced before the start of the festival.

Please clearly label demos or first episodes as such. - This is to help us organise the entries

Please clearly state the exact update or new content that was added during the festival.

Submissions can be Free or Commercial.

NSFW must be properly labelled, but is fine as long as it adheres to Itch.io's TOS

No hate speech, (i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.) or content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers.

Content Warnings are needed (Here is a link to help you with those if you need it!)

We currently do not support AI-generated games or games that make use of generative AI writing and art. Until legislation is put in place to ensure ethical training models that respect artist and creator copyright and regulate transparency on the use of AI in creative content, we will not allow the submission of games that utilise generative AI.

We kindly ask that you tag your game with the 'Amare' tag here on itch.io. This will ensure people who are watching the tag instead of just the jam page will see your game.

Join the discord to find others who are looking for festival partners, and to talk with other Amare Devs!

Sign up for the Festival on the Amare Games Festival Itch Page.

[steamberrystudio]

05/05/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone! It seems like it's been a while since my last update here which is weird because I have an update from mid-April all typed out in google docs but apparently I never posted. 8D Oops!

Anyway, for those who are not following the weekly updates on Patreon or the monthly updates on Itch...I shall fill you in!

Writing:

I think in my last update, which was back in March, I was editing chapter 6. I am now at the end of chapter 9 and am about to embark upon chapter 10.

But Esh, you may ask. Why is taking so long to edit these chapters? Why, for example, chapter 7 is about 75,000 words (coded). These chapters are...huge.

Ch 6, 7, 8 and 9 together are about 200,000 words of content. 

I've also been proofreading and then formatting each chapter into Renpy as I go so I can get a feel for how long each chapter actually is (by 'formatting into Renpy', I just mean that I'm dumping the writing into Renpy and formatting it properly so the game runs. I'm not coding any assets in. Just dumping the text in. So the word counts I give are the actual final word counts!)

So yeah, it's pretty time consuming! But I am making progress. I think I have about 70% of the script edited at the moment. 

But Chapter 10 is...a really big chapter. So I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get through it. 

😭 We'll be finding out though! 

Art:

Since my last update, I've received several new BGs and sketches. The BGs are currently about 60% complete. The artists are making their way through them all slowly but surely.

Other Stuff:

Well...I did release another game as a collaboration with some of my developer friends.

We worked on the game over the course of a couple of months and just managed to get out for Amare Festival!

If you haven't checked A Faerie's Tale out over on Itch.io but are up for something cute, wholesome, funny, and pretty short...please do so!

We think it turned out quite well!

Upcoming Weeks:

Well in the upcoming weeks I'll be focusing on revising Chapter 10. And there's a lot to be done in Chapter 10. 

Asher's path and the "common scenes" have had one edit. I'll have to re-read them to refresh myself on the content so I can properly edit the others. Hopefully I won't have to make too many revisions though.

The remaining character content will have to be fleshed out. This is a really important relationship chapter (which also has steamy scenes in it so there is a lot of smoothing, fixing, and fleshing out that has to happen.)

Additionally, there are some ending sequences that happen in this chapter and while they are functional right now, I really want to expand them and make the endings feel a little better situated into the story and less abrupt. 

Sometimes haven't an abrupt game-over really works with the story but in this case, I feel the endings need a little more build up to feel properly earned and to really be satisfying for players. That means expanding the lead up to those scenes by a fair amount.

So overall, this chapter is probably going to end up as the longest chapter in the game by a pretty significant margin. 

And that means I may be at the revision for the better part of this month. 

And then after Chapter 10, it's just the ending sequences for each character. I'm really looking forward to revising those and fleshing them out properly. 👀

I think I'm about to descend into the lowest depths of editing hell for a few weeks but I'm hoping after that I can slowly start to climb my way back out. 

We'll see how it goes! 

[hummingbird-games]

Leave your shoes, get your heart, we'll groove on the way

[amaregames]

Join us for the Amare Games Festival 2024! A Game Jam celebrating love and diversity in story-focused games!

Amare Games Festival 2024

Join us in April for the 2024 Amare Games Festival, a game jam celebrating love and diversity in story-focused games!

For this festival we invite you to create or update a game that you believe falls under the Amare Genre tag!

Don't forget to Sign up for the Festival on the Amare Games Festival Itch Page.

What is Amare?

Why a festival?

Jams are an awesome way to get the creative juices flowing and challenge yourself to create a game in a short amount of time. However, there are already a lot of amazing projects in progress, so it's important to celebrate those and give people the opportunity to focus on setting and achieving goals with their existing projects as well.

Examples of Submissions

A new game.

A new demo or Vertical slice.

A new chapter update to an existing game.

Adding new features or content to an existing game.

The festival has fairly relaxed rules, but in general, we would like all participants to keep these in mind:

Rules:

You must Release or Update during the festival period. Work can be commenced before the start of the festival.

Please clearly label demos or first episodes as such. - This is to help us organise the entries

Please clearly state the exact update or new content that was added during the festival.

Submissions can be Free or Commercial.

NSFW must be properly labelled, but is fine as long as it adheres to Itch.io's TOS

No hate speech, (i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.) or content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers.

Content Warnings are needed (Here is a link to help you with those if you need it!)

We currently do not support AI-generated games or games that make use of generative AI writing and art. Until legislation is put in place to ensure ethical training models that respect artist and creator copyright and regulate transparency on the use of AI in creative content, we will not allow the submission of games that utilise generative AI.

We kindly ask that you tag your game with the 'Amare' tag here on itch.io. This will ensure people who are watching the tag instead of just the jam page will see your game.

Join the discord to find others who are looking for festival partners, and to talk with other Amare Devs!

[amaregames]

Amare Games Festival Mid-Point Check in!

Hello Everyone! We hope you are having a great Amare Games Festival 2024! Most importantly staying hydrated and having fun. We have already started to received some amazing entries this year! Just a reminder that if you released a Full Game, Demo or Game Update this month you can submit it to the #AmareGamesFestival

All you need to do is join on the Jam page and submit your game. Sign up on the Amare Games Festival Itch Page. We also have a special surprise!

Thanks the precarious nature of the current Social Media climate we are trying something new this year!

All games entered will be featured on the NEW amaregames.com website. I'll be showing off some previews in the coming weeks.

Can't wait to see all the amazing entries this year.

To find out more details about the Festival keep reading!

What is Amare?

Check out the Amare tag on Itch.io https://itch.io/games/tag-amare Why a festival?

Jams are an awesome way to get the creative juices flowing and challenge yourself to create a game in a short amount of time. However, there are already a lot of amazing projects in progress, so it's important to celebrate those and give people the opportunity to focus on setting and achieving goals with their existing projects as well.

Examples of Submissions

A new game.

A new demo or Vertical slice.

A new chapter update to an existing game.

Adding new features or content to an existing game.

The festival has fairly relaxed rules, but in general, we would like all participants to keep these in mind:

Rules:

You must Release or Update during the festival period. Work can be commenced before the start of the festival.

Please clearly label demos or first episodes as such. - This is to help us organise the entries

Please clearly state the exact update or new content that was added during the festival.

Submissions can be Free or Commercial.

NSFW must be properly labelled, but is fine as long as it adheres to Itch.io's TOS

No hate speech, (i.e. speech that promotes hatred, violence or discrimination against groups of people based on ethnicity, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.) or content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers.

Content Warnings are needed (Here is a link to help you with those if you need it!)

We currently do not support AI-generated games or games that make use of generative AI writing and art. Until legislation is put in place to ensure ethical training models that respect artist and creator copyright and regulate transparency on the use of AI in creative content, we will not allow the submission of games that utilise generative AI.

We kindly ask that you tag your game with the 'Amare' tag here on itch.io. This will ensure people who are watching the tag instead of just the jam page will see your game.

Join the discord to find others who are looking for festival partners, and to talk with other Amare Devs!

[wings-of-ink]

First Devlog?

Hello everyone...boy, there are a lot of you already, still trying to digest that...

So, I gather that I should do these logs on occasion. I do not know how often, perhaps just when I have a few things to say. I will try not to ramble too much, but my fingies like to talk.

Anyway, I am working on chapter 3 right now. There’s some fun moments so far in it that I hope you’ll like, and we’ll get to meet Zahn, Duri'naan, and then Rundis. I’m trying not to rush because there are some exciting scenes that I’m eager to get to. I’ve outlined them to tide myself over until I get that far. There’s some quiet moments you’ll get to have as well, and right now I feel like that’s what I’m struggling with. Those areas of my story are like bridges to the next, more exciting, parts and sometimes I feel like they fall a little flat. But, I’m trying to keep in mind this is my first draft. I’ll go through it another time or two to perk things up. Those moments are still important for letting the MC get to know each RO.

My mind has been in a million directions lately too, and I’ve had a lot of ‘duh’ moments. I’ve done so much world building since I started this last year (around August/September I think), that I have pockets of important details that I kinda just forgot! So, I plan to re-read all the notes I’ve made and try to also put them into one place. I have some in my phone, in a notebook, and in no less than three folders on my laptop. It’s a wonder I have survived this many years…

What you can expect for coming updates…

-A couple fixes, of course – thank you to those who found some of those pesky buggy bois for me.

-A nicer front page, instead of being slapped with my ramblings, I’d like to actually have a nice start page. I’ll figure it out eventually, lol.

-I’ll be adding a name bank to the MC’s Nameday scene that will also show you what each name means, so if that is important to you, it’ll save you the internet search. If it tickles your fancy, the name selection will correspond in some way to the marks (names meaning "night" or "storm," etc.) so you can theme your MC a bit.

-Extra coding in case you decide to shorten MC’s given name to just “Ravi.” I did not once consider that anyone would do this, and my first play-tester – my own spouse – did….He told me about it since it made some dialog with Oswin make zero sense, and then I published the story without fixing it because I completely forgot about it.

-Different contrast color for dark mode links. I feel like I have drastically improved this with a new gold color. In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t use the gold before. I love it as an accent, I use it all over! The blue never felt 100% right, but my brain shut down after thinking about it too long. Here’s a sample and a (M) Zahn tease:

When can you expect an update?

I’d like to make my next update during the Amare Games Festival, ideally containing both chapters 3 and 4 since they go pretty tightly together. This will also insure that you meet the rest of the posse. It’s a tall order for both chapters to be submitted on time, and I don’t want to rush them either, but I’m going to try really really hard, lol. I will focus first on polishing chapter 3, so that no matter what, I can at least get it out in time.

Here’s a link to the post about it:

And this is the submission time frame: open from March 31st 2024 at 11:00 PM to May 1st 2024 at 12:00 AM

As a side message, should you want to read on…

I also wanted to give you all a big, like really big, heartfelt thank you. I have received so many kind messages and comments that I just can’t believe it. I am so happy (and honestly, genuinely shocked) that you’re enjoying my IF, and I’m motivated to work hard so you also enjoy each new chapter of your journey. There’s so many secrets I want to share with you about the world, and I am struggling to be patient myself, lol.

I am not usually a very open or social person, and I was scared for a long time to share anything I wrote. I reached a point in my personal life in the last few years where I just needed to embrace what I loved to do and share it with a community that shares in that love. I encourage you to do the same whether there is a story in your heart, music on your lips, or a paintbrush in your hands. Life is NOT about your 8-5. We may not be able to survive without it, but whatever moment you can, do what you actually love. Put away the those things that don’t matter, the things that stress you - including people, and make time for who you are.

Thank you all and take care!

~Lunan

[hummingbird-games]

Dev Diaries

April 4th, 2024

😃When did writing updates become such a chore to me??? I remember when I was excited to share what I was doing, grrrrrrrrrr...

Well. Here's what's happening in Gemini World:

The Knight Dance HOPEFULLY will go live this month because the team and I are entering it in the Amare Festival. I really want y'all to play this game but I also have been working on it for so long that I want to check it off my list lol.

Please check Ko-fi for free posts (and if I'm not posting enough HSD on Tumblr, which, I'M SO SORRY!!!) The most recent thing I threw in the queue was a certain student's I.D. card 👀 but I have plans to put everyone's on there!

HSD: JY #2 is getting its updated, non-snapshot demo this summer! Also, I'd like to clear up some confusion. As awesome as it would be, the full game is not coming out this year. The focus is to put out this last demo and then hunker down and finish writing. As of this post, I decided to write Ryan's full route from top to bottom. His common route content and Billie's are the only finished ones (and may or may not make an appearance in the upcoming demo. lol idk yet). However, Ryan's route has been crystalized in my mind for MONTHS so I figure we'll get my boy out the way so I can focus on the rest of the children 🥲Remember, Florence still doesn't have an outline and das not good....

One of the things I want to be better about with this sequel is embracing the spectrum that is asexuality and aromanticism. I did...something with the first game ☠️ but I feel like the rep could have been better in a lot of places (and I identify as ace, not aro, so I KNOW rep could have been better 🤧)

Having a friendship route was a solid decision, and even if most players didn't fool with it, a few let me know that they played HSD #1 for that feature. Which is cool because I'm tired of playing games that make ending up with a friend character a consolation. FRIENDSHIP IS NOT A CONSOLATION!!!

That said, there are STILL so many things that I won't be able touch on in HSD #2, but I don't claim to be the authority on any sexuality. The above screen is only seen in the friendship route and gives flavor dialogue that can help players define their MC. As someone who came into her asexuality waaaay past her HS and college days, I didn't have the representation to better explain and understand myself, so. Yup.

Alsoooo while we're going on about this sequel, no spoilers but even if you pick a romance route, you're not safe from friend angst 🤷🏽‍♀️Now, if your MC is directly affected or just a poor bystander...?👀🔍

And that's it! April is gonna be SO MUCH FUN because so many game updates are dropping

Our Wonderland finale *sob*

TCT DLC bonus stories

Date With Death DLC Kickstarter

chapter 7 release date announcement for College Craze

Breathless Winds release

And other stuff I probably forgot! So yeah. Heading to work now, but I hope all of y'all have a great day/night, and I'll see you in the next update! 💛

- Gemini

[hummingbird-games]

Dev Diaries

May 7, 2024

Y'all, I put 2022 first 😃🖐🏽

A loooooooot of shit happened in a short amount of time, so let's quickly run through it all!!!

The Knight Dance Is Live!!

If you didn't hear the news, me and my team's entry for the Amare Game Festival is up for download and browser play!! There's a bit more polish needed, but I'm really happy with how everything came together! Play The Knight Dance!

(I decided against a postmortem for this project; the only lesson to take away/the main thing to reflect on is that I DON'T like being in charge 😂 My team was lovely, but gosh was it all more taxing than I prepared for?!?!)

Ko-Fi subs are paused for June

I feel like the people who check out Tumblr aren't on ko-fi, and vice versa. But just in case: I still have the freebies going up, but I need a moment to 1) plan more content worthy of people subscribing for and 2) a fighting chance to tackle a bit of my gaming backlog. I've played all the short games and I have all these long ones left. Which is amazing. But playing games and making games is becoming harder and harder to juggle. Also, I'm a big reader?? Gemini loves herself some books. Have I told y'all that before I create bookish content on the side and have an audience for that AND my anniversary date is actually today skskskssk.

Back to the main point.

Ko-fi subs paused next month. Yup.

Crushed Review

...Maybe y'all saw me screaming and crying last when Naja from Blerdy Otome streamed Crushed on Twitch, but here I am again crying some more BECAUSE A REVIEW IS LIVE AND I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!

The second born continues to find his way in people's hearts and the joy I feel is indescribable. 💛

High School Daze: Junior Year 2 updated demo is ALSO LIVE!!

...It soft launched last Thursday, oops 😂 And then I made legit announcements on itch.io and Tiktok. I will make a proper post to be pinned on Tumblr sometime next month (I want TKD to continue her time in the sun!)

TBH, there are so many games and demos and updates, and game shapped things dropping this month that I kinda don't want to be a developer for a hot minute?? I just want to play some games?? And maybe even replay some old favorites too??

Ahem. So about the update:

20k words!!! WHOA!!! (But you don't see it all in one playthrough, heheheheheh)

Events from first game play big or small roles!!! Gamer friends who have 7534623 OCs, I thought of you 🤭

Cute interaction with your parents!!! I think it's cute at least...

Drama!! Silliness!! Cameos!! Hints at some characters full route plots!!!

tl;dr 👀 The Knight Dance is live, HSD 2 demo update is live, Crushed got a glowing review by Blerdy Otome, and being a game developer is getting in the way of me playing games 😂

See ya in the next update!

- Gemini 💛

[tuffmallowinteractive]

I personally love this game so much and Hummingbird Games are always such an emotional joy- show this some love guys!!

THE KNIGHT DANCE IS LIVE!!!

CURRENT FEATURES

2 endings

~10 mins gameplay

All the storybook feels!!!

Partial voice acting