#monthly update

[barbwritesstuff]

Thicker Than - Update

Play the Free Demo Here

Happy Full Moon!

It’s really late (I stayed up late hammering out some last second bugs) so I’m going to make this quick. My big goal this month was to write the ‘running away’ route for players who wish to leave the city at the end of Chapter Ten. I’ve almost done that. There’s still more work to be done in that branch, but I’m really happy with what I have achieved.

I wrote it in bits and pieces, and there’s a lot of variables at play, so the feedback I’m most anxious to hear about is flow. Does it make sense? Does it feel choppy? What can I do to improve readability?

I’m going to keep working on this route next month, and keep slowly fleshing out the ‘ally hunting’ options in the main route.

The showdown with Lucius is going to be the big, epic battle and I’m really looking forward to writing it, but I think it’s probably still a few months away. Gaius’ showdown is actually less epic because it’s all about saying the right things rather than actually fighting.

As always, thanks so much for all your feedback and support. I’m going to bed.

Don't forget you can support me and see my weekly progress for $5 a month over on Kofi. 💙

[aitata-troybel]

we love alan and alan becker team scripts

[13leaguestories]

February 2025 Forecast

As always when February hits I must announce it as the second best month of the year. Simply because all of us with birthdays in this month are the best, the only leap month as well. Shout out to all my February babies, this burden of awesomeness we carry is really not good for our shoulders and backs lmfao.

Alright, moving on. January, what can I say about January. Oh, I know. How about it sucked because I was sick. I literally abhor getting sick the first month of the new year, it does not bode well and I'm not one who usually gets sick. Like once a year really so that better had been my once a year. Fucking throat felt like - ... I have been told not to finish that sentence.

Superstition

Nothing new to report. I wasn't able to finish what I wanted because I was sick and I made a mental promise that after that week (then I got sick), focus would be moved to Nour. That's what I did.

Throne of Ashes

Like I said, focus was given to Nour. I finished up some Chapter Six shenanigans then started on Chapter Seven which shouldn't take a month to complete. So this month should see the completion of 7 and a nice little start on 8.

Sea of Stars

Nothing new to report. But I won't lie, people keep talking about it and it's making me want to give some of my attention to it so if you see some random update about it then you know why.

Others

Nothing new on RoA. I have two public requests to write that I need to keep in my mind (I haven't forgotten you guys just need to get int he headspace, especially for the NSFW one).

[foxglovegames]

DEV LOG: 2024 Recap

Helloooo everyone!

This year genuinely flew past us. As a studio, we had our ups-and-many-downs, but we're feeling more positive going into 2025. Let's start with what we got done this year before moving onto our plans for the future! :)

⭐Released Trouble Comes Twice: Bonus Stories!

Feels like we released this ages ago, but it hasn't even been a year yet! Back in April, we released the first (and only) public DLC for Trouble Comes Twice. For us, Bonus Stories was a satisfying goodbye to these characters after spending years with them; we hope that players who decided to give the DLC a chance feel the same.

It'll always be a bit bittersweet moving on from a project you've worked on for so long and dedicated so much towards. There's always going to be what-ifs, but we're mostly just proud of what we did achieve and kind of relieved we made it to the finish line haha. If you're interested in reading more about our experience working on Trouble Comes Twice and what we learned, do check out this post mortem we wrote! We hope it offers some insight for players who might be curious and other vn devs who'd like another dev's take.

⭐A tumultuous start for our next visual novel Burn the Midnight Oil

Since the end of 2023, we've worked on and off on our next visual novel Burn the Midnight Oil. The plan was to launch a Kickstarter campaign and demo before the end of 2024 - since it's now Dec and that never happened, you can imagine things did not go as planned ahah... Unfortunately, we experienced several setbacks, one of the biggest being that our lead artist had to leave the project some months ago due to health issues.

It took us a minute to find the right person to step in and take over the character art, but we recently welcomed a new lead artist whom we're incredibly excited to be working with!

So, where does the project stand right now?

Our new character artist is chipping away at the sprites and CGs for the game, which are the main assets we're still missing to finish the demo.

Script is written, edited and coded in

BGs are completed and the UI is close to completed

We're planning to tackle the soundtrack in the coming months, but our composer BellKallengar has already finished an amazing main menu theme! We can't wait for you to hear it.

For our own sanity and the expectations of our players, we're not making any promises or guesses on when you can expect the demo, Kickstarter, or official announcement until we know for certain. The only thing we can confidently confirm is that it's coming in 2025 (unless we're struck by the worst bad luck ever).

We're going to resume regular monthly updates when the game has been announced, but until then, we're sticking o quarterly updates instead so the next one would be in March. (Unless we manage to announce the game before that! A dev can dream.)

⭐PLANS FOR 2025

There's only one concrete plan - officially announcing Burn the Midnight Oil, releasing the Kickstarter demo, and launching our crowdfunding campaign! Melli and I already finished the demo script earlier this year, so we've been working on outlining (and writing) the routes for the full game. We hope to make as much progress as possible on that before the Kickstarter launches. Hopefully, that should save us a lot of time in the long run.

We hope everyone's having a fantastic holiday season! See you all in the new year! 🥂

[guardian-of-time-if]

Monthly Update: February 2025

I just realized that I forgot to make a monthly update this month!

So January started slow, but I was able to finish chapter 3 like I wanted and launched my Patreon. The public update will be released this month on the 21, so stay tunned.

The rest of the month will be focused on starting chapter 4, of which I finished outlining today! I'm hoping this will be a smaller chapter than 3, but I won't know until I start writing it. I am going to start releasing the chapters in two parts though, so I can establish a more frequent update speed.

I also want to see if I can finally make a map, like I said I was going to do back in September. 🤦‍♀️

That's all for this month. As always feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

[thethreshold-if]

March update (release date announcement)

Hello!! How are you doing? I hope you have enjoyed February more than me, because it went by so fast I can't believe it.

First I want to say I'm sorry for the delay in the update. I had to go back to work for some days and that really made my progress slow down a bit. I said that I would update the demo at the end of February but that was a very dumb thing to think lmao. I'm very bad at coding so that took way longer than I had expected 😭

Anyway, let's just skip to the good news cause that's the most interesting thing here. I'm very happy to say that I have a release date! This is official and shouldn't be delayed. I'm almost done with coding and I just have to test-proof everything.

Chapter 1 part one (of three) will be out on Friday 14th of this month :D

Thank you so so much for your patience and support!! The update won't be too long, sadly, but I hope you like it and the characters too!

Wish you a very happy month as usual, and see you very soon :3

[jadeitor-art]

January 2025 ✨

The year started quite rough and seems like it will be the same the next month. Been quite burn out and is hard to find a moment to do personal art. But anyways, the world is falling apart but I stay silly!!

[bestlaidplansproductions]

Are you ready to meet the adorable baby Jane of Save the Villainess?

If so, head over to Save the Villainess' Lunar New Year update on Kickstarter, Steam, or Itch.io!

You'll learn about:

✦ Our 100+ hour process of creating animated character models

✦ A first look at animated young Jane and writing updates

✦ A celebration of Servant's birthday

✦ The conclusion to last month's brutal elimination game!

If you’re on our mailing list, you’ll also get a new picture of our kitten Voya AND be able to email us for special character cards about Servant. Let us know if you want to see Jane, Edmund, Izel, Ben, and Servant themselves talk about Servant!

Thanks again for your support, fellow villains and villainesses. We hope you have a wonderful start to your year!

[fujocoded]

After a short break, we're back...

...and just in time for Valentine's Day!

Our monthly newsletter for February has a lot of exciting news about stuff we've already accomplished (including our first con adventure ☝️) and prospects for the future.

Highlights include

How our first con experience at Escapade went

Big improvements and structural changes at FujoCoded, LLC

News on our soon-to-be-sold FujoGuide Vol. 0.1 covering Git

Where we're at on other resources we're working on: more quickstarts, additional articles, and further volumes of FujoGuide

Big plans for our Bluesky and ATProto work

...and more!

On top of that, a certain annual event is nearly upon us, so...

...we’re in need of artists who are taking commissions!

Drop us a line if any of these sound like you, or, if you know someone who can, send them our way! You can reach us at our "artist business card drop-off form", which we keep in our pocket for these and other long-term opportunities.

Be sure to also check out our Monthly Store Promo!

[esper-game]

Monthly Update (7th April 2024)

Helllllo everyone!!! I didn't do as much work as I would have like last month, but I've been chipping away at it and recently had some more time to actually sit down and write.

WHAT I DID:

Chapter Two's word count is now at 10.6k!

The characters page is actually finished,,,, I just need to beautify it :)

GOALS FOR THIS MONTH:

Hopefully finish off the first half of chapter two

And get editing started on it

NOTES:

Here's a little screenshot of some particularly horrendous coding :')

(VERY minor spoilers maybe)

And there's more underneath!

Sometimes I ask myself why I do these things, but I seriously think it's worth it to ensure an immersive experience :)

And this isn't exactly complicated, more just time consuming lol

[barbwritesstuff]

Play the demo for free!

So, my brain has been really scattered this last month. I’ve had a bunch of editing to do on my prose manuscript (Of Monsters and Mainframes, coming out next year) and I’ve also just had a ton of real life stuff pop up unexpectedly. So, the update this month is only 12k. Which, I’m not going to lie, is a little sucky. I thought I’d got more done than that. However, I’m still happy with the progress I made.

I’ve got Chapter 10 to a tentative first draft (I may do more work on it later, but for now it’s locked), I made some big strides with Chapter 11, AND I got really excited about Chapter 12 and started laying down some words for that. Please let me know what you think.

This game is a big muddle right now and a lot of the scenes I’m adding will only be visible on a few playthroughs which makes progress feel really slow. However, I’m really hoping that’ll make the final game really dynamic and fun.

I hope you get to pop out and see the full moon tonight. It’s the second largest of the year and is looking wonderful.

------------------------------------

Update Details

As of the 17th of October 2024

Finished Chapter Ten

Continued work on Chapter Eleven

Started work on Chapter Twelve

Additional Words: 12,538 (excluding commands)

Total Word Count: 408,768 (excluding commands)

------------------------------------

Reminder: If you like what I do and would like to support me (as well as see my progress weekly instead of monthly) I'd be grateful if you'd check out my KoFi.

Thanks so much for reading. 💙

[yosajaeofficial]

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER UPDATE

Heya everybody! We’re back for a double episode of, “The Monthly Jayce Myles Comics Updates”! The reason why August wasn’t fulfilled like normal was due to college and how busy I immediately got when entering in, which is what I figured would happen so I’m not too surprised with it to be honest. I took some time in order for me to make a fulfilling update instead of doing a rushed one to pump out yk? We’re now gonna get to the updates and bonus content I’m gonna show.

Buckle your seat belts, close your eyes and take your hands off the wheel cuz this is gonna be a ride~

THE COMIC

(OFFICIAL W.I.P: PAGES 28 & 31)

The comic’s gotten slower due to college, however, I really needed a break from it in general so I could prioritize my personal life and also refresh myself on drawing what I want to instead of rushing my age physically and turn 78 years old when I haven’t even reached 20 yet. Nothing much to say but showing the w.i.ps because of the slower progress, it’s getting there though. We got to 30 pages! Which means that the first section is sketched out (calculated to be approximately a fourth of the full chapter done, it could go lower or higher in the numbers depending on what I want/vision). I’m hella proud for getting 30 of them pages done honestly. A huge accomplishment for doing this story for a long while.

Ya’ll don’t really know, but I am indeed changing things here and there about the story where I’m shifting small details, doing redesigns, and reboots with other small things overall. I would be honest and say that’s where I’m progressing the most and not the debut chapter, I’m able to have a clearer vision of the story in my head and on paper when doing future chapters yk? I won’t go into details about redesigns or those details being changed since they’re hella spoilerish and a bit unnecessary considering that the JMC hasn’t even debuted yet. Ya’ll will get those details later when the comic functions and I will reveal more in future updates!

Also, last month Jae, no you haven’t drawn the turtles yet. However, we’re close to their debut for the chapter so keep strong! You’re doing great! :3

BONUS CONTENT: Jayce Myles Over The Years

Many of you know that Jayce Myles, whose name is in the title of the series, is our protagonist for this ROTTMNT comic! She’s my OC that I’ve had when going through my senior year of high school. We’re gonna be getting into a deep dive with her as a character and how their designs came to be during the process!

This is the first ever drawing of Jayce that I’ve done, the day I made it is so vivid in my head because I was going through it… I was in my Pre Calculus class and I had failed another test after multiple attempts through the school year. My initial idea was to cry (which I did) but then I just started doodling on my phone and I created this drawing, then from there it was history. This was in 2022, not too long ago. I became a Rise fan a couple weeks after the movie came out (which I didn’t know at the time, it was a pure coincidence) and I wanted to create a Rise OC for a while. So that day in Pre-Calc, I was able to take advantage of my mathematical suffering and create my magnum opus (exaggerated). She didn't have a name at the time so it was actually a stand in for me. Jayce got their full name until a couple days later.

EVOLUTION OF JAYCE MYLES

(October 2022- February 2024)

As you all can see, Jayce did indeed have lots of designs and ideas being sketched out while I created her as my official Rise OC. I had ideas for them to have an androgynous look from the start based off of my own self! I knew they were gonna have a Rise comic, but there were ideas for them to originally come from the 2012 TMNT universe with their "serious demeanor". It was quite interesting but there isn't much media of those ideas since they were cut a bit early on.

(Older Renders of Jayce from 2022)

Their signature color looked like it was gonna be this denim blue for quite a while but then I scrapped it cuz I thought it wasn't showing their personality like how I want it to. There was also another scrapped concept where Jayce's demeanor would be more monotone and "soft" (as in a blank slate, which doesn't give her a true personality). It was cut because it made me think that I wasn't giving her the best potential as the protagonist then I should've been giving them. Jayce was more introverted and quiet, but now they're much more expressive and full of personality. Ya'll will see in a more better light when the comic debuts, I'm not holding back with Jayce's personality anymore.

("Issue 1: Graffiti" Panels from page 1. The only page that was completed until the plot got scrapped.)

There were lots of pitches and concepts for the JMC over the years too, where lots of storyboards got drafted and one of the first of those drafts got their first page completed. However, I'm pulled a Richard Williams and kept being like "No, I don't like this" and kept going back to the drawing board. I like to look back on these old drafts especially after seeing the older interactions and how different they're gonna be in the official comics. I for sure was learning over 2023 and 2024...

Now finally, we're gonna touch on the last thing for this update~

JMC'S FINALIZED PILOT (ADDITIONAL CHARACTER)

We are going to talk just a teeny bit about the debut chapter but I'm able to become vague without spoiling too much since lots of the older pitches were scrapped. But yes, this was when I came up with the idea, "What if Jayce had a job?"

That's where the idea of Jayce working at a deli joint came from. Where she would have to get a 9-5 and possibly fired, it was pretty funny when doing the drafts since I never knew how a real deli worked and my dumbass just used my mom's experience at Denny's as referenced (she walked out and quit after almost a year).

Thus, our pilot was born.

You can go read a non canon comic I did that touched on this concept when it was fresh in development right here! [Jayce and Mikey Phone Call] & [Splinter/Randall and Jayce Interaction]

The shop itself was based off of a friend's film back in junior year. He made a FNAF parody called, "Five Nights At Fernando's" and it was such a stupid assignment but that gave me the idea of making use of the dumbass "Fernando's Shop" and make it a reality. So then Fernando's Taco Shop was created and we had the shop Jayce worked at. We already talked a bit about Archie and his deal in the first JMC Monthly Update and I can't say anymore due to spoilers but he was also involved of the creation of the pilot.

The older pitches had a cashier or a manager be like some NPC ahh character that never was gonna be brought up ever again but something in me thought it would be a cute idea to create an actual character for this manager that wasn't a stupid bossy ass hoe. It was very sweet in the drafts so I thought I could create more with that concept in mind.

Introducing: Rogelio Andazola!

(Rogelio Andazola Evolution: 2022-2023 | Still Not Showing The Finalized.)

His design is one that is the most consistent when compared to the rest of the roster, I guess that I hit the nail with his because I couldn't imagine him any different. There are only minor changes like his gray strands disappearing (bro reverse aged) and his facial expressions are much more expressive after I played around during the soft reboot. Once again (and as annoying as it is), you will all see where I'm coming from when the debut chapter releases! Rogelio as a character has also altered his personality, he's based off of my grandpa, can't wait to show you how that comes into play in the story!

Thank you all so much for sticking around for this very heavy update! I worked way too much for the photos to be sent on here and dug up lots of my old art in order for this to become a reality! It was actually insane that I kept lots of it instead of making it turn into lost media, I'm happy I got to show lots of it instead of having to make it the fuck up by memory (which I wouldn't have done in the first place and is an exaggeration). The comic is slaying in the runway and I'm working on it here and there at my own pace. Maybe next time I can finally show ya'll the turtles in the next W.I.P in the comic section. Have an amazing day/night everyone and we're on the way to victory!

[inthecards]

Monthly Update

Ha! Monthly. Anywho, I am working away at this IF slowly but steadily. I've gotten quite a bit of inspiration for the rewrite I'm planning - some scenes will be the same, but there are certain characters for whom I want to have a lot more involvement. So, there will be a lot more content added. Looking forward to sharing those with you, but it will take a bit as I plan to release chapter 6 before any rehauls.

Speaking of which, there will be a lot of branching going on in the latest chapter, some of which will be decided by previous decisions, but most of which you'll get to plot out yourself. Among other things, you'll finally learn more about the spirit haunting your uncle.

[foxglovegames]

DEVLOG: AUGUST 2024 🦇

It's already time for the August wrap-up??

Demo Progress

It seems no matter how much we get done, there is always more work to do haha! That said, August has been a good month and we have made a lot of exciting progress on the demo for BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL. :)

Programming

Please welcome Renbie to the team as our lead programmer! 🙌

The past week have been spent prepping sprites and setting things up in Ren'py. Although we still have a long way to go, the game feels more real than ever now which is both exciting and scary!

If you followed the development of Trouble Comes Twice, you might already know that programming was a big hurdle for us and a major source of frustration. ;( Now that we've got some more experience under the belt thanks to Trouble Comes Twice, we already feel a lot more confident but having a dedicated programmer on the team is going to be a massive help both time and quality-wise. As a bonus: Renbie's also super lovely to work with, so we're super happy to have her onboard!

Art

We mostly made progress on promotional assets. We decided on a sketch for our key art (check out a little sneak peek at the top of this post) and received the first sketches for some of our merch designs! They're looking super cute!

Writing

With the demo script done and dusted, most of August was spent outlining the main game's six romance routes. The routes (subject to change) have five chapters each and various longer endings and shorter 'bad/death' ends based on your decisions.

BURN THE MIDNIGHT OIL has dual protagonists, so similarly to Trouble Comes Twice, we're two writers in charge of one MC each (and the MC's respective three routes). Unlike Trouble Comes Twice though, the cast here is a lot larger and not as (directly) connected.

So, how do we outline our routes? First, we wrote shorter summaries of each route - including important themes, character motivations, etc - which we then go over together. Although the plots of the two protagonists are very different, we have to make sure we keep the same 'themes and vibes'. We also need to be careful that the pacing and the scopes of the routes aren't too wildly different!

With the feedback from the shorter summaries, we move on to write the detailed outlines. (Here, we regularly reach out to each other and get feedback on minor elements and sometimes run brainstorming sessions when one of us runs into a wall.) Once these are done, we're going to have another review and write as many drafts as it takes until the routes are ready to enter the writing phase!

We're super excited about a lot of these scenes we've got planned and though you guys don't know much about the project yet, we think you're going to love the ideas we've got once it's time to learn more! We learned so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can't wait to apply to this game! 🖤

Goals for September

There's too many little goals to count! But the major ones are:

Start looking for music composers, item artist, visual effects artist - we're not doing a public post for these, but if you or someone you know might be interested in one of these roles, shoot us a DM! ;)

Making as much progress as possible on the remaining UI screens

Making as much progress as possible on the merch designs

Continue working on the detailed outlines

Continue programming yay

Fingers crossed, we can get the key art done and dusted!

There's still so much to do, but we really look forward to the next couple of months!

[jaskwritesthings]

monthly writing update for january

yep, i'm doing a round up cause i like numbers and stats!

monthly goal: 6200 actually written: 8872 total days writing: 9 percentage: 143% fic focused on the most: accidental warlord jaskier au

and here's a excerpt of my accidental warlord jaskier au, cause there's quite a few geralt stumbles into being a warlord fics but i've not seen one for the bard and i was inspired by this post by @allogrim from ages ago so yeah! also this is an aiden lives au cause why the fuck not. haven't decided if the endgame is geraskier or lambert/aiden/jaskier yet...we shall see how things go. this is set somewhere post mountain break up as well, enjoy!

“None, the mage wasn’t home, but his captive was. My men believed it best to retrieve him and bring him here for you.” Filavandrel says as he waves Jaskier towards the unmoving body. Jaskier frowns, “For me? Why?” “He’s a Witcher,” Filavandrel states, and Jaskier practically flinches back even though the bloody and swollen face before him is in no way familiar. “Fuck me.”

[guardian-of-time-if]

Monthly Update: March 2025

Hello everyone! It is once again time for the monthly update. February was a bit of busy month between the chapter 3 public update, and it being my first month of Patreon content. I also got sick a little earlier this month. (It was minor enough it only cost me a day or two). Still I managed to add 18k words to Chapter 4.

My plan for March is to focus on getting as far into chapter 4 as I can. I plan to update the upcoming chapters in two parts, primarily to keep me from getting overwhelmed, but also to help me update consistently. Chapter 3 got so big, it was very overwhelming for me near the end, and while I hopped chapter 4 would be shorter, now that I'm writing, I have the distinct feeling it will not be.

I also decided that to celebrate successful first month of Patreon, I am going to make one of this month's bonus content's public. I let the free members vote on it, so keep an eye out because that will be released later today.

As always feel free to reach out if you have any questions about development. Happy March.