A Fun, Over-The-Top Visual Novel that will give a smile in your heart
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Hi guys, here's a quick update for you.
Writing
Our writer has made a few tweaks to Lily's route to make it more appealing and fun to the readers. I've already been through the story and am happy with the way it is. She will be concluding the route soon and will write the possible endings for Lily this weekend.
Art
Another Lily CG has been completed and our artist is now working on the penultimate one, with a sketch already done. Our background artist should also be done with our remaining backgrounds by the end of April.
Development
I'm nearly done with the dialogue for the common route, just need to add the sprites and relevant backgrounds. I've also made a big change in the way the sprites work by incorporating a dynamic blinking effect, making your experience just ever so slightly more immersive. I should be done with that over the weekend and then I can continue developing.
Also, a YouTube streamer buddy of mine did a walkthrough of our demo, you can check out the video here.
Hi guys, and thank you for being so patient. Let me give you a quick update on the game.
Writing
Our writer is hard at work concluding Lily's route, but recently had a bit of an idea block so I helped her out. Currently, Chapter 4 of the route is done and the fifth and final chapter is ready to be started. This will essentially be a route conclusion so should not take too long. Following the completion of that, Iris's route will be written.
Art
Our background artist has sketched up a couple more images, namely a shopping mall and the final bedroom backdrop. These are yet to be finalized but once they are, that will be the last of the backgrounds.
Our CG artist has also finalized the second Lily CG as well as sketched out the third, which is looking good.
In regards to food art, we have a couple more delicious dishes drawn up, just waiting to be cleaned and fully colored. Those will be the last of the savory food CGs, and then onto the desserts!
Development
Currently, I am working on finalizing the common route chapters, with some help from our writer. I found that there were some missing dialogue from Chapter 3 that had to be added at the end. This has been completed now and is just being cleaned up. I'll also be adding in all the completed food art. Only the common route includes food CGs, so once those are all in I can begin constructing the dialogue for the individual routes. There are still a few affection algorithms to work out, but that is just a formality to make sure that there are no misjudgments in story progression.
That's pretty much it for now, although soon it's likely we'll be recording more voiceovers for the already decided CGs in Lily's route, and perhaps a few additional voice markers as well, as I realize there are some instances where certain expressions require different sounds!
Welcome to another developer update!
Due to the additional artwork required (as well as everyone's time in general), we have decided to shift the proposed release date of Bistro Days back.
As much as we would love to have brought you the game by April, it's just not feasible as our writer and our artist need time to produce the best work possible, and of course, there's still the testing to do too even once the game is done. Therefore, we feel this is the best course of action to bring you a better, more complete game.
Our tentative release date will now be set to Late August 2021.
Onto the update! Well, our writer has now finished chapter 3 of Lily's route, so I just need to give that the once over as soon as it's fine-tuned. This hopefully will mean the route will nearly be ready to be converted to dialogue.
On the art front, our background artist has finished the festival background (night and day versions) as well as another bedroom. We also now have each of the girls in casual clothing as well as the backer sprites, which means we're 99% done on sprite artwork.
Also, one of our backers has written her scene ready for insertion into the game and I'll be getting the recorded voice markers from her soon too.
As for me, I've been busy working with Sai on our food artwork and making sure that it looks great and fit for the Bellflower Bistro! I've also been working on some tweaks to the common route chapters and sourcing a few new sound effects that I realize we needed.
On the music front, our composer has finished our bonus track (which will be going on the soundtrack exclusively) and our Vtuber pal Phoebe Chan has also agreed to offer one of her original songs for it too!
Thanks again for your patience and we hope that moving the release date back hasn't deflated you guys too much, but has hopefully given you the assurance that we will be delivering a top-quality game.
Hi guys, and thank you for your continued patience during these trying times.
I'd like to show you some screenshots from the improved phone GUI, now there are two different styles depending on whether you're messaging a single girl or if you're involved in a group chat within the Instasnap app.
Here's the overhaul of the one-to-one message GUI, slightly muted colours for the bubbles and will remain this colour scheme since you're only messaging a single person, who will be apparent from the avatar and name at the top. You'll also notice the little battery, wifi and signal icons in the top right to give the phone a more realistic feel. These icons will also be incorporated into the phone call screens.
This is the Instasnap Chat app! The colours are bolder to match the Instasnap scheme as well as the introduction of individual avatars that show the first time the current typing person sends a message. This avoids clutter on the screen. This GUI will allow multiple characters to chat with you, and below is a screenshot of when Lily joins the conversation:
As you can see here, the GUI also allows for picture messages! You'll also be able to click on the image to zoom in. There's also system messages that give you a heads up when someone else joins the conversation as you can see above.
In terms of story, the first two chapters of Lily's route are now in dialogue form ready to put into the code. I will be working a little bit more on testing the phone functionality first but then I should be able to get back to the dialogue.
On the art side, the three girls now have their own casual clothed sprites for when they're not working at the bistro. We'll also be working on a couple of new backgrounds, Iris's bedroom being one of them.
Plus an announcement - we have a new member on our team! Sai will be drawing all the delicious dishes that Bellflower Bistro has to offer! We're hoping these will make your mouths water just as much as the girls ;-)
That's it for now, stay safe and keep your eyes peeled for the next update!