A stylishly immersive Visual Novel/Role-playing Game set in the nightmarish coma world.
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Hello all! Akabaka here,
As those in the discord may have noticed, development of Chromatose has resumed in full force. My obligations to Sucker for Love have concluded, except for localization if DreadXP decides to go that route sometime within the next couple months. As such, I've had time to sit down and pick up where I've left off. Azura is back to writing, and I'm back to developing, and it feels good.
As mentioned in an earlier update, I've backported the "make game look good" systems I've used in Sucker for Love, and as of now, they're fully implemented and running smoothly.
I've also done an quick overhaul of UI, and a bunch of other small touches to modernize the gamefeel a smidge.
Right now we're working on the RED story. The second level is now complete, as is the second hangout. The only section remaining for me to finish is the finale level, similar to the BLUE END. As things are, the next beta release will feature RED END in its entirety!
I've also already gone back and squashed all the major bugs I found (and those reported in the discord) in the most recent beta build, so the next build I push will be the "definitive" beta build.
Speaking of, I will most likely begin uploading the game's beta builds to Steam to make things easier on everyone. This should squash problems people have been having with opening naked .exes from Gdrive, and all in all should be a tidy organized system. I've learned a lot from shipping two Sucker for Love titles, and can begin handling things like fulfilling steam keys and beta access soon, as well as adding in achievements to the game!
As a reminder -- here's we're we are in terms of writing. All that's left to write is Laslo and Mercy's ENDs, and I have RED, GREEN, PURPLE, YELLOW, and PINK final levels to code. And then, the game is all done. I've learned a lot from having shipped essentially 4 projects since the last pushed Chromatose build, so I feel more capable of bringing the game to its completion now more than ever.
I was going to make a mega-post with the release of the RED END beta, but I wanted to loop y'all in on where we are, how we're feeling, and what we're doing now before then.
As always, thank you for patience in trusting the process, I appreciate it very much.
Talk to y'all soon
-Akabaka
Hello all! Akabaka here with a small developer update.
Internally, a final release date has been set for Sucker for Love: Date to Die for, the other project I've been working on, and it is within a month from today. I'm happy to say that once SfL2 ships, aside from post-launch debug support, my contract and obligations to DreadXP will have been fulfilled, and I will be free to develop SfL3 independently and at my leisure.
What this means is that I will likely return in full force to Chromatose very soon. My wife and I have begun interviewing PR and localization teams with Chromatose's release in mind.
I'm excited to take what I've learned from SfL and apply it to Chromatose, as my art, code, and production abilities have grown considerably since I last was able to focus on Chromatose.
I deeply appreciate the patience you have demonstrated with me, and I'll find a way to show my gratitude to each of you. In the meantime, please be excited for the coming content, updates, and completion of the Chromatose.
Thank you very much,
-Akabaka
Hello all! Akabaka here with another developer update!
So first of all, I could have sworn I posted an update since the last one-- I even posted the progress to the discord but it looks like for whatever reason it didn't go out over Kickstarter.
To summarize everything so far:
I know I'm taking a long time, and your guys' patience has been so appreciated: Chromatose is 'behind Sucker for Love' in terms of shipping-- I honestly thought I'd be done with SfL by now (my original contract said I'd be done with all three games in less than a year, but as with most game dev projects, it's running long on me due to both DreadXP and SfL being upscaled.) I've been aching to get back to Chromatose, but trying to ship two different games as a lead dev is like trying to chase two rabbits at once.
I am very excited though, Chromatose will ultimately be better for it -- I've grown a lot as an artist and programmer, right in time for the final chapters of each character.
In terms of movement on the game, Pink Ch2 and Ch3 rewrites are nearly complete (looking very fun). Sheer has an unusual and interesting story arc, with a lot of romance to chew on. We doubled back over it for some much-needed polish, which puts the writing development progress here:
Speaking of, her zone is looking REALLY good after I went back and took what I learned from SfL and applied it to Chromatose:
I took FXAA and some other post-effects that we used for Sucker For Love and retroactively implemented it into Chromatose. The compression makes it kind of hard to see, but FXAA prevents a 'walking pixel' effect which happened a LOT in Sheer's level because of tilting the art and makes it look smooth. There's also a faint bloom, noise, and chromatic aberration effect implemented as well with a minimal-to-none hit to performance. I don' t know how it looks in Kickstarter's compression, but it looks GOOD in-game. This took a lot of effort and basically involved making two games made with years-apart Gamemaker versions compatible with each other, but it will dramatically improve the final result.
I've also met many talented BG artists while working on SfL, and may end up getting their help with sprucing up backgrounds since we are hilariously under-budget at the moment. And once the remaining scenes are written with an editing pass, we'll be sending out a voice casting call... and I'll get to retroactively add voice lines one-by-one to every pre-existing scene... haha...
On a last note, I wanted to give a shoutout to backer and friend KGOKev for the wonderful surprise birthday present he mailed to me.
Thank you for your support!!
-Akabaka
Hello all! Akabaka here with another developer update!
As of earlier today, Sheer and Imogen joined the other characters in having their scenes completely written! Woohoo!!
Coincidentally, these two arcs contained two Backer-created engram monsters with their own unique fight mechanics! Here's a preview of their designs:
They both have fight-unique abilities like the Stoplight engram from the Purple demo, and fit nicely into the story, and am excited for you to face them, and am incredibly thankful for the support and creativity offered here.
For the folks curious how development is progressing, here's a diagram!
Now that Sheer and Imogen's stories are complete, that leaves only Mercy and Laslo's left to write. I am very satisfied with the way that the Pink and Yellow arcs end, and have high hopes for Purple and Green, too.
Everything we've been working on is a massive spoiler (since we're doing the final chapters for each character), so in lieu of ruining your gameplay experience, here's some spoiler CGs blurred out!
In terms of things that I can actually talk about, we've been doing QA passes on writing, audio mixing, and steadily filling out the monster roster. Some monsters are getting a fresh coat of paint, while others are making their debut!
Coming down the line is the open casting call once the scripts are complete, and more art previews. In terms of CGs and character sprites, there's likely to be a serious improvement in the overall polish of the art assets in the final chapters, as my art style has matured (for the better) while working on Sucker for Love!
Also, here's another reminder -- I added credits into the game! I used the names that you pledged to this Kickstarter with, but if you'd like a different name to be used in the credits, message me and let me know! If you've already messaged me once, you don't need to do it again. And if you pledged through Backerkit, a survey will come closer to release so I can take your names all at once instead of as the pre-orders trickle in.
Thank you for your support!!
-Akabaka