Chapter Eleven Progress

Hi all!!

It's been a while since I posted on here. I've been posting updates on the Tumblr blog and my Patreon, but the game page is long overdue an update as well.

Before the actual progress report:  as you may have noticed, the game has a new UI! It includes a dark theme, font style, and font size options. It also has a reactive mobile layout so that you can play it more comfortably in portrait mode.

Note: In some mobile browsers, the pop-ups for the settings options don't seem to work - or maybe it's specific to Android/my phone. Like, they'll briefly pop open and then immediately close again before you can select anything.

I managed to get it working on Firefox, but as always, itch io is very finicky, so if the pop-ups don't work for you, try opening the game in desktop mode, or try using a different browser.

Chapter Eleven

By the time of writing this, I have 50k words written for CH11, and I am both happy and mildly horrified to report that CH11 is looking up to be the biggest chapter yet by a mile. It’s very likely the total word count will break through 90k words, primarily due to the LI routes.

The opening section of CH11 will be completely different depending on who your LI is, and that comes with a lot of variation as well due to all the subplots introduced in the previous chapter.

First, I’ve finished the first draft for X’s route for CH11 and am mildly exasperated by my inability to properly estimate how long these sections will be.

I thought it would amount to 10k at most, but X’s route ended up with 18k words. This is mostly due to all the Imperial Court variations in their opening scene, because I’m a masochist. A single playthrough of X’s route is more like 14k words, though, depending on the variations you get.

I’m also finished with the first draft of R’s route and have 12k words written for it so far. Their and A’s routes are a little less in word count, since they got more content in CH10. D’s will likely be closer to X’s route in word count, around 14-15k.

I'm currently working on A's route, and hope to finish their and D's routes in June, as well as (FINALLY) get started on the main plot for the chapter. Altogether, this chapter’s LI routes alone will likely be close to 60k for all four. So that leaves the rest of the 30k for the main plot.

Please pray for me so that I can release this chapter in late July and give you all a summer miracle 🙏🏼

If you're curious to see some previews and excerpts from the chapter and read progress reports with greater detail, you can check them out here, or by joining my Patreon, which allows me to keep working on the game and keep the updates coming!! Even though they are very slow haha.

As always, thank you for your patience and support!!