January 2025 Update!

Hello you all.

As you all know, a few months ago I started pushing for Just Friends to be ported to Godot 4. However, as the checking went by I noticed that just porting it directly would be complicated, instead, redoing all the system from the ground up was way better, this way I would be able to create a better system.

With this in mind, the Visual Novel Core project started. The idea is to create a core Visual Novel system that can then be branched into different versions and customized. The reason is simple: Just friends is not the only project I have in mind, and having a way to quickly start a new project without having to re-code everything is a must.

Fast-forward to this month and the only features truly remaining for the Core VN to be completed are the Save/Load menus, Skip Feature, Gallery ,and Configurations. Configurations are around 50% completed and I think I'll be able to finish it by the end of this week. After that I will start the Save/Load menus, with it, you all would be able to play this new version and save your progress.

The thing is: When I started this new version, I "converted" in a very weird way all of Just Friends Script, and they work, they also are fundamentally different now. However, these scripts lacks the three last routes for Johan.

The plan now is simple: Finish Save/Load and Configurations (To the very least finish the Volume configurations, and grey out the other ones for a while), and then push Johan's last three routes into this new build.

This month then, you all will have access to Just Friends inside the Visual Novel Core. it will not be Just Friends yet, however, all the routes and systems are there for you all to check. I promised I would give this first for Tier 3 patrons, and I was about to, but life fucked me again and I couldn't work properly the last few weeks. So I'm sorry for that.

For this month, this is the plan:

January/2025: Release Visual Novel CORE: With JF scripts inside of it fully updated, Save/Load systems working and Configurations working too.

February/2025: Update VN core with Gallery, and Skip features, finally "finalizing" the core.

March/2025: Branch Visual Novel CORE into Just Friends Build 0.70.0 GD4 edition. This version will start having the color scheme of Just Friends added to it and menus updated with JF theming. I will try to replicate the old theming as much as possible.

April/2025: By April, I will open the poll for all Tier 3 patrons to vote on the next route to be updated of course.

With this new Engine, I hope that I can start adding more stuff to the game, but more than that, I hope it starts working better with Android. However, by the next three months, only a Windows version will be exported, since I will need to do a lot of stuff to be able to port Android again. But for now, that's it! :D

I've been saving some money to buy the rest of the expressions for Johan with Wagner Mutt, after that I will be searching for a new artist for the game for the cutscenes and backgrounds, so I do appreciate if you guys stay supporting me for now on. Thank you all for your support and time. And I hope I can deliver something nice for you all this month.