Development Update #58 - The future of Just Friends.

Hello there you all, how are you doing? I'm fine, thank you very much.

I want to, first of all, thank all of you for your support. Especially to those who just learned about my troubles this month (One screen just died and my chair broke down so hard I am sitting on a small table chair) and decided to tune up their support to twice as much of what a Tier 4 gives me. Thank you all, I am saving every bit of money you guys gave me to buy the new hardware and chair ASAP so I can keep working in a good environment.

Now, I have quite a few news and updates for you all, so let's begin:

Just Friends Art:

So, you all know Wagner Mutt right? A good friend of mine, someone I admire and care a lot for, one of the characters in Just Friends AND the sole artist for the project. Well, here's the thing: His artworks are getting more expensive every year, but the revenue I get with Just Friends is not being enough for me to pay for it constantly. There are reasons for that, and I will explain them here, but right now, one piece of complete artwork for Just Friends as a cutscene can get around 600 USD each. Wagner may be my friend, but his prices are his prices, and we should respect his prices, it's business after all.

The truth is, Just Friends is my only source of income, and because of that, saving for art is becoming more and more arduous. Considering that, after I pay all my bills, rent, and the basics I need to survive, usually, not always I only have 10-30 bucks remaining in my bank. I take this money, I save it in a special savings account and I ignore it's existence. I do it every month, and I only spend it on art OR if I have any health problems. That's why art usually comes so slowly to Just Friends. However, with the prices getting higher and higher for his art, it's getting far too hard for me to save enough money for buying it. Once I had it, his prices could have gone up again. Because of that, Johan's set of expressions (Eight in total), will be the last bit of art I will be able to buy with him.

With that, I will start searching for other artists, ones that can charge a price I can pay more often, and of course, someone who's in agreement I will use said art for this project, their name will be added to the credits as the artists for Cutscenes and backgrounds, and the cutscenes already drawn by Wagner will be set as Concept Art eventually in the gallery of the game. They will be replaced once I find an artist to buy art with.

Why not find another job?

I know you're asking myself that, and I will gladly answer you:

Currently, I live in Brazil, I am a game developer, but sadly I was never able to finish my college, so finding a good job in my area and making actual fair money with it is very hard for me. Right now Just Friends gives me the Minimum wage, I can work on it as much as possible, I work from home and I don't have to go through humiliation in a job with a boss that treats me like a disposable piece of trash.

But let's say I go around to find a job, here's how things work: Not in my area, I would make the minimum wage, working on a scale of Six days and only having one day to rest (We call it a 6x1 scale here). The time we work here is between 8 to 10 hours every day, and that's not counting the commute. I know friends of mine that works 10 hours every day, lose three hours in the commute, and sleep to wake up the next day and run back to work, only to do the same as I do right now working from home). Note that a home office is not a thing here, the laws and judges are not helping with the situation either and it's very hard to find a home office here in my country. So a regular job would make me have only one day to work on Just Friends, making the very same, and let's be real: I can't update the project with new routes in only four days, just to write good content for you all, it takes me around two and a half weeks. And being more real here, none of you would keep supporting me if updates started to happen every three or fours months only for eight routes right?

IF I find a job in my area, I would make one salary and a half, that's only 1.5x the minimum wage because I don't have a diploma. The work time and commute are the exact same.

Essentially: I have to choose between Just Friends OR a regular job, and right now I work on what I love. It may take some time for me to save for new artworks (the expressions for Johan are already paid by the way, they will come soon I hope), but I will find another artist and if you guys want to indicate anyone you find interesting to me, I can check their work and see if it fits the vibes of the project.

Do you have someone in mind?

Yes. Not only do I have a list of potential artists, I also have other news that can influence the future of Just Friends in a good positive way, I'll talk about them down below. But before that, yes, I have another artist who charges around 150-190USD per full artwork, and it's still very high, but he is committed to making the works for me if I can pay him AND since he's Brazilian, I can even use my credit card to pay him in installments worst case scenario so I'm really considering it. It's still a long shot since I don't have more than 30 every month to save, but it's way easier and possible than with the current artist.

Visual Novel Core:

Ok, let's talk Godot 4. Just Friends will be updated on Godot 4. The biggest new feature in Godot 4 for me is the fact Godot manages the resolution scaling of theproject by itself. I don't need to worry and spend weeks trying to figure out the math to make sure the game will work on any resolution.

However, I'm not porting Just Friends to Godot 4. I'm creating a whole Visual Novel Core Engine using Godot Engine 4 as its base. Essentially I'm making a Core project with everything: Game, Menus, Credits, and the works. Once all of the core features are done, I will branch it off into a new project, that's what will become Just Friends Version G4-0.1.0. That's right, Godot 4 builds will change its numbers since it will be a whole new engine.

G4 is the version of Godot, the first number after that is the Major number, it will become 1 when the game is fully finished, the second number is Minor updates, which changes every update with minor changes such as new routes., and the last number is for bug-fixes. The reason why I'm resetting the number of the project is to keep it consistent with the build of the Visual Novel Core, which is right now at version 0.05.0, and will become 0.1 once every single menu and scenes are done.

For now, here's the current title screen I just made today for the project:

And here's how part of Johan's route looks on the new engine:

You can see, right? The new engine has an aspect ratio of 16:9 instead of 4:3, and that makes a huge difference. Also, Godot 4 works better for porting on Android.

So... Why are youmaking a Core VN instead of porting JF to it? I mean, don't you have the scrips and sprites already there?

You're right! I do!. That's because I'm using the assets of Just Friends to make sure everything works, but did you see there's no theme? Everything is black and white, Aiden name is still showing PLAYER instead of his name and other kinks. There's a lot that needs to be fixed, but the VN core can read Just Friends Script. That doesn't mean that's the same scrip, actually, I had to "convert" the original scripts because the whole JSON format has changed, and that's because this engine will be able to (eventually) have multiple characters on screen, for that I had to change how the structure of the days worked. And create a new JSON editor too!

But the biggest reason was because I needed more money. And for that, I need to start new projects. And I already have a new one in development, I'm doing it on my free time though, so don't worry, Just Friends is my priority.

New Project?!

That's right I even have the name and logo done for that! The only thing I can say is this: The project is called LL and I can't say the full name yet. But it's not a project that is only mine. It's a joint project. The new project will actually have an artist working WITH ME (not for me, there's a difference), and we have agreed that the amount of money the project makes will be split in half between both of us. I'll come in with the code, engine, and text, and he will come in with every single bit of artwork the project needs, he will also be the one who will manage Patreon and other social media with me, so we will have a joint account here. I don't know when the project will get out of the paper, but the idea is to make extra money on my side so I can buy more art for Just Friends. Literally, that's the whole reason.

What now?

What JustFriends makes is enough for me to survive and do the essentials, but it's definitely not self-sustaining. I am grateful to you all for your support, and I really hope you all can keep supporting me, soon the Godot 4 engine will be released with Just Friends in it and I believe it will be far more fun to use it instead of the current one. The new project will not interfere with the current one, and I already have one new artist in mind for Just Friends, but since JF is a project I do alone, I need to pay for art, so I need to save for it. However, I will keep saving money and I can guarantee we'll have a couple of new artworks every now and then for the project while I write the routes for it.

My workload will certainly double once I get into the new VN, but working on making VN and writing is my passion, so as long as both projects enable me to work with what I love, I'm down to it.

New Tier 3 Reward?!

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you all this: Tier 3 patrons will receive this month, or maybe shortly next month, a beta build of Just Friends in this Core Visual Novel project. Since the game is playable, I will export the main scene of the game for you on Tier 3 to test. Just know, it lacks everything, main menu, save/load features, etc. But you can see how the game looks in the new engine, and Tier 3 patrons will be updated on it monthly too as I upgrade the engine until the first build of the game on Godot 4 can be released for all Tier 2+ patrons!

So... That's it.

I would really, really, really appreciate if you all can keep supporting me. While for you all it's only 3, 6 or 10 bucks, for me it's a week's worth of food, it's my electric bill, it's me being able to work on what I love while not being turned into a slave who gets humiliated by people who don't appreciate the work you do for them. I really don't want to go back to that life. And sadly, I have no means of going back to my parent's house, it's me and the wide world, alone, and your help really means the world to me.

I know the project is slow on art, but I am able to keep updating new text every month because you guys enable it. And I promise I will save more and more money, every time I make more than usual I will be saving only for art, and I will keep pushing new artworks for this project too. Just Friends will be finished, and the endings I have planned for it will be, very interesting. Beleive me.

Right now, in Just Friends, Wagner and Karnal's routes have already finished Day 5 (Day4.JSON), so only three more days for them. Each day gets increasingly bigger, and Day 6 will have 4 acts, while Day 7 will have 5 Acts, and Day 8 will have 6 acts. There will then be Day 9 (FinalDay.JSON), where you will read the ending, there will be 7 possible endings, and they all depend on how much your affinity will be with each character. One ending is for the route where you didn't become a huge friend to anyone in the game. Each character route will have two endings: One for A/S routes, which is when you became a good friend with said character, to the point you get intimate with them before you left, and another ending is for a Perfect route, (SS routes only), that's when you did every single answer correctly and achieved the maximum points with said character. I wonder, will you end the game with no friends at all, or with someone that is more than a friend? Or will you end things just like that? Just friends with them?

Whatever the endings you will see in this game, I will make sure I can write the best lewds scenes once they happen, and the best routes and stories for them. And I hope you guys keep loving what I write, I do my best trying to make the best text possible for you all!!

Oh, and before you ask: Lewd scenes will happen on Day 7, and the final bonding scene that will have the romance and all that will happen on Day 8.

The idea here is simple: You will achieve the sex scene on Day 7 IF you have enough points to access it, but you will only be able to achieve the sex scene on Day 8 IF you have a perfect route. If not, there will be only some teasing, probably.

That's what I plan for now, but we will see. Thank you all for your support, for your time, and commitment, and for believing in me. I hope you all can stay here supporting me, and I hope you can keep sharing the public builds of the project with other friends, the more people who come to support Just Friends the better. After all my next project will not be only mine, and the money we make there will be split in half. Besides, Just Friends is a passion of mine, and I want to see this first project of mine completed.

Thank you all for your support!