Nekojishi: Lin & Partners Project Update - September 2022
Added 2022-09-20 01:57:15 +0000 UTCHey Patrons!
We know it’s been a while since you all heard from us about this game, so we want to begin this post by confirming that Nekojishi: Lin & Partners is still in active development.
During these past few months, time got away from us, but our heads have been down working overtime on day-to-day production at Studio Klondike. Several aspects of our development roadmap turned out to be more time-consuming than estimated, so we really appreciate everyone’s patience with us!
We’re a small team with 2 main developers plus writers, illustrators, an environment artist, and other team members being commissioned along the way, so we aren't always able to show finished work at the pace of a larger indie team. However, we’re dedicated to creating quality games and, in particular, making Nekojishi: Lin & Partners the best it can be.
This post has been made available as a public update on both our Kickstarter, and here on our Patreon Page.
A significant portion of our funding comes from Patreon, so consider becoming a patron if you’re interested in seeing more behind the scenes content such as technical design blogs, and step-by-step illustration concepts.
If you’re interested in Nekojishi: Lin & Partners but missed the Kickstarter, patrons can also receive copies of our games when they are released.
Update Overview
To begin with, we want to share an in-development gameplay video that contains a walk-through of the content featured in this update post.
Click to view Video.
We hope you’ll excuse this being a simple preview for now. We’ll be sharing more as the game begins to shape up.
New Music
The awesome Esteban Tamashiro has recently been working on some new music for Nekojishi: Lin & Partners! Today we have a jazzy arrangement of Holiday Everyday from the original Nekojishi to share with you all. Sit back, relax, and let us know what you think of the preview version!
Please note that music tracks may sound different in the final game due to dynamic and looping elements. An official soundtrack version will be released alongside the game with final audio mastering.
New UI Designs
Throughout the development of our latest project, Astatos, we developed new tools and techniques to push our interfaces to the next level. We also took on feedback from some backers that weren’t satisfied with the design of the UI in the original preview of L&P shown in 2020.
Recently, we’ve been iterating over the interfaces in Nekojishi: Lin & Partners combining elements of the previous design with visual research into temple architecture, and a greater focus on character.
While it’s a work in progress, we hope that players appreciate the clean appearance and fluid animation.
Expanding on the design of the prototype dialogue boxes, the interface has a different theme for each character with unique patterns and colours.
Along with the new designs, we’ve been implementing background systems for the interface.
- Firstly, we ported the localisation tools used for Astatos. This allows us to display translated text on the interface.
- Next, we implemented the “new Unity input system”. This allows the game to instantly swap between a variety of input methods; from keyboard & mouse, to controllers for Switch, Playstation, and Xbox. With a bunch of custom code, button prompts are generated on the interface and updated to display the icons for buttons matching the current input method.
Backer Artwork
Backers who pledged for the “You as a Character” reward have had their in-game illustrations completed. You can find a sampling of them below!
A big thank you to everyone who pledged for this reward! We hope you enjoy your illustrations and look forward to seeing them in-game!
Environment Assets
We’ve also been working hard on new 3D environments and props for the game. As with the original Nekojishi, Taiwan locals may find some locations feeling familiar! While liberties are taken for game design and aesthetics, we hope the little details make these locations fun to explore.
Wrapping Up
Concluding this update, we want to discuss our team's plans moving forward.
Last year, we announced that Nekojishi: Lin & Partners was planned to release in 2022. While we have our own internal timeline, we have decided not to confirm a new public release window until we approach the end of development. (i.e. TBA)
Instead, we want to be more proactive in sharing our development progress with our backers. What this means is that updates will be more frequent, but smaller and focused on what we're working on at the time. We hope you all look forward to it!
As our team is self-funded, we rely on game sales and Patreon entirely for our ongoing income. We've been working to make our team more sustainable with ongoing releases such as Astatos. If you would like to help our development progress consider, buying one of our games, some DLC, merch, or even supporting us on Patreon. It’ll be a massive help!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us in the comments, the Studio Klondike Discord, or our support email at contact@klondike.studio.
Thanks for all your support!
- From the team at Studio Klondike
