Dec 3 '23 Loverbend Update

Over the past couple weeks, I've been working hard on preparing a functional demo of Loverbend, as well as a lot of other miscellaneous things. I'm currently aiming to have a very, very short demo ready by January 2024, and from there, I'll keep working to expand it.

Here's what I've been working on since the last update!

You can always ask me for more details via Patreon's chat or on discord as well.

Custom Traversal Code in a Physics-less Engine

Ren'py is my engine of choice for making this game, as it has a lot of tools out-of-the-box that comes in handy for dialogue in visual novel format, which would take months for me to replicate in any other engine. However, Loverbend is not a visual novel, given that the player will be able to control a playable character, walk around, interact with their environment, etc.

Unfortunately, Ren'py has no built-in physics or collisions in the engine to power this new level of interactivity, meaning I have to come up with my own systems for how it can work within Ren'py. It's been pretty tough, but as of this weekend, I have a prototype that should work for now, at least for the demo. I'll probably have to keep extending it as new use cases pop up, but I'm pretty proud of what I have so far!

My brain hurts from implementing this ahhhhh

Story Rewrite

While I've been really enjoying my initial story draft of Loverbend, I realized it was getting too far away from the initial vision I had of a genderbending detective getting up to shenanigans and crazy adventures with their friends in university. I've since rewritten most of the intro to have a lighter tone, with a greater focus on social elements and friends you can make.

I've also had to do substantial rewrites based on the player's new ability to walk around and interact with their environment, now that it's a little harder to predict what a player will do next! That said, it's been really fun to do this. You'll get to see more of this in play in the demo!

Update Cadence

I'm planning on creating a regular update cadence for Patreon updates to make it more predictable for you all to know when something has come! My current thinking is that I will do weekly or monthly updates. Haven't decided yet, though I'm leaning towards weekly. You'll hear from me on this soon!

Page Settings with Patreon Support

I'm working with Patreon Support to no longer have the page be considered 18+ only. I'm hoping this makes it easier for me to share the project, as I am noticing social media is making it harder for me to share with my audience based on this. That said, there's been no change in what content I'm planning to have in the game - this is just for the page settings. Thanks to Orchid for the feedback here that helped me figure out where I was making a mistake!

Wrapping Up Another Project

I will be wrapping up work on another project this month that I'd been working with Lascal on before Loverbend. The project is almost complete so I'm not expecting it to take long, but it will take some time this month away from Loverbend.

Social Media Strategy

I've spent some time thinking on social media strategy as it's one of my weak points, but I haven't made much progress here yet. I'm hoping to revisit this when I have more I can show for the game.

New Patreon Tier Ideas

Based on Leoz's feedback, I'm planning on adding new backer tiers when the short demo is ready, with perks like access to screenplay scripts, early access to future builds, and more. Let me know what you think!

I know there wasn't as much exciting art or animations to show this time, but there's more on the way very soon.

As always, thank you so much for your support, and for being with me on this journey!

Sincerely,

Auden