Still Alive - Valentine's Edition

...So I've decided I should probably stop mentioning every time I post that 'the game is almost complete!' and that 'it should be done within the next couple of months!', as I seem to have totally and completely missed the Christmas demo deadline I set for myself. Whoops!

As of yesterday, however, nearly 100% of the game minus endings, birthday events and a few CGs is now complete. The end is in sight. Honest! The game is still unlikely to see release for a few months yet, but it's nice to know it's getting there.

What I've been up to since the last update (like five years ago, sorry about that!):

• Tweaking the dating system: Originally you could only call up the male characters on Saturdays, but you can now call up your lady friends for (platonic) weekend hijinks. Befriending some of the female characters can lead to extra events with the guys, so it might be worth giving up a few dates to hang out with the girls...
• Adding holiday / seasonal events: I added the Christmas events a while back, but now we've got Halloween, Bonfire Night and Valentine's, too. So many backgrounds, aughh~ As Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday in-game, it's up to the heroine to pick a guy who likes her enough to give her a gift at the end of the date, one of which is that kitschy little bear / mug up there. Who could that be from...?
  
• Finishing up Shuppin's and Beck's paths: I have never drawn so many violins in my life.
• Possibly adding secret events: ...But you didn't hear it from me.
• Testing and testing and testing and...: Continually tweaking the difficulty - I don't want to make things too difficult and un-intuitive, though at the moment the game is pretty easy. Of course, I know all of the right responses and clothing choices to make, so I'm not exactly the best person to test these things out! If anyone has any opinions on dating sim / visual novel difficulty I'd love to hear them; I personally prefer slightly easier games over more difficult ones, but I do like some degree of challenge.

And that's about it! Hopefully it won't take me too long to finish up the remaining events, though the endings may take a while as they'll probably end up being pretty graphics-intensive. To be honest, though, it's the writing that takes the most time (once I code the most recent events into the game, the word count should be approaching 150,000), so I'm relieved the brunt of that's out of the way, at least!

Oh, and I also made an Indie DB account for the game, though there isn't a huge amount there at the moment. There may be a couple of screenshots I haven't posted here, though, so please check it out!

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Happy Valentine's Day~!