Hello there!

I'm officially starting the itch.io updates with this one, summarizing what has been done since the last update on October.
Since this is a 2 months update where I focused on a lot of graphic elements, there are a bunch of images and some preview videos as well, so I hope you enjoy it!

GUI and coding has been the focus still, which has, again, eaten up a decent chunk of time.

The History screen and the Gallery have been added in game, finally!

The old activities buttons have all been refreshed to complete the Activities screen.

And here's a video preview of how both Gallery and Activities currently look:

Activities themselves are halfway implemented; the ones that only raise a stat and give you a randomized flavor text are mostly done, and the ones that need a bit more of thought (Studying on campus, Hanging out and Texting) are not fully implemented yet.

Weekday lunches are halfway implemented, with randomized encounters if you have lunch on campus and different waiters if you decide to have lunch at the Caramel.

The special activity variations, especially lunch, that happens on weekends and other times (like cooking for yourself, inviting somebody over, going out to eat somewhere (alone or otherwise),  were never properly created either, so those are now on the to do list for later.

The animated activity chibis  are still queued on the to do list after all this is done.

Moving on, both Credits and Music box screens have been completed as well:

And not really high on the list but in need of a revamp either way, was the Phone!

Most of the texting feature ended up unintentionally being refactored during screen texting, to make sure that the phone screen looked and behaved the way it currently does.

Texting itself is not fully re-implemented in game, though, its priority is behind other simpler activities.

The schedule got a design revamp too, but it hasn’t been coded in yet. It will probably end up as a standalone screen just like the Phone, so this design is only a temporary mock up.
Like with texting, re-implementing the schedule feature is also lower on the priority list than the other activities.

Originally the phone and schedule were accessible from the quick menu, but now the plan is to add a button to the regular interface where you can access them.

Beside what was mentioned above, the alpha game’s story is put together up to halfway of week 7, which then leads to endings on week 8. Routes are all unlockable with relationship points but not stats, and endings are still untested.

There are several very small missing scenes that have been marked and put as placeholders in separate files so we can write them and include them later.

As you can see here, there’s a cheating menu on the story testing build to jump to routes and see the different dialogue variations that depend on earlier choices to make things easier for testing.

So, as you’ve probably noticed, We’ve been working on 3 fronts at the same time, so these are the points we’ll be focusing on in the next few weeks:

GUI

the plan is to design and add the phone/schedule access button and the quick menu buttons (auto, skip, etc) along with the skip indicator. Then code in the schedule screen (not the actual system yet, though!) and implement a temporary endings/achievements list.

Activities

Finish the remaining flavor texts for the basic activities (relax, visit the Salviati family, go to town), get Studying working (with encounters and flavor text) and make some flavor text to work days, since the minigame will take a while. 

Story

Focus is finishing the last couple of weeks and endings of the game and test everything is unlockable and reachable; points and stats will be balanced afterwards during playtesting. 

Lastly, there’s a piece of news that made us really happy!

Autumn’s Journey, our first Visual Novel, is out on Switch, the PS Store and Xbox!

https://www.ratalaikagames.com/games/autumnsjourney.php

Thank you for your patience as usual, and I hope you have a lovely end of the year!

-Deji