Hello there, it's been a while!

While we never really left, we did take a sizable hiatus from developing Do Not Love - Violators Will Be Shot. It has been more than a year since we started working on this "proof of concept" demo (which, to be frank, is about a year longer than we would've wanted). This has been a real learning experience especially on my part on the effort needed to develop such a game. And though we have shelved it for some time, nothing bugs us more than unfinished business. So why not join along with the community in finishing our VN this 2019? :D

---

Before anything else, this is our current progress:

• Our goal for IntRenAiMo 2019 is a playable demo, AKA all routes are unlocked and with proper direction (sprites, scenes, music, etc.)

• All routes with checkmarks (see diagram) are deemed "play-ready". That means the dialogue is all there, with proper music and actions. They're not necessarily the final product, but they will be available and not locked unlike Alpha 1.1 (more on this later)

This are the things left in our to-do plate:

• Code in persistent data scheme
• Make title cards for good ends and bad ends
• Improve GUI
• QC (beta-testing)

These are the things we'd love to have, but with the current outlook, is pretty doubtful:

• Any additional asset creation. This is due to both time and budget constraints.

(More updates to come in the future)

---

What happened in Alpha 1.1

So in last year's NaNoReNo we released the build Alpha 1.1 a few days before (after?) the deadline. We said in the main games page to expect the Day 1 patch that will fix most of the problems 1.1 had. It never came out, unfortunately, and here we are a year later still working on it.

There are multiple factors that played into why the hiatus and silence on our end happened. For the sake of brevity, however, we'll focus on the three main culprits.

1. Sprite Deformation

In total, there are about 31 sprites inside the Do Not Love demo.  Me and the artist (JodTheCod) have been interacting since about January 2018 regarding the designs of the DNL characters. We worked on each character one by one, a render at a time. Around the few final weeks of NaNoReNo 2018, he sent the batch of supposed to be final sprites we've been working on the past few weeks...

And they were all terrible quality.

They all had weird white edges around them, and the image quality was terrible. We thought the way it was sent was the problem (we usually contacted over messenger), but cloud and e-mail shared the same results.

We eventually met irl to test the sprites with a USB, but you guessed it, same problem. He had to redraw every sprite just because it looked unsalvageable.

By the time the sprites were fixed, however, it was almost June.

(I used to have a file of every screenshot I sent JodTheCod when I ported the sprites to ren'py. They all had the file name "uh oh.png". I'd love to post them here just so you could see the extent of the damage, however that file is in my home PC, which is currently in a coma. Speaking of home PC...)

2. File Loss
A little peel back of the curtain - I (Chair) write between three different devices during the time of DNL. I have a home PC, a laptop at the uni dorm, and an old tablet that I lug around  (it's lighter than the laptop and doesn't just die when unplugged for 20 minutes). I travel around three hours every weekend, and so the writing of DNL is split among these three devices. Though I did use Google Docs, a large percentage of the files were in their local drives.

And I guess you could kind of see where it all went wrong.

Anyhow, I lost a large chunk of docs because of the home PC dying, and it really burned me out on the whole thing. I had to rewrite a good amount of the script, which I only managed to finish back in November. 

And yes, I now have backups of everything.

3. Inexperience

I guess this is the biggest factor that played into the disaster that was Alpha 1.1. We were just way too inexperienced. To be more exact, I was way too inexperienced.

Do Not Love started development on January 2018, but the idea for the story is about 5 years old. The main inspiration was this writing prompt, and it was something I have toiled about in my head for a long, long time.  There were a lot of things changed from my original ideas and what we have today, however, there is one property that has remained consistent with my original concept.

It had to be a visual novel.

In a world where skin contact is forbidden, connection between others will fade away as time passes. I wanted to showcase different aspects of this dystopian world in my head, however how do you do that when relationships have eroded to meaninglessness?

The answer is to have them in multiple storylines, converging into one focal point. In this case, it was the MC, which eventually became Jericho.

The inspiration for this in particular was Katawa Shoujo's Act One. The way your choices dictate which character you'll end up with...yes, I wanted to do that to.

Last January 2018, I got the chance to do so. I hit up some artist friends, started working on the manuscript...

But an idea in your hand is way, way different than an idea put into action.

There were a lot of setbacks, a lot of delays, mostly irl stuff. Though I am not a stranger to writing stories, I was one in regards to writing a branching plot. I struggled over changing gears every route and making sure they intertwine in a cohesive manner. When things took longer than it should, I panicked and got frustrated.

Not to mention, I put myself on an intense, unrealistic deadline. I wanted to get out a Kickstarter campaign by the second week of April. On a project I could barely finish by the end of March! All it did was put undue pressure on both me and the team, which led to more mistakes, more frustrations, etc. etc...

I was inexperienced, plain and simple.

I'd like to imagine that I've matured a little bit this past year. Or maybe I've become more immature, I'm not really sure. My personal life played a big role in what happened last year (which I don't think I'll ever be ready to discuss), but in the end, I was too intense and hot-headed. And like anything that starts out too hot, there's a high chance of burning out.

That's essentially what happened this past year.

I would still love to hold a Kickstarter for Do Not Love in the future, yes. But I have also calmed down with that particular idea. I want it to happen soon, but it won't kill me to have it a bit later. It's no longer a life-or-death thing, which I considered this project to be last year, and now I'm in a better state of mind. Not necessarily taking things slow, but taking things at an appropriate pace. If people are interested and excited about our "proof of concept", fantastic! That'll be our sign to launch the Kickstarter ASAP. But until then, we'll pace ourselves as appropriate.

However, this demo has been long overdue. We owe it to our followers and to the people who download 1.1 and was disappointed by it. The demo won't be perfect, but this is just a little glimpse of what we want to do in the future. Stay tuned for more updates in the upcoming days.

Thanks for your support!

- Chair