Recently we’ve shown you the evolution of sprites in our game, and today by popular demand we present to you a collage of all four heroines! (We also took some of your criticism to heart and made changes accordingly.)
As for the development, it’s going its course. All of us are hot at work (figuratively and literally – look at the temperatures outside). Interestingly enough, the text when translated into the game gives a very different impression than just being in a Word document. A stronger impression that is! Which is understandable – the combination of words, images, music, and sounds affects more perceptual centers in a human’s brain. I’d go as far as to say that we’re confident the game will find plenty of grateful readers. Expect more good news in the fall!
You can still support us and receive valuable bonuses, future DLCs, and see your name in the credits here.
We can feel the summer in the air, but along with long-awaited warmth came another spike of Covid-19 infections in Russia. Take good care of yourselves and your close ones, make sure you are vaccinated and stay healthy and sound!
Some of our readers have pointed out that there have not been any posts for quite some time. As we mentioned earlier, we are getting the game ready for release and will announce the due date in autumn. Unfortunately, the team is small, and an SM specialist is not part of it. Meanwhile, I have been so preoccupied with work that I could barely write a couple of paragraphs for you. I do realise that it is a poor excuse and will try to provide updates more frequently.
You have also demanded to see the new sprites, and here they are! Besides that, in terms of updates, I can only mention bugs that inevitably appear when building or testing the game.
Having finalised the script and looking back, I now realise what a monstrous piece of work that was! 450k words are equivalent to “The Lord of the Rings” or “War and Peace”, and I do not consider myself an equal to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien or Leo Tolstoy. In any case, this all is mere rhetoric, and the average user wants to see the final product. Rest assured, that is what we are working on! Thanks to everyone for your support! Without you, the game would never have had a chance to see the light of day first place.
You can still support us by making a pre-order that would give you access to some valuable bonuses, future DLCs and the opportunity to see your name in the credits.
The spring is in full swing, the May holidays are around the corner, which means it is the time for another update!
For starters, we’d like to mention the part of the game that has gotten woefully insufficient coverage so far – its sound design. After all, there is more to the sound of a visual novel than its music; there are also background noises, like of eggs sizzling on a pan, the sound of steps or flowing water. We are aware that you particularly enjoyed the ambiences in Everlasting Summer, so we will try not to let you down with LMR, too!
Next, an explanation is required concerning the topic that has raised many questions in the comments to our previous post. “Why don’t we publish screenshots, videos, and recordings of the game development?”
To start with, LMR is a visual novel. The process of making it is fairly monotonous – you’d have to be watching me type the script for hours, and I doubt there would be much demand for that. On the other hand, perhaps this concern is well-founded, and we will definitely considering it for our projects, but I wouldn’t like to change anything now when the release is approaching soon.
“Perhaps you could break the game down into episodes?” – some might ask. I am against this solution for several reasons. Firstly, this may sound somewhat pessimistic, deterministic, and, maybe, reductionistic, but nowadays the majority of young adults (the ones that haven’t reached their 30s and 40s yet) are entangled in so-called clip thinking – and no matter how amazing the product is, they are ready to consume it, at best, once, but not twice-thrice-ten times, etc. One shouldn’t be mistaken: no matter how significant the size of Everlasting Summer community is (and it really is quite significant), it is still a drop in the ocean compared to the people who only played through one or two routes but still appreciated the game. Secondly, this model has only reached mainstream adoption due to purely economic reasons – games are released in episodes only due to the trivial lack of funds. Full stop.
Anyway, I digress, and the main point of the update is to inform you that we continue working on LMR! However, after having analyzed the workload (especially testing and fixing bugs), we’ve got to relay that the release will take place no earlier than in autumn. Don’t get discouraged, though! Autumn is the time in which LMR’s story takes place! Leaves turning yellow and warm autumn sun will become an extra ambience that would help you to dive into the world of the novel!
As a goodbye, take another look at Catherine – she’s been working all days long to tell you the most detailed story of Nikolai and his friends!
You can still support us by making a preorder and receive all the future DLCs and other valuable bonuses.
Happy coming of spring, dear reader! This year we’ve had a particularly cold winter in Russia, so all of us have waited for warm weather with great anticipation! (Although the wait is not quite over yet, so we are hoping to share a bit of warmth with you in this post.)
While finalizing the game code, we have implemented distribution functionality on mobile platforms. We've been asked about that a few times - as you might (or might not) know, one can’t just insert a license key on Android or iOS like it is done on Steam and get a copy of a game. We aren’t going to dive too deeply into the details, but rest assured, everyone who made a preorder for mobile versions will get ‘Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll’ in the same manner PC master race specimen do.
In regards to the creative process, we have changed the ending of Kagome’s route to better align with the overall concept of the game and match the vision of the scriptwriter. In LMR, each route is not only focused on the respective girl but also develops the plot overall. It has been of utmost importance for us to make the story feel real and integral, because in the world of the novel, apart from the events happening with the protagonist, there are other developments that aren’t directly related to player choices. Oftentimes, it is hard to keep track of four different stories, their interrelations and interactions, and we hope we have managed to do just that.
We usually deliberately avoid telling bad news in our posts, but this time will have to be an exception. Our artists are facing certain difficulties, which will lead to all the necessary elements being completed later than the beginning of April as we had intended before.
Other than that, we are doing our best to release the game as early as possible this year!
You can still support us by making a preorder and receive valuable bonuses, all the future DLCs and have your name in the credits.
It’s time for the first update of the new year – you’ve long been waiting for reassuring news, and we’ve got aplenty!
We’ve finished the vast majority of work pertaining to new background animations. Additionally, we’re working on an upgrade of the main characters’ sprites to better match them with the overall visual style of the game and have achieved significant progress in reworking and redesigning the animations of secondary characters.
Unfortunately, resolving the issues with the code will require more time than we initially planned. We realise that this issue didn’t appear out of the blue and was generally expected, but still, mistakes happen whether we want them or not. The main problem lies in the fact that most people played the demo only once or just a few times to get to both possible endings. Meanwhile, the full game is meant to be completed in at least four different ways, and, as a consequence, has more saves/loads and hours of reading than the demo (to provide some hard numbers, the demo includes five in-game days, while the full game has twenty-eight in-game days in each route). It is only logical that the increase in the number of interactions with the game led to a growing number of errors.
We understand that it might seem that nothing changes, that we are stuck and the project is in stasis, but that is not the case. We don’t have a dedicated SMM specialist, and we are very careful about delivering each of these updates to you. Evolutionary, humans aren’t well-adapted to the dense flow of information that exists in the 21st century. This fact is skilfully utilised by the governments and multi-billion corporations (like Kobayashi Corporation) all over the world with the use of scientific discoveries. We don’t want to be like them, so we are trying to provide reliable information only and not get ahead of ourselves (especially considering the previous mistakes made).
Guys, we are almost at the finish line! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and there is really not much left. We can promise you that.
You can still support us by making a preorder – and get some valuable bonuses, future DLCs, as well as have your name in the credits.
Let us wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year from the bottom of our hearts! 2020 - a very complicated year for all of us - is coming to its end. This year the entire world has faced an unprecedented challenge - the Coronavirus pandemic. We hope that in 2021 we will manage to bring this danger down with the efforts of our scientists and awareness of the people!
This year proved to be difficult for us, too - unfortunately, "Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll" won’t be released in 2020. At the stage of alpha testing, we have found multiple issues that previously hadn’t been discovered, such as the size of the game - it is significantly bigger than that of the demo version, which has led to numerous bugs. To put it simply, the code is not being executed properly. Since we put quality first, we cannot release a game in such a state!
Some people were comparing our game to Cyberpunk 2077. However, it seems to me that putting any visual novel, no matter its quality and scale, up against a AAA-title which had been anticipated by millions of people and in which millions of dollars had been invested, is not entirely correct. Still, there is something we can learn from Cyberpunk’s. For example, it is never favourable for a game to be delayed and eventually released with severe bugs. Therefore, a developer has a choice: either polish the game to completion, moving the release date, or follow the opinion of impatient players (and shareholders - not our case, thank God) and release an unfinished product.
Of course, we could be drawing such parallels for a while, but I’d like to highlight one more thing: PC players, of course, aren’t so concerned about the owners of old consoles, but the main issues the game and the developer had were due to them. We also have quite a lot of users with old Android devices whom we can’t ignore. Even if we wanted to, we can’t at this point. Perhaps it would be wiser to adopt the strategy of the developers of the new "Stalker", who announced right away that the game won’t run on old hardware.
In any case, we aren’t trying to look for excuses, but merely want to relay to you that the work is continuing, and we are doing our best to ensure you get a high-quality product!
Also, we decided to change some of the character’s faces - a few players were complaining about those. We got additional people to work on the code to finish the development as soon as possible.
In the end, a calendar month only symbolises one-twelfth of the Earth's orbit, and ignoring the social aspects, there isn’t much of a difference between December, January, and, say March. Either way, we are thankful for your patience and faith.
We have also added English subtitles for the interview with our lead scriptwriter:
Today, we would rather encourage you to give us a word of support than make a preorder.
Thank you very much, and please enjoy the holidays.
Dear friends, today we congratulate our Russian fans with Unity day! November, the penultimate month of this difficult year, is filled with events: from Steam sales to the USA presidential election. We, too, have not come to you empty-handed today! Our artists have finished drawing secondary characters, and the text is 92% complete.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has introduced some changes to both our lives and work. Nonetheless, we are currently in the mindset of a decisive charge towards victory. There is still a lot of work left regarding the animations, and we also need to optimize the game’s performance on mobile devices (and fix all the minor bugs). Still, these are all solvable issues, and we look into the future with optimism.
Some of you have asked us to show you some new content. Well then, we are happy to oblige. Introducing a new CG and a new music track (you can listen to it on our blog).
Don’t forget to watch the interview with our team lead if you still haven’t (English subtitles will be finished and added soon):
We’d like to remind everyone that you have very little time left to make a preorder and receive all the valuable bonuses that come with it as well as all future DLCs.
Another summer, which once again proved not to be everlasting, has passed. I hope that many of you have enjoyed it wholeheartedly, despite the fact that the pandemic has been showing no signs of decline. Autumn is here; the time, in which the events of LMR take place, and the time of the approaching release.
In regards to the progress, the script is being finalised, the art is being drawn, the animations are being produced, the code is being written. We can assure you that this summer turned out to be very fruitful for us. Meanwhile, our plans for releasing LMR in 2020 remain unchanged and indeed are putting extra pressure on us. After completing the plot, we will start combining all the parts and finessing the game, which is in itself a fascinating challenge.
As a final word for today, we would like to urge all of you not to be too sad about the summer passed. Yes, the time of rest and entertainment is over, but there are still many interesting things ahead! Stay tuned and wait for the news.
Please remember that you can still support us, while getting precious bonuses, including all the future DLC, and put your name in the credits.
Two summer months have passed without a trace, but you still have time to enjoy sunny and warm weather! We hope that autumn is not going to bring us any unpleasant surprises, such as the coronavirus that has been kept under control in many countries around the globe.
Meanwhile, we resume our work. We are still completing the Kagome’s route and began to optimise animated backgrounds, which should increase the speed and stability of the game (especially on the phones) and make some of them more vivid. Also, we are completing drawing the CGs. Now, we have to specify here that the initially planned volume of CG has been long finalised - now we are working on additional art, which became needed as the script was progressing.
We would really like to give you a precise release date, but the opportunity for that isn’t here yet, although our planning is intact - we would like to release the game before the end of the year. Meanwhile, you can still pre-order the game and get some valuable bonuses, all the future DLCs and put your name in the credits. We are kindly reminding you that the pre-order will finish shortly before the release - don’t be late!
Given that there isn’t much time left before the release of “Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll”, we have grown curious about your choice of the device on which you play. Please fill the survey.
Just a short explanation: if you are planning to play on several different devices, then tell us the one on which you spend the most time. For example, if you sometimes play on your phone on the way to work/school, but mostly prefer to use your PC, vote for PC. On the other hand, if you have a computer, but prefer to spend time on your sofa with your tablet, vote for the respective mobile OS.
And, as usual, we are reminding you that there’s still a little time left to make a preorder - and receive some pleasant bonuses, an honourable mention in the titles and all the future DLC (for free).