Hi guys!

This devlog is a bit special because I have and yet don’t have progress to report (it’s starting terribly, I know).

If you guys have been following me on itch (which should be the case if you’re reading this), you must have noticed I released two games during the month of March, amongst which a 30k-long one. It’s a fluffy friendship/romance story named Rendez-Doug, so definitely a different experience from a game like High School Lolita, but I did see some players who rated HSL last year rate this game, and I’m very thankful for your continuous support!

The twist though is that Rendez-Doug was planned to be around… erm… 7k words, but for some reason, it became quite lengthy lol.

So it took a lot of time away from WOTF, and I didn’t manage to work a lot on it during March. I was kind of expecting it so that’s why I was very happy to finish the writing before the start of NaNoRenO!

I then took a break to test some NaNoRenO entries (and still want to play some more, developing Rendez-Doug really drained a lot of my energy).

I however resumed work on it in the last days, and I am excited to let you in some news:

I edited chapter 1 during March. I’ll certainly give it a second (and even a third) pass before actually implementing it into my code, because I’m quite bad at noticing typos. After that, I intend on implementing the script!

I also rewrote one ending scene. I realised the game failed to provide Chris closure about one of the events happening in it, and I thought the ending in question was the perfect opportunity to give him this well-deserved closure. To explain a bit further, Waterlily on the Froth has three endings depending on Chris’ attitude. I mentioned them in the previous devlog, but let me provide some more details:

• If Chris is more passive, you will get ending 1 (“The Death of Hades”): it’s actually the ending involving a blonde girl we know all too well! This ending represents Chris coming to peace with his abuse, healing on his own and thanks to the support of people who share his experience. Something notable about this ending is that Gaëtana doesn’t appear at all. To be honest, it’s the ending that is the closest to what I want to tell with this game!
• If Chris tends to avoid attention but still sets his boundaries, you will get ending 2 (“In the same direction”). This ending narrates Chris trying to make things clear with Gaëtana. The way she reacts to it, however, is spoiler territory! And believe it or not, this ending was inspired by a scrapped idea from HSL… But I won’t give away spoilers!
• The last ending (“Die of love, I’ll scream with pride”) is obtained by playing Chris as a character who doesn’t necessarily hide his personal life and instead seeks others’ attention and praise even (at least, at first for the praise, my boy does have his character arc). This ending portrays a Chris a bit more… confrontational with Gaëtana, but this also is spoiler territory. It was also the first ending to be designed!

If I were to detail my narrative-design process for these endings, I’ll have to link it to one major theme of WOTF: the reaction of a victim to their abuse. Should they fight their abuser? Go see them to get closure? Or instead heal on their own, without including them in their life anymore? If you know me, you know my answer to those three questions: these three reactions are valid and it belongs to the victim to react to their abuse in a way that will heal them, and nobody can judge them.

However, WOTF is a game filled with symbolism and motifs, and therefore, some things set up come to fruition to specific endings, hence the importance of checking them all (for example, the game starts introducing an azalea motif at some point: it is in fact associated with Chloé, so you’ll only get the full colours of it if you reach ending 1).

So, the closure scene about the in-game event I mentioned before listing the endings, which I can’t spoil, happens in ending 2, that’s where it made most sense. It’s quite an emotional scene since it’s about something that’s really made Chris feel very… bad, as I fear a more detailed adjective would be spoilery!

I also started experimenting with art styles and I think I’m getting somewhere I like for Waterlily on the Froth. Look at this little Chris:

(I know, the way I shaded the visible inner part of the elbow is weird because it looks like the elbow itself but well, that’s just a concept art)

So, as I did conclude when I asked for feedback for the art style direction, I tried to have something more textured for the hair. I like it! I also did a more textured version of the character, to give a “watercolour” vibe:

I’ll have to see how it overall fits with the GUI and the backgrounds before deciding if I want to keep it or not, because both versions have their charm to me lol (also, feedback appreciated, in case you guys have an opinion on whether or not I should keep the texture!).

Now, I find this Chris cute, but I think he lacks a slight edge, something having a bit more bite to convey his personality.

When I drew this, I wasn’t sure of the proportions but for some reason, now that I see it again, I think it’s fine lol.

I also decided to treat myself and draw the protagonist of a future project (planned for yaoi jam), The Fragmented Butterfly. It actually was an excuse to exercise my muscle memory to the art style I want for WOTF but let’s pretend I did it for myself.

(The pretty blond boy won’t appear in WOTF… but he makes me cry a lot lol poor baby)

And then, I tried again with a minor character who is going to actually appear in WOTF, named Lucien Roussel (what do you mean it sounds suspiciously close to a HSL character) and, of course, with Gaëtana Ruscitti herself, the cutest addition to the Chim Villains roster™ (not gonna lie, getting Gaëtana right was a NIGHTMARE, this was my third try and I don't even dare to show you the other two):

What I find convenient with this overall style is that I don’t have to do lineart, which is amazing for me because that’s really not my favourite step, I just sketch and go straight to colouring! So I’ll definitely be exploring it more, and once I feel confident enough with the style, it will be time to start producing the illustrative assets of WOTF! Hurray!!!

On a side-note, I've also started examining steam for the release because, well, I don't know much about it yet, but I know WOTF will be forbidden in Germany (to be fair, even HSL would be, despite being less shocking than WOTF: not that WOTF is notably more horrible, but Chris' distress is more detailed than Chloé's, and Gaëtana is overall more "active" in her grooming than Matthieu, which results in more detailed scenes). But hey, it will be available on itch! Also, WOTF's release will be accompanied with a "complementary" book serving as some sort of artbook, but I'm not really an artist, so please also expect a lot of character trivia, and A LOOOT of explanation of my references for the story (among which Ionesco's Exit the King, the myth of Hades and Persephone, the Gabrielle Russier's case...). And well, I did say WOTF was going to be offered to all the people who commented or rated HSL before its release (which is still true), and I think I will also offer the complementary book to those who did both - unless I decide to offer it even if you only did one of those things, I am still debating lol (and in terms of actual price, nothing is set in stone yet, but I think WOTF will be around $3.50 and the complementary book around $2????????).

So ta-dah, I hope it was interesting! Next steps are to finish the GUI, implement it for mobile variants, and finally, finally, coding this game!! Phew!!!

See you guys for a future devlog!