OMG HI BESTIES READING THE WATERLILY ON THE FROTH DEVLOGS HOW ARE YOU

I AM SO HAPPY TO WRITE THIS DEVLOG AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So, as you can tell, the last WOTF’s devlog is more than a year old, which is crazy. I guess the project was put on accidental hiatus for reasons I had to figure out and would like to discuss right now, if you don’t mind.

Changes about WOTF’s release

If you’ve been following those devlogs for a while, you know Waterlily on the Froth is planned as my first commercial project, offered to all of High School Lolita’s supporters…

Well… I CHANGED MY MIND, Waterlily on the Froth will be completely FREE! Why? Well, several reasons:

• Making it commercial was VERY stressful: somehow, it made me want to overwork every single detail, consider everything I created as “not good enough”, and my impostor syndrome was truly preventing me from making progress on the game, because every time I worked on it, I would get FRIGHTENED; so making it free would help me to CHILL OUT;
• WOTF isn’t easily marketable, as it doesn’t fall in a specific popular VN genre: not a romance (arguably, it’s some sort of dark romance, but I’m not sure it’s the type of dark romance fans of dark romance seeks, especially considering the game labels it as abuse dffedf) not a dating-sim, not an eroge, not an otome… Well, long story short, it doesn’t fit a box, not even the LGBTQ+-related tags; so all my stress was connected to a game that would be niche anyway;
• Also, the game is inspired by the Russier case. Admittedly, it’s a broad inspiration and not a reconstitution, but monetising this situation made me feel uncomfortable somehow.

So, that’s why I decided the game would be free; the concept book will be set to a symbolic price to thank the people choosing to financially support my creative endeavours, as I have received some money for my games; but also, if you supported HSL, you’ll get the concept book for free! I hope it’s fine with everyone (I mean, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be since I’m making it free looool).

Also, I’ve decided the game would be released episodically: I hope to apprehend the workload better that way. This is the current release plan:

• Chapter 1
• Chapters 2 and 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapters 5 and 6
• Chapter 7 and endings

And I hope to release chapter 1 this summer, for SuNoFes in particular! I can’t guarantee I’ll manage though, as I don’t want to rush the game.

Now, you might be wondering though: what progress has been made?

Progress made

Well, first of all, I decided to start the art all over. I have tweaked my art style recently to make it more watercolour-ish, and you know what’s the best thing about it?

THE FILES ARE MUCH LIGHTER! Like, Chris_V2.csp has many more expressions and outfit variations compared to Chris.csp for a shading render I like much better!

So, for what work is actually done as I’m writing these lines:

• Textbox variation for CG scenes is implemented
• CG 3 is fully drawn and implemented in game
• Chris’ sprite is finished for the full game (all expressions, all outfits)
• Gaëtana’s sprite is finished for the full game
• All the sprites for the characters appearing in chapter 1 are sketched
• All the script from chapter 1 is coded in Ren’Py

You guys might not notice it, but… Having finished Chris and Gaëtana’s sprites is actually HUGE progress, as they have a lot of variations and outfits (4 for Gaëtana including her underwear base, 8 for Chris including his underwear base)! Admittedly, you’ll only see one of Gaëtana’s outfits in chapter 1, and 2 of Chris’, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give you a sneak-peek!

If you have seen the previous versions of the sprites, the main changes are that I wanted Chris to look younger, Gaëtana to have a stronger jawline, and I changed Gaëana’s pose because I originally wanted her to twirl her hair but couldn’t draw it at the time for some reason; but I guess it worked out better now??

And also LOOK AT THE WATCOLOUR TEXTURE!! IT’S SO CUTE!!!!! SO DEMURE!!!!! AAAAHHHHHHH

And if you’re curious about the CG implementation (just a screenshot though; I’d like you to discover the full vibe of the scene in the actual game, because I’m really proud of it!)

This one scene is actually quite important, as it shows Chris’ first encounter with Gaëtana!

Trust me to work on it as much as I can before O2A2 (I will need to focus on my project for it, The Blue Skies of Milan)! I’ll certainly try to finish simpler sprites before O2A2 starts (Mrs Moreau, Chris’ literature teacher sending him to tutoring, and Mr Lancien, his old neighbour will be worked on next) and, if possible, finish the menu GUI (and if I’m really brave, do the Android implementation)! Also, if I can just update the “kiss” CG I drew (I really like the base for it, so I think I’m going to re-use it instead of starting it from scratch, like I did with Chris’ sprite), perfect too!

And that’s it! I hope to make quick progress on it and not lose my drive! But however, be sure that WOTF is a project I refuse to do any sacrifice about, as it is bound to happen with many projects: I really love this story, and I hope I can give it to you the exact way I envision it (to the best of my abilities that is).

I wish you guys a great day! Thanks for following this project, and see you MUCH SOONER for another WOTF devlog!