Last Time I Saw You News

Hi everyone,

Here I come with our new milestone report! As we explained in the previous one, these reports are common practice when working with a publisher to let them know how development is going internally. Hopefully, this is also of interest for those of you who want to get a better understanding of what goes into developing a game and working with a publisher. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to add them below!

Here is the most recent report for the game!

“I can say that, for the first time in the whole development, we’ve had a smooth, agile and trouble-free milestone delivery. Earlier in the year we had some challenges with the development which could have jeopardised our overall schedule, so we made several changes to the design of the days to come in the game. This didn’t necessarily consist of content reduction, but rather a series of efficient changes to avoid (or go around) many of the problems we had become aware of.


These changes were planned from Day 7 onwards (since at that time all the dialogues and design of Day 6 had already been done, even though we weren’t yet working on implementation yet) and, I am very happy and proud to announce that they have taken effect!

Thanks to them, in this milestone we have been able to deliver Day 7 and 8 (instead of one day per milestone as we used to) and, as I have already mentioned, its implementation has been relatively fast and painless. There are still plenty of bugs to uncover and fix - such is game development! - but everything is now far more manageable.


Apart from this, we’ve added music to several new areas of the forest and we’ve also made a slight change in the final dialogue with one of the main NPCs after completing a certain puzzle in Day 6 in order to reduce backtracking. This will lead in the future to the fast travel system that we have planned, but as it is not yet implemented, for now it’s just a simple connection between the end of Day 6 area and the forest entrance.

In the future we’ll have a map of the forest and the player will be able to choose where to go. We have a wonderful artist working on an amazing world map that will serve this purpose. I would love to show it to you but… it’s still in progress 😉


Apart from this, all game dialogues are already written (including side-quests) and ready to be implemented! The animators are already working on Day 10 animations and we also have the final cutscene of the game done (except for the backgrounds, which I'm taking care of these days).

I have also completed the list of all the items and collectibles of the game and their visual assets have also been created. They are on standby until we start with that task, and let me tell you they are looking great!”

Conclusion
Things are going well and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! Last month I also attended the Tokyo Game Show, where Chorus was showing Last Time I Saw You at their booth. It was nice to meet up with them again in person and meet some of the team that I talk to on a weekly basis but we hadn't met in person until now.


Surprisingly, IGN Japan wanted to interview me to talk about the game, and it was a very pleasant experience. I share with you the video where you can see me talking about Last Time I Saw You as my face becomes redder and redder as time passes due to the terrible humidity and heat of that day 😅🍅

IGN INTERVIEW

During the interview we briefly talked about the inspiration that the first Shenmue had had on me when I started working on the game (it's funny that Yu Suzuki was also interviewed minutes later in the same stream, coincidence of life!). This led to a Shenmue fan site to write a very interesting article about Last Time I Saw You.

SHENMUE ARTICLE

And I would also like to thank The Gamer site for the nice article they wrote about the influences of Makoto Shinkai's work on the game. Both articles speak quite well about Last Time I Saw You and explain very well the concept behind the game. I recommend you to read them!

THE GAMER ARTICLE

Hope you guys like them!
See you next time! 💙
.Juan

Hi Everyone… It's been a while since I gave you an update on how the development of Last Time I Saw You is progressing, so I wanted to share a little something with you!

This is taken from the notes that I create when delivering milestones of the game to the publisher. The report provides an overview of what we have been working on over the previous months (basically since the previous milestone build of the game) and highlight what’s going well and where we may have some challenges 😬

What is a milestone some of you may be asking?
It's a way for us as developers to provide a scheduled status update to the publisher, Chorus. In a nutshell it's a regular delivery of the game, including the content originally promised in the production plan - or hopefully something close to it! 😅

Here’s the last one we wrote that I want to share with you:

"At the end of the previous milestone (April 2023) we decided to spend some time revising the save system, fixing the issues with the original one we built earlier in the year. Now you can save and load at the numerous checkpoints scattered throughout the game (Ayumi's desk and the small shrines in town and the forest). This allows you to play from the beginning of the game to the end without having to do so in a single run (like was happening before having this new system).

It may seem rather obvious, but having this system in place as soon as possible is incredibly important for anyone that needs to check, test and playthrough the game while it's being developed!


We have also completed Day 6 (the game is separated by days), which is the longest and most complex of the entire game due to the large number of events and ramifications it has. This has meant that we’ve had to dedicate an entire milestone to a single day (along with the save system, the notebook menu and numerous bugs and errors that occurred in previous scenes reported by both Chorus and ourselves). This doesn't delay development, but rather has been a matter of moving one thing that was planned for later in order to do it now.


Apart from what we’ve included in this build, the animators are already working on Day 10 animations and, in terms of writing, we have already written all the main story dialogues of the game and they are approved (both by me and the narrative consultant) until we check them in-game. Apart from that, we’re currently working on sidequest dialogues.

Day 7 is already fully assembled in Unity and I’m starting to work on Day 8 asset implementation. As soon as we finish and deliver this build, the programmer will start working on Day 7.

Conclusion
After the huge number of hours we have spent fixing stuff that was present from the beginning, the game now is much more stable and enjoyable. The new music and sound effects really add a lot and make everything feel more cohesive and final!"


I hope that you have found it interesting to find out a bit more about how we approach the game development and what goes into a milestone report. Soon I will also start sharing DevLogs with you with more insights about the game and what inspired me to make it :)

If you have any questions, drop them in the comments or via Twitter @MaboroshiArt.

Oh! And apart from this, we’ll also be at Tokyo Game Show 2023, which will run from September 21st to 24th at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. If you happen to be there, please come to the Chorus booth at the Indie Game Area in Hall 9, booth 09-E67 and say hi!

I’ll probably be hanging around on Saturday! 😊


Thank you so much! 💙

.Juan

For all the people in the US who didn't get to try our game last year as we were only attending events in Japan, you're in luck!

Last Time I Saw You will be at PAX East, Boston MA, from the 23 to 26 of March!

You'll be able to play the demo of Last Time I Saw You at the Chorus booth and have a chat with them.

It will be booth #15115, and let us tell you that they've put a lot of care into the decoration! 😉




We also wanted to share with you some screenshots of how the game is progressing. We are really happy with the results and can't wait for you to play it when it's all ready! 💙✨





Hope you like them!
Going back to development now! 😌

We are thrilled to announce that we have signed with Chorus Worldwide to bring Last Time I Saw You to life!

To be honest with all of you, the demo you played during Steam Next Fest: June 2022 was made during our free time over the last few years. Our team made a tremendous effort to create it and for that we'll be eternally grateful to them. But despite the incredible reception we got the game was at a point where without funding it could never be completed...

That's when the good people at Chorus, who had been keeping an eye on us for a while, showed up to give us just what we needed!

This means that Last Time I Saw You is now fully in development, with an estimated release date of 2024 and the intention to release it on consoles as well! We can't give concrete names yet but we will try to get it on as many platforms as possible.

We have made this teaser to announce it. Hope you like it!

https://youtu.be/LU5MnhNnz14
We've also been reading all your comments and we are implementing as many improvements as possible, so the next time you see something from Last Time I Saw You it will be with a nice new fresh look!

Thank you so much for your support!
Much love 💙,

The Maboroshi Artworks Team

This is unbelievable!

We recently participated in BitSummit X Roads, a renowned indie event that takes place in Kyoto, Japan. It was our first physical event and the reception from the crowd was amazing! We had the chance to meet lots of people from inside and outside Japan who really enjoyed playing Last Time I Saw You and were eager to see how it continues.

And, not being this already good enough, we also won the VISUAL EXCELLENCE AWARD and the MEDIA HIGHLIGHT AWARD!



It was an incredible weekend that we will never forget...

Apart from this, we’ll also be at Tokyo Game Show 2022, which will run from September 15 to 18 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. If you happen to be there, please come and say hi!

We'll be at booth A35!



During this time you will be able to continue enjoying our demo. Don't forget to leave your feedback at the >pinned discussion post< that we created during the past Steam Next Fest.

So yeah, once again we'd like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the support you've been giving us during the past months since we released the demo.

Everything is moving and we couldn't be happier about it :)

Thank you so much for your support!
The Maboroshi Artworks Team 💙