Truth Scrapper News

[p][/p][p]Wow, it’s fall![/p][p][/p][p]In case you just stumbled upon this devlog, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.[/p][p][/p][p]This month, I drew things![/p][p][/p][p]This month was all about adding everything about day 5 to the game. I’ve done a post on implementation a couple months ago so I won’t bore you with the details![/p][p][/p][p]I also signed up for Peo Michie’s class on Intimacy and Characters for Comics and Illustrations, and it’s been very useful! Art-wise, working on Truth Scrapper has been challenging, since the characters have more realistic bodies than my previous game. AND since it’s a romance game, characters touch and interact with each other more often, so I wanted to get some advice from a pro![/p][p][/p][p]One of the exercises for this class was to draw characters’ heads from various angles (so you can make ‘em kiss later), so I decided to do that for the three main characters. And let me tell you. NOW I CAN DRAW BETZ’S HAIR ON MODEL FOR SURE[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]After doing that, I spent a couple days updating some illustrations and portraits from previous days, to make sure they looked accurate. Some are definitely an improvement and everyone will agree, and some are improvements only to me, but let me tell you, WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT IT IS. BETZ YOU FINALLY LOOK LIKE SOMETHING.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In other news, I’ve done some prep and finally created some business cards for the game, to remind people to wishlist when we show the demo during conventions. We did that for In Stars and Time as well, and since I’m very good at doing business cards (and adding some spot gloss), I usually ran out of cards fairly quickly! I’ll get them in a couple weeks, so I’m excited to see how they look in person…[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p](the back of the cards has the logo, and a QR code linking to the steam page)[/p][p][/p][p]Wow, you read all of that… Thank you. Here’s one of the illustrations from Day 5 as a reward. Amour what did you do.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]This was the Betz show huh. I'll show some Amour stuff next time.[/p][p][/p][p]Alright, back to the implementation mines I go! See you next month.[/p][p][/p][p]DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!![/p][p][/p][p]Links!
📚 Official Website
📚 Join the Discord
📚 Sign up for my mailing list
📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky
📚 Follow ME on Bluesky[/p]

[p][/p][p]Yippee Yahoo It’s October Soon!!![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]First things first-- Truth Scrapper is part of the Fall in Love Visual Novel festival, full of other romance vns! Go check it out!!![/p][p][/p][p]In case you just stumbled upon this devlog, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.[/p][p]This month, I finished writing the script for Day 5![/p][p]
[/p][p]Uh that’s it I don’t have much to say about finishing the script. HOWEVER!!![/p][p]I also went to Montreal for a day on a whim. My mother was here for the month of September, and she’s never been to Montreal, so we decided to go there and visit for one (1) day. I live in Toronto, so this meant that we took a plane at 7.30am to go there, and went back for the 9.30pm plane to Toronto. Yes we were out of commission for a whole day after that. But it was super fun![/p][p]

“That sounds great but what does this have to do with Truth Scrapper, oh great one”[/p][p]Thank you for asking. So we went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts because we love art. And let me tell you. I had the biggest burst of inspiration ever.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In my previous game, In Stars and Time, the magical system was called “Craft”, and was a system based on Rock Paper Scissors (makes sense in context I promise). It’s used in battle, but, while I didn’t mention it much in the game itself, Craft had an everyday use as well– you can make items with magical powers, too! I really liked the idea of “creating magical objects”, but since it wasn’t the focus of the game, I left it vague overall.[/p][p][/p][p]But now I’m making Truth Scrapper, you see. So, following ISAT, Truth Scrapper has a “magical system”, where the objects you craft have a chance to become Saturated Items– items with magical powers. Sosotte’s book, which allows her to record her memories, is a Saturated Item, for example. This “creating magical items” is very important to the game. WHICH MEANS THIS TIME I CAN DEVELOP MY IDEA!!![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Except that until now, Truth Scrapper had SOME Saturated Items, mostly the ones the characters wear, and… That was it. The items were talked about and explained, but there wasn’t much about the history of Saturated Items. How they’re made. How they changed based on cultures. I had other things in mind for the story, and those questions kind of fell to the side.[/p][p][/p][p]But then I went to the museum, you see. And my god I love art. And I got The Best Idea on how to make Saturated Items’ history and everything more important. And this is why you should always go to the museum kids[/p][p][/p][p]So all this to say, I need to do some rewrites on the previous days, and add one (1) new scene per day! Producer Dora I know we have a meeting in a couple hours and you haven’t heard about my Cool New Idea. I know your heart rate tripled reading this. DON’T WORRY I PROMISE IT WILL ONLY TAKE ME A WEEK OR TWO TO ADD ALL THIS THE SCHEDULE IS OKAY AND GOOD AND THE GAME WILL BE 100% BETTER[/p][p][/p][p]Anyway the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a very good museum. Can recommend. [/p][p][/p][p]Oh and before I forget, I made a little comic this month too. [/p][p]
[/p][p]POV: the girls see you walking around and they think your shoes don't match with your outfit

[/p][p]DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!![/p][p][/p][p]Links!
📚 Official Website
📚 Join the Discord
📚 Sign up for my mailing list
📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky
📚 Follow ME on Bluesky[/p][p]






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[p][/p][p]The Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival is happening now! This is a week-long Steam festival focused on visual novels with romance themes. There's over 200 games in the event—including Truth Scrapper![/p][p][/p][p]To celebrate, Truth Scrapper's composer Castle If has released TWO SONGS! Please welcome Thème D'Amour (Amour's theme) and Thème de Betz (Betz's theme) by composer Castle IF, both available on Bandcamp 😍🤗🎶[/p][p][/p][p]Go forth, and go wishlist games and play demos![/p]

[p][/p][p]I am writing this in bed after dying at the gym. please clap[/p][p][/p][p]In case you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I am the creator of timeloop RPG In Stars and Time, and now am working on my next game, memory visual novel Truth Scrapper. It’s gonna be a good one.[/p][p]This month, I worked on the demo for Truth Scrapper!![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The demo for Truth Scrapper is DONE!!! (but you know I still need to get some people to playtest it and do some QA and we also need to translate it so really it’s not done but you know)[/p][p][/p][p]To celebrate, I thought I would go in a bit more detail about what a demo is, what it’s for, and how I go around making one.[/p][p]
[/p][h2]📚 WHAT'S A DEMO[/h2][p][/p][p]So, for the uninitiated, a “demo” is a little slice of the game, that is supposed to encapsulate the gameplay and story and stuff. It’s usually showcased in events like conventions (PAX, Gamescom…), and online (Steam events, especially Steam Next Fest). The goal of a demo is to GET THOSE SWEET SWEET WISHLISTS BABYYYYY[/p][p]
[/p][h2]📚 LEARNING FROM PAST MISTAKES[/h2][p][/p][p][/p][p]When it comes to the demo for In Stars and Time (my previous game), I think it did a great job showcasing both gameplay (through battles) and story (through events and dialogue). I ended up taking the first floor of the main dungeon, and fixing it up a bit so that the time loop starting was the Cool Thing at the end of the demo, and Loop’s appearance was the Cliffhanger. Oh yeah your demo needs a cliffhanger so people go “oh my god i gotta know what happens next let me wishlist this.” So yes, I think I succeeded in that regard.[/p][p][/p][p]However, one big issue it had was the LENGTH. The demo was EASILY AN HOUR LONG, which is fine-ish when it comes to online demos (players have some time) and streamers (yay they get to play a game), but not great when it comes to conventions.[/p][p][/p][p]We only showcased the demo at the Tokyo Game Show, and I think in 3 days, only a handful of people played it from beginning to end. We ended up making a save skipping the first cutscene, and asking people if they wanted to see the story, or start from the gameplay, which is… Not great![/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]So for the Truth Scrapper demo, my goal was to make it LESS THAN THIRTY MINUTES LONG. But also a piece of personal lore is that I am terrible at knowing how long a game I made is, so we’ll see if I succeed.[/p][p]
In positive things though, the ISAT demo allowed me to find some cute ways to make the full game more interesting, like tutorial fairy Loop being the one to tutorialize you at the start of the game! Originally, Loop just talked to you after your first loop, so they kind of came out of nowhere. Having a tutorial at the very start of the demo, then having that tutorial tell you to come to the tree was an idea I had for the demo, and it was so good I ended up adding it to the game! So hopefully, making the TS demo will also help me figure out some things…[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]📚 MAKING THE DEMO[/h2][p][/p][p]Ok so the one problem I had from the start was that in the full game, Day 1 is Amour’s day, and Day 2 is Betz’s. So obviously, I couldn’t just take either of those days as a base for the demo, since I wanted to showcase both characters immediately. Whole new day it is. DAY… X!!!!!!!!!!! (not canon to the full game.)[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]All days in TS usually follow this structure:[/p][p]Wake up -> Explore the town -> Explore the Dwell -> Point and Click investigation -> Dress-Up-type minigame -> End of the day.[/p][p]So I figured I would follow this for the demo, but, uh, immediately realized that would be a two hour demo. So I simplified it to this:[/p][p]Wake up (longest scene, needs to establish characters and setting) -> explore the Dwell (quickly) -> very quick Point and Click (“yahoo there’s gameplay”) -> Dress-Up-type minigame (it’s short and cute) -> End of the day (and cliffhanger).[/p][p]So most scenes are way quicker, and hopefully this will be a 30mn demo (GOD PLEASE I HOPE I’M RIGHT)[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The demo also showcases the memory gameplay, where Sosotte gets to choose memories that give her specific “perks”. I originally had it just like the full game, where you can change those memories whenever, but I decided to make those permanent (you pick them at the start and they don’t change), which should allow for a certain level of replayability. And demo achievements. IF I CAN GET THEM TO WORK.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Truth Scrapper has a lot of funny words and lore that would take longer than a demo to explain, so I also simplified the story there to make it more understandable. If some players want more details, there’s always the option for them to scour the Glossary. This is honestly the biggest reason for playtesting, I really want to make sure I didn’t make the story too complex for the demo… We’ll find out…[/p][p] [/p][p]What else. Oh yeah. Since the demo is based on the latest Truth Scrapper build, I made sure to delete all mentions of stuff that happens later in the story. Yes including songs. Yes including sound effects. YOU WON’T GET ME THIS TIME, CODE DIGGERS!!!!!!!![/p][p][/p][p]Uuuh yes that’s all. I know I said all of this and you don’t have the demo so you’re like “ok cool I guess that sounds great” so uh I hope you’ll play the demo when it comes out. Probably. Early 2026 or something.[/p][p][/p][h2]📚 HOLD UP HERES SOME ART[/h2][p][/p][p]Oh yeah... I also drew some art based on this music video. You should really follow me on Bluesky or Tumblr or even Instagram.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] ok thats it byyyyye[/p][p][/p][p]DON'T FORGET TO WISHLIST THE GAME ALSO IT REALLY HELPS BECAUSE STEAM’S ALGORITHM IS MORE LIKELY TO SHOW OFF GAMES WITH A HIGH AMOUNT OF WISHLISTS THATS THE REASON WHY GAME DEVS ALWAYS ASK TO WISHLIST!!! OKAY BYE!!!![/p][p][/p][p]Links!
📚 Official Website
📚 Join the Discord
📚 Sign up for my mailing list
📚 Follow Truth Scrapper on Bluesky
📚 Follow ME on Bluesky[/p]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][h2]Let's spend a day with ROYAL the SUPERVILLAIN as he does nothing evil. There are a lot of things to do.[/h2][p][/p][p]The developer of Truth Scrapper's tiny visual novel, "this game will end in 205 clicks." is AVAILABLE NOW![/p][p][/p][p]Please welcome "this game will end in 205 clicks." 👑😈✨[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]