The new year's holiday is, traditionally, the time to reflect on the work done, but our project is not exactly ready for that; which is why we'd like to say a couple word about something else.
It is always interesting to watch an idea travel its way from the conception to the realization. It is a subject of biographies, novels, biopics, and fiction films. And at this time, it takes some effort to even remember the frosty November evening of 2012, when the idea of the then-nameless game was born. Yes, that was a year before the release of 'Everlasting Summer'! That is also when the synopsis of the first 6 days was written, and, due to the lack of time and resources, the idea was shoved into a far corner of the imagination's dusty attic. Several years had to pass before it got its chance. And since then, the idea grew and developed, acquiring new details, shifting the borders of its setting, accepting new characters, situations, events into its embrace. The only, perhaps, unchanging aspect were the personalities of its four heroines and their core backstories. And we, all of us, are watching 'Love, Money, Rock'n'Roll' mature out of a shy girl to become a mature woman as it approaches its graduation. We watch it with happiness, heart aflutter.
I always thought that realism was harder than sci-fi or fantasy. Harder on the writer. You cannot cover yourself with elves and dragons or lightsabers and the Force. And every inconsistency will be all the more noticeable, revealing the rotting timber behind the scaffolds wrapped in pretty pictures. In that sense, the most 'dangerous' part of realism is the slice of life. Without getting too fixated on it but also acknowledging all of its importance, we come to a conclusion that the most important things for us in the genre are the heroes and their relationships. It is hard and sometimes impossible to put yourself in the shoes of even someone familiar to you. To try and understand what they think, feel, what drives their actions and makes them make the decisions they make. Now, what if that someone is a made-up girl? And what if there are more than one of these girls? Please, do not think that this is written as an excuse; on the contrary, I am trying to explain that the story had an enormous amount of work put into it, and the game should (I hope) come out to be much more serious and deep than a simple eroge, moege, or even a 'normal' visual novel (with school or anything else as the setting). Not to mention, in our case, the school and slice of life are deeply connected to the mystery and the drama!
Can we recognize 2017 as a great asset? To be honest, the answer is negative rather than positive... Nothing significant and noteworthy, besides the obvious shift of the release date, happened this year. That's where we'd like to note that we are, after all, not EA and, same as the vast majority of indie developers, make mistakes and move the release dates again and again. But such a note would have been fitting had it been an inescapable reality. Unfortunately, we have to admit that in the attempts to make the game better, at some point we lost sight of the project's scope. Which doesn't mean that the attention was completely shifted from the primary elements (the story, the art, the music) to the 'secondary', but it does mean what the project was somewhat stretched in time. On the other hand, it would also be foolish not to mention that in terms of the size and complexity, our game turns out to be, let's say, above the average level for the genre.
This is one of the reasons why we have prepared a new year's present for you — an extended demo-version! It long seemed to us that the first demo with its three days didn't allow to properly develop some of the heroines, and in this, five-days-long one, we have tried to fix the unfortunate situation. We would also like to calm the worries of those afraid of spoilers: there is nothing too critical to spoil here, we promise! Naturally, if you don't want to slacken the appetite before the food at all, it is your right. But if anything, the new demo is worth playing just to plunge yourself for extra two days into the atmosphere of the Eighties and rock'n'roll, to keep getting familiar with the story and the characters, to listen to the new tracks and to see the new art!
The way of handling sprites has been significantly changed — in this version, we tried to make use of everything Live2D has to offer, as well as of the talents of our artists and animators! Not to mention, every sprite is animated now, secondary characters included.
The new demo contains over 40000 words as well as two completely different endings!
The English translation of the first three days has been completely revamped (HUGE thanks to Antony — our voluntary contributor) and should now be much more pleasant to read.
It is a custom to make resolutions for the new year's, promises by yourself to yourself. In general, they don't really amount to anything, so we choose not to be unnecessarily pompous and will simply do our best to have 'Love, Money, Rock'n'Roll' see the light in 2018. As early as possible in 2018! And, returning to the beginning of this post, we'd like to say that the realization of this idea would have been impossible without you and your support. Thank you!
In the coming year, we would like to wish you all peace, well-being, happiness, not to lose your bitcoins, be careful, and always make the right decisions!
You can support us here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-money-rock-n-roll-animation/
Download the demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/615530/ ('Download demo version' on the right)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
