Love, Money, Rock'n'Roll News

Good time of day to you, dear friends! Our main piece of news for today is the updated demo version of the game. But for starters, let’s review what’s been done in the time since the last post.

The list of changes isn’t that long this time, but each of the entries includes a large amount of work in addition to, as always, a significant number of small changes behind the scenes.

1. Remade the file structure, which allowed us to significantly reduce loading times, especially on mobile.
2. Changed old and added new character animations — now they look better and more alive.
3. Added a second, “Modern” menu style more suited for mobile devices. If you liked the old one better, don’t worry, it didn’t go anywhere, you can always choose it via an option in the menu. This task took up quite a lot of time and effort since the last blog post. It may not look like it from the outside, but making GUI is hard!
4. Added the ability to view animated CGs in the gallery.
5. Updated several more CGs.
6. Updated the appearance of the main ingame interface.

Now, regarding the demo version: it is already available for download on Steam. Though there are no changes to the story, the new demo features updated character sprites, animated CGs, many other smaller changes, and, most importantly, completely remade underlying code. We hope that in the light of the full game’s approaching release, you will find it enjoyable to refresh your memories of the demo. (You can expect the update to be pushed to mobile platforms in the nearest future.)

And finally, we’d like to invite YouTubers and other influencers to receive pre-release (a week or two in advance) access to the game and give their opinions/make videos about it. If you find the prospect interesting, you can send us a letter to [email protected]. Just keep in mind that there will be a review process and an application doesn’t automatically mean you’ll receive a copy of the game.

Don’t miss your chance to make a preorder until July 4th to see your name in the credits and get all future DLCs for free (you will be able to receive a Steam key immediately after purchase).

Hello, dear friends! In these complicated times, all of you, we’re sure, are waiting for good news. And we have just that! To get straight to the point — you can receive a Steam key for LMR right now!

In the past month we’ve done the following:
1. Finished additional script direction.
2. Added another two — final — animated CGs.
3. Conducted wide-scale mastering of music and sfx.
4. Finished the system for keeping track of read text.
5. Made a multitude of small changes to a large number of CGs.
6. Added three more animated versions for backgrounds.
7. Added another background.
8. In accordance with our vision (and in big part based on the feedback of the people who have already played the game), remade the faces of two of our main girls — Himitsu and Kagome. You can see their new appearance in this post.
9. Added several more emotions to various characters.
10. Added the ability to play or stop music during game pause.
11. Started displaying the currently playing track during game pause.
12. Added title videos when launching the game.
13. Normalized texture appearance on iOS, significantly reduced game size.
14. Added screen shake effects during some scenes.
15. Added the ability to change screen refresh rate.
16. Implemented the system for Steam key distribution.

There is, however, less pleasant news. Unfortunately, we are forced to delay the release of “Love, Money, Rock’n’Roll” by two months — to August 4th 2022. Let us explain this decision.
The game itself, as a piece of artistic production, is complete (with a few minor details yet to be added — more about that at the end of the post). However, it’s been 10 years since the first release of Everlasting Summer; the world has changed, the media space has changed, and we have changed. We cannot simply upload the game on a file sharing service — all of you are waiting for it on Steam first and foremost. And to have it there, we still need to see to a number of procedures not directly tied to the development process. These include marketing, economic, legal, and other processes that are necessary to ensure the studio’s continued existence. And, due to the situation in the Russian Federation that we’re sure you’re all familiar with, we have encountered significant difficulties in this regard. Unfortunately, we are sure that none of you have been unaffected by these events, so we hope that you will understand why we had to take this step and forgive us one, final, small delay. As for the specifics, we cannot disclose everything publically, in part due to contractual obligations. We hoped to the last moment that the newfound problems would be resolved sooner and we would be able to release the game by June 2nd. But man proposes, and God disposes…

Now for a few words as to why it’ll be two months specifically and not two days or, say, three weeks. Large companies like Steam and Google aren’t just sitting around and waiting with bated breaths for us to deign and provide our game for them to check. Often, verifying a build may take up to a week of real-world time. We have a small, (still) independent development team, and a single person may oftentimes handle a much wider sphere of duties than their colleague in a different company. Unfortunately, in the past two months, we have had to spend a significant amount of time resolving issues that we never intended to be handling in the first place.

As for what we have left to finish in-game: supporter names (first iteration complete, requires some polish) in the credits; developer credits; work on mobile versions, including a new adaptive GUI for them; various minor improvements that we didn’t plan on adding initially but would be nice to have if possible.

And finally, regarding key distribution. On our website (NOT in the letter you might have received), you can go to the “Orders” section (https://lmr.su/account), type in your email (the one you used when making the preorder), and receive a Steam key. Game distribution on mobile platforms will start later — they have a very different system, which also became an indirect reason for the delay. You can type in your desired name in the credits on the same page. We tried to load in the nicknames from the google forms that we had received, but unfortunately, not all of them were correctly filled in.

Dear friends! As most of you already know, recently we have started sending out emails asking our backers for their desired names in the credits. If you are a backer and haven't received an email from us, please:
1) Check your spam folder.
2) Search your emails for "[email protected]" sender.
3) Check your blocklist in case [email protected] ended up in there.

Even if you have lost access to the email address you've made the preorder from, in most cases the issue can be resolved. If doing everything of the above hasn't achieved any result, please drop us a message to our VK group messages or an email to the aforementioned address.

Important notices:
1) We have received quite a few preorders and errors are statistically possible (and even likely), but every single one of our backers is accounted for!
2) So far, we have sent emails to the backers who made a preorder before April 11th 2022. Everyone who has and will make a preorder after this date will still get every bonus we have promised, but the emails will arrive later.
3) Later on, we will be sending out another wave of emails, this time asking for your preferred platform. We'd like to stress that it is critically important that you receive an email from this wave — otherwise, you may be left without a key.
4) We don't have a dedicated IT department and support service, so please be patient if we can't reply to you right away.

Dear friends! Today we'd like to present to you a report on the work done in the past month:

1. Finished 85% of additional script direction (up to 50% since the last blog post).
2. Optimized the amount of RAM the game uses doing fast-forward.
3. Added a minor variation for one of the backgrounds. You'll have to see which one in-game!
4. Finished two more animated CGs.
5. Slightly adjusted in terms of appearance, as well as optimized technically, the main interface (textboxes).
6. Significantly reduced game size on Android.
7. Remade the footnote system — it should now be much more convenient and easy to use, with a clear indication as to which word(s) a footnote is for.
8. Added and placed new sounds — about 100 effects such as wind noise, shutting doors, buzzes, gunshots, strums of guitar strings, etc.
9. Made a gallery for replaying the songs heard in-game, viewing seen backgrounds and CGs. Also added an interface for viewing their variations (such as CGs with various emotions). Creating the gallery took more time than we anticipated.
10. Added more character animations for specific situations, improved some models' technical capabilities for animation.

We also made even more small adjustments, bug fixes, changes than last month, and it would be impossible to mention all of them here.

Speaking about what we have left to do in terms of the game's main functionality, that would be: keeping track of seen text (for skipping only it and not all text) and auto-forward. We also have a weighty backlog of tasks that mostly consists of bugs and small features. Most of them aren't that significant — we doubt most players will even notice them — but some are more apparent, such as a better outline for character names.

Despite the difficult situation in the country and the world, at the moment the release date remains the same: 2nd of June 2022.

You can still support us, see your name in the credits, as well as receive valuable bonuses and DLCs.

Good day, dear friends! With the current events unfolding in our country and the world, today we’d like to limit ourselves to listing everything we’ve done in the past month and our plans for the nearest future.

1. A lot of work has been done on script direction, including scene transitions and custom positions for sprites. I’d like to clarify that this is additional work tied to improving the experience — the main part is long finished.
2. Added new sprite emotions for particular situations.
3. Added new sprite animations (nods, steps, etc.) for particular situations.
4. New functionality added for playing animations at particular points as the text appears on the screen, which allows us to make the sprites react more dynamically to what’s happening instead of being limited to a single standard change of emotion.
5. Optimisation done for small screen resolutions, antialiasing implemented without any loss of performance.
6. The sprite display system has been improved to ensure a lower chance of bugs in the future.
7. Early bets-testing has been started, first feedback received from people outside of the actual game developers. Opening beta-testing to the people who have preordered the game (meaning the “Beta tester” tier) is planned a bit later, after the first testers catch the critical bugs — if any.
8. Two new backgrounds added, animations added to several more.
9. Three new animated CGs added.
10. Easter eggs added. You’ll have to find them yourselves!
11. Translation system has been completed (English translation is ready).
12. An enormous amount of small optimisations, additions, and bug fixes have been made, impossible to list all of them here.

The release date is still set to 2nd of June — no changes here. Initially, we were planning to bring you some good and even unexpected news today, but it so happens that we’ll have to postpone them to Match. We really hope that by then the situation stabilizes.

We understand that computer games aren’t a priority at the moment, but we’re still doing our best to deliver a truly quality product for all of you! You can still support us, see your name in the credits, and receive all future DLCs.

Be kind to yourselves and other people of planet Earth, don’t make Catherine cry!