FEBRUARY SHOWCASE

It’s the end of the month! And I’m proud to present…

~*~ Fate of the Squire demo 2.0! ~*~

(File size: 109 mb, download available through itch or MEGA)

This month has been spent on the tedious task of drawing backgrounds. 20 new backgrounds have now been completed – 33 if you include night-time colour variants. No more placeholders!

I’ve also made a few gameplay improvements based on feedback from people here and over at itch.io, most notably lowering the stat requirements for getting a good end. It’s now also possible to receive more than one knight’s favour at the end of September, effectively allowing you to choose your route/love interest.

Here’s a full changelog for anyone interested:

• All placeholder graphics – mostly pertaining to backgrounds – have now been replaced with original artwork! Expect more tweaks to these in the future however
• Minor script changes to suit the new backgrounds (i.e. Leith will not describe the courtyard as ‘green’ because, well, the new version isn’t)
• Redid the background of the 'meeting Areli’ scene to match the new environment background
• Made Lyall’s fur mantle bigger / more badass, minor dialogue tweak in his meeting scene
• Brightened up the title screen animation a tad
• As requested by a player, the day planner screen now shows money, so no more constantly checking your status screen
• The requirements to earn a knight’s favour have been reduced, making the demo easier to 'win’
• Subsequently, it’s also now easier to meet the requirements for more than one knight. Leith will now receive multiple favours if that happens, and can then choose which favour/route he wants
• Brightened up most of the CGs
• Caught and corrected a few typos in the writing/coding
• The guard NPC sprite had minor colour change when changing expression – this has now been fixed
• Minor colour change between CG variations in Areli’s dream scene – also fixed
• Minor sprite adjustments across the board, namely making head sizes a bit more uniform
• Added a NSFW / adult content warning splashscreen at the start of the game

As a side note I've also written a quick .txt game guide for anyone struggling with/not fond of the dating sim mechanics, which you can now download from MEGA here or on the game's main download page.

So what happens now?

For Squire, the next stage now is to work on the next in-game month, October, which centres around a Samhain/Halloween parade at the end of the month. This will be released on Patreon, but will become public once Patreon is 1-2 months ahead (early access is, after all, the point of being a patron).

But!

It’s also NaNoRenO in… oh, four day’s time. I’ve come up with a decent idea that I think is doable (if challenging) within a month and so I plan to take a hiatus from Squire to work on that.

I’ll post something about the NaNo2018 idea soon, but for now I’ll say that it also features a knight and squire, and a villainous warlock who has all kinds of ways of playing with them. M/M content and very, very explicit. So yes, expect updates for the side-project IP – working title Corruptor – until the end of March. Details soon, promise <3