I'm back to regularly scheduled updates every Monday on Patreon, but I figured I'd drop a quick post here, too.
The TL;DR on the Patreon post is that I'm working on an update for Steventon Street. It'll be a bigger resolution, and have a few new features. I plan for this to be the final time the game is updated, so I can focus on other projects and try to keep moving forward.
I've also started developing a new game, which may or may not be a bad decision, given the number of WIPs I have already. More information on this game will be posted this Monday, December 15 on Patreon, for those who are curious.
Stormrider is my other major WIP game (a demo for which is located - you guessed it - on Patreon). The story on that one is a mess, but all of the backgrounds have been commissioned from an artist, and I paid a pretty penny for them, so it seems wasteful not to finish work on the game and release it.
I have a few options ahead of me, so if you're interested in weighing in on the direction Peanut Parade Games goes, please consider joining my Patreon for only $2 per month. In addition to polls about the future of Peanut Parade Games, I'm also thinking of doing monthly Q&As (assuming anyone is interested).
(I promise this is the last you'll hear about Patreon for a while. God, self-promotion feels tacky.)
Steventon Street is an otome game about a clueless 29 y.o. bookworm, who returns to her hometown to open a second hand bookstore and to meet with people from her past and some hot strangers - and find love with one of them in style of Jane Austen's novels. The game is partially voiced, even the secondary characters have some voiced lines. And all characters have sprites. I really appreciate the amount of effort that was put in this game.
Each path is loosely based on one of Jane Austen's work. And we know that you can't go wrong with Jane Austen kind of love, so the stories are good. Novel is mostly kinetic. There is only two choices that define the path you're taking and for each characters there is only one ending. I'm not a fan of kinetic novels, because I like my choices to affect the story, that helps me to immerse myself into the plot more.
Steventon Street has a massive customization section for MC. You can choose appearance and clothes - and in the beginning of each month you can change outfit and accessorize - and even buy new ones. Other main character's outfits are also changing each month accordingly to the weather.
To earn money you can play two games - Bookflip (I really hate this kind of games) and Hangman with classic book titles (gets repetitive after a while). It wood be nice if the garments would stay in wardrobe once bought in any path, so you didn't have to buy them each time you play. Clothes doesn't really affect anything. But you will need money also to do some in-game decisions (which doesn't affect much too, but sometimes you'll see some extra lines of dialogue)
Also at some point of the story each Love Interest (and also MC) will have a birthday party, and you can buy a gift for your LI. There are preferable gifts, but in the end they don't affect anything anyway.
Also each party will have different party games, which you can play. But if you lose, nothing bad will happen anyway.
CHARACTERS:
MC Jane (name changeable):
Jane is one of the most annoying MC in all otome games. I've hated her since the beginning. I don't like MCs which can't do NOTHING right. All she does sometimes is complaining that she can't do this and can't do that. She's whiny, spineless, a pushover, and can't hold her shit together most of the time. She's not doing things - they are happening to her. (And the lack of choices that affect the story is not helping either). I don't mind MCs who are a bit clueless, but there should be a line how pitiful the main character can be. Also she's often lacking basic empathy for other characters, as in Freddie's route.
Through most paths all she really wants to do is to read books and be in bed till 10 o'clock, she's not much interested in anything else, besides her shop.
In some paths she is better then in the others though - for example, she's growing more with Slayton and Delilah.
My rating: 2/5 (ew)
LOVE INTERESTS (Mild spoiles ahead):
I appreciate how inclusive this game is: there are asexual, same-sex relationships and trans person.
Will (Pride and Prejudice)
Will and his business partner are running a cafe on Steventon Street.
Will is typical tsundere, based of course on Mr.Darcy. He's very rude, proud and pretty much antisocial, but clever and has a good upbringing. But in his path he also shows his other traits.
There is also his friend and business partner Carlos (based on Mr. Bingley), who is dating your childhood friend Janus. At one point Will does something wrong, but in his path he's really growing as a character. Also I like their dynamic with MC - how one can not love Pride and Prejudice story?
My rating 5/5
Delilah (Emma)
Delilah runs a flower shop. She is lively, funny and caring. The story in her path is super interesting (probably because Emma is my favourite Austen's novel) and their dynamic as a couple is nice. I really liked her path, her as a character - and MC in their relationship is growing as a character. Delilah seems to bring the best in MC.
My rating 5/5
Slayton aka Papa Bear (Sense and sensibility)
Slayton is the oldest in the community. Strong silent type. At first MC thinks that he's pushing fifty, but he's 39 y.o. He is divorced and has an 18 y.o. daughter Madison, who was living with her mother for the last 6 years, but now she's in the college and came to live with her dad.
In his path and some others there are a lot of father-daughter complex relationship.
Slayton's path has nice dynamic, some passion, and MC is the most mature in relationship with him.
My rating 5/5
Freddie (Persuasion)
This story is pretty interesting, because Freddy and MC were dating in high school - but their relationship has ended because of something MC has done.
And now Freddie has a girlfriend, who is really nice and sweet, but they are very different people. Lo is a stewardess - and he is afraid of flight, and Freddie runs a tattoo saloon - but she is afraid of needles.
MC understands that her feelings for Freddie haven't faded completely and tries to win him back. It goes on strangely, and most of the time they are just super awkward around each other. Despite having some really passionate moments, this path is not very romantic, because MC interacts with Freddie's girlfriend more than with him. Freddie is almost as rude as Will, and he is pretty harsh with MC specially, but when MC is having flashbacks, we can see that he wasn't like this in high school. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine how their life together will be, because he hasn't really forgave MC for what she has done to him at high school.
I really like Freddie's voiceover, but he has very few lines.
My rating 4/5
Janus (Mansfield Park? That is my least favourite of Austen's novels, so I don't remember anything about the book)
Janus is MC's childhood best friend. They've separated after MC's father died when she was 12. Janus is very flashy, self-assured and outgoing. He's the complete opposite of MC
This path is pretty strange, because for the most time Janus is dating Carlos, but the dynamic was pretty interesting, and Janus is such a flirt.
My rating 4/5
August (Northanger Abbey)
Ok, I have to confess that I didn't like August. There should be a rule that a LI can be unattractive - OR have weird clothes, not both at the same time. Other characters are usually make fun of August's fashion sense, but really…I'm playing otome games for more than 10 years and I've had crush on some very badly drawn characters, but I couldn't bring myself to like August.
That is also because he's as clueless and spineless as MC is.
He's running a music shop, but it is a family business and he admitts that he really doesn't do much and in fact shop is running by other staff. Thing that I hate more than MC that can do nothing right is only LI that can do nothing right.
As a person August is sweet and old-fashioned nerd, and sometimes he is funny, but annoying at other times, because besides ugly clothes he also loves bad puns.
But if there weren't enough cringe in his own path, August has a crush on 18 y.o. Madison in some other paths...
On the other hand, August is the only one, apart from Wyatt, who asks MC out from the start, not beating around the bush.
My rating 2/5
Wyatt aka the villian, who you can romance with paid DLC
Wyatt moves into MC's spare aprtment and also works part-time at her bookstore. Wyatt loves large loud parties and living his life to the fullest. He is flirting with MC and asking her out at some point - in some paths they begin dating, sometimes it doesn't work out from the start. But in the end Wyatt is doing something nasty and gets lost.
I have to say that I'm interested what romance with Wyatt will look like, but probably won't buy DLC.
You can get it on itch.io. This game is free with a paid DLC with which you can romance Wyatt for real and also have bonus content.
After over two years of creative block and burnout, I'm finally back to working on my games in earnest. (If this is exciting news to you, thank my boyfriend, who has really been pushing me to get back to it.)
My agenda for the next year:
1. Polish up AFP and Steventon Street, and submit them for approval on Steam. AFP just needs a few bug fixes, but Steventon Street might get a complete art overhaul.
2. Run a Kickstarter to finish P&P. There are still tons of backgrounds that need to be drawn by hand, and I don't know that I'm up to the task. (If you guys can think of any good pledge rewards, I'm open to suggestions!)
3. Put the finishing touches on Stormrider (if you don't know what that is, it was a Patreon exclusive demo that I put out years ago). This game has been nearly finished for over a year!
4. Learn to code in Unity so I can make more intricate games in the future!
After all of this, we'll revisit my list of works-in-progress, and I'll let you guys vote on what I work on next.
Hello! Congrats on the release of the revamped version!!<33 I was wondering tho will the routes in the revamped have extra scenes or moments that weren't present in the previous version or is it all the same and just the art is different??
Congrats again 💓✨🎀
There's an additional 10,000 words of extra content in the remaster. Granted, most of that went toward rewriting Ilma's route, but I can say that there are a few more scenes with Dyson, at least one new scene with Paz, a few new baking scenes with Gunnar, and some major changes to Cain and Adrian's routes.
I'm loving the revamped Aurore! The new art is so beautiful! And I appreciate the updated routes, but I'm finding the walkthrough to be a little less helpful when playing the remaster, I can't seem to get the good ending for Cain even though I found the letters in the study the first time, am I doing something wrong?
Thank you! It was a lot of work, but it's much closer to my original vision for it now.
The trick with Cain is not only finding the letters, but having the intelligence to figure out that they were Dominic's. You need five points in Intelligence (in addition to 15 affinity points with Cain and 20 points in Magic) to get Cain's best ending. It's a challenge, but it's definitely doable.
Coding and animation are officially done for AFP remastered. I want to do a little more playtesting to ensure that it's ready for public release, but we're definitely getting there!
The beta build of the Aurore: Five Princes remaster is now live on my patreon! It's still missing some features, such as the CG gallery and the animated OP, but it is playable from beginning to end. It's just a beta, so there may yet be some bugs to work out, but I'm very excited to share this new version of AFP with you!
Hi!! Just wanted to drop by and ask how things are?? It's just been awhile so I was wondering is all😌 hope all is good with u <3
Byee
Thanks so much for checking on me! I'm doing well.
Patreon members will already know this, but I took an extended break over the summer for mental health reasons. I've recently been back to working on the AFP remaster, which I'm hoping to have done within the next couple of months.
Oh my god, I’m so excited I have to tell everyone!
After a year of work, Chapter Four or Promise & Prophecy is finally written! Coming it at 55,500 words, all possible versions of Chapter Four are finished!!
(there’s still editing, coding, art assets, and playtesting to be done, but I’m taking my victories where I can get them)
Here’s a preview of one of the new CGs for the Aurore: Five Princes remaster that I shared on patreon a few weeks ago.
Not all of them are redraws like this one, but I think direct comparisons like this really demonstrate how much better this remastered version of the game will look!
