The Nonbinary Coded Games Festival by npckc and nomnomnami has started over on Steam, and I'm excited to say that my games — The Mysterious Thief Forget Me Not, and Battle Live! The Idol School Collection — are part of it!
Forget Me Not and its DLC artbook will be 20% off during the entire week of the festival, so if you didn't manage to grab a copy during the Steam Summer Sale this is your next best chance to.
As well, this is Battle Live's first festival since it released in June! While its DLC Story Pack won't be discounted for the event (due to Steam's cooldown) I still hope it gives everyone that's been wanting to give the game a try the push to do so.
The festival is full of so many fantastic enby-coded games, so be sure to check out the rest of it along with my games.
We're 4 days away from Battle Live! The Idol School Collection!! The remastered collection of my first few visual novels, featuring even more additional content than there originally was!
We're 5 days away from Battle Live! The Idol School Collection releasing! It'll be FREE on both Itchio and Steam, with a paid DLC story pack releasing alongside it!
My games — The Mysterious Thief Forget Me Not, and Battle Live! The Idol School Collection — are part of the Games for Pride sale on Steam, hosted by AAPI In Gaming! You can check out not only them, but the dozens of other fantastic LGBTQ+ indie games featured in the event!
Celebrate Pride Month with games created by and for the LGBTQIA+ community!
It's time for another devblog, and there's a bit to cover this month so let's hop right in!
Battle Live Releases this Month!
My next game — Battle Live! The Idol School Collection — releases this month on the 26th! To hype up the release I've updated the Steam page with its brand new trailer! You can check out my hard work on the page itself (and be sure to wishlist it to show your support if you haven't yet already!)
Welcome to Pride Park! Experience six main stories and several bonus stories centered around the staff and students of this eclectic idol sc
On that note, I'd like to remind everyone that two weeks before the game's release (starting on June 12th) I'll be putting the artbook of the original versions of Battle Live on sale, so that anyone who wants it can grab a copy for cheaper (and also grab the games while they're at it). Once that sale has ended, it and the original five games will be permanently archived.
If you've bought the artbook or donated to any of the games before then you'll still be able to access them through your Itchio library later. The remaster will be the intended way of experiencing the Battle Live games after this, so I hope everyone can understand and support this decision.
It still feels unreal that I'm releasing a remaster of my first few games, but I'm really excited to share it with everyone this month.
Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter Steam Release and DLC
If you didn't see my announcement at the beginning of May, my 2025 Yaoi Game Jam entry — Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter — is getting a Steam release, touch-up update, and a brand new paid DLC story!
Currently it's in a solid late beta, and just needs finished artwork and a few more rounds of editing before it's complete. If you're interested in seeing an early preview of it, you can join my Patreon to read the behind-the-scenes post I made in April about it.
There isn't a concrete release date for all of this yet, but keep an eye out during September to November, as that's the rough timeframe of when I'm aiming to make it public. In the meantime, you can check out the Steam page and wishlist it here!
A romantic, fantasy slice-of-life visual novel about Emile Mayer — the owner of A Slice of Comfort bakery in the Kingdom of Selias — when th
Upcoming Sales and Deals
Moving right along to another major topic for these next two months: the sales and deals my games will be a part of!
First in the list is the Power of Pride Bundle over on Itchio! The Mysterious Thief Forget Me Not was accepted into it, so you'll be able to grab it and a bunch of other fantastic LGBTQ+ projects in both tiers ($60 or pay-what-you-want) of the bundle from June 1st to July 6th. Thank you again to the team who worked their butts off organizing this bundle, I'm honored to be a part of it.
Over on Steam, later this month Forget Me Not and Battle Live will be part of the Games for Pride sale hosted by AAPI in Gaming! While Forget Me Not won't be discounted during the sale event, due to Steam's 30-day cooldown on custom sales, I'm still looking forward to the event and seeing all of the other wonderful LGBTQ+ games Forget Me Not and Battle Live will be showcased next to.
And finally, in July my two released games on Steam will be part of npckc's Nonbinary Coded Games Steam sale! As an enby person, I'm super glad and excited that I got accepted into this, and I'm happy that my enby OCs will get to be showcased next to a bunch of other fantastic games. Forget Me Not will be discounted for this as well.
Misc Topic Roundup
Now, just a few miscellaneous topics to close off this month's devblog.
I've been slowly working through my next longer game, Deep Waters, while working on these immediate releases. As of this blog, it's at roughly 20k words and every route of the first playable character's perspective has half of its scenes ingame, with the main romantic route being almost done. My next patron-exclusive blog in July will most likely be talking about Deep Waters once again, so I'm hoping to finish that route beforehand, as well as some other parts of the game.
I've also done some touch-ups to Forget Me Not recently, all thanks to the wonderful people who have played my game and left me feedback (which includes the streamers and content creators as well.) Alongside some text-related editing (typos, the bane of my existence) I also added some more spots in the point-and-click sections to double check if the player is ready to move on, due to some areas missing them. Once again, thank you to everyone that pointed these things out.
That's everything from me for now, so I'll see you all again in my next public dev blog in August! Take care!
Battle Live! The Idol School Collection Releases JUNE 26TH
Hello everyone! I'm thrilled to announce that my upcoming, episodic idol school visual novel, Battle Live! The Idol School Collection, finally has a definitive release date!
The game and its first DLC story pack, More Stories from the Idol School, releases on...
June 26th!
Things are going to ramp up very soon before release, so be sure to wishlist and share the game with anyone you know that might like it!
Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter Steam Page, DLC, and Bundle!
Hello everyone!
The Yaoi Game Jam Co-op Bundle has just started, and my 2025 entry Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter is part of it! With the bundle's release I have some special things to announce.
The first is that Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter is getting ported to Steam! It'll remain a free game, but you'll be able to take advantage of the new Steam features, such as the new achievements for each route. You can wishlist the game here to show your support and help spread the word to more people:
A romantic, fantasy slice-of-life visual novel about Emile Mayer — the owner of A Slice of Comfort bakery in the Kingdom of Selias — when th
Along with the Steam release, Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter will be getting an update! This update includes things like some visual enhancements, a retouching of the UI, and including the Profiles Menu that I scoped out of the original jam release. This update will be available on both Steam and Itchio at the same time.
And the last and most important thing I'd like to announce:
Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter will be getting a PAID DLC STORY! This is the secret project I've been teasing for a while, and I'm really glad I can finally announce it!
Coming in at just over 10k words, this DLC story — titled "The Baker's First Ball" — takes place several months after the main story. The capital's annual Autumn Charity Ball is about to happen, and a certain someone learns that Emile's never been to a ball before!
This DLC story will be available for purchase on both Steam and Itchio when the Steam port releases. It's a very cute extra story, and if you enjoyed the main game you'll definitely love the DLC.
That's all the news from me for now! Be sure to check out the Yaoi Game Jam Co-op bundle, as well as wishlist Bread Makes the Heart Aflutter on Steam to show your support for the upcoming release!
Hello everyone! It's now April, which means it's time for another public devblog. There's a bit to cover this time, so let's hop right into it!
Battle Live
First off, let's go over one of the major projects I'm working on: Battle Live! The Idol School Collection.
In case you missed it, the Steam page for the game went public at the beginning of March! You can check out the page and wishlist it here:
Welcome to Pride Park! Experience six main stories and several bonus stories centered around the staff and students of this eclectic idol sc
So far the game has over 100 wishlists, and I'm hoping we can get a decent handful more before it releases. If you know anyone that would enjoy my idol kids, then be sure to share it with them.
In terms of dev-related news, as of this blog post I only have the CGs left to finish for the game before I can officially call it complete! I'll also be working on the trailer for the game to prep for the eventual release, so we're in the final lap of development.
As for when exactly the game will release, I'll be taking some time after I finish CGs to look at how the game is doing in terms of wishlists and go from there (I've also been debating making a "demo build" of Episode 1 so Battle Live can join one of the upcoming Steam Next Fests, but I can't guarantee that). I'll be looking to see how many wishlists I want pre-release before I commit to a release date (especially since this is a free game).
Deep Waters
I've also been working on my other, longer project on the side: Deep Waters!
(Still in ugly alpha lmao)
For March's patron blog, I released an in-depth look at the game, what I'd done so far, and what I want to accomplish for it this year. If you're interested in learning more about my modern fantasy, boy's love game, then you can throw me a pledge for even just a month and read it (and all of my other patron blogs).
As for what I've gotten done, I can say that I managed to get a decent first pass of the UI done, and I am one scene away from finishing the first route of the first POV of the game! My goal for the year is to get one POV entirely written, so I'm on track for that.
I admittedly didn't get a ton done for it the past month because of...
Secret Project
Yeah I'm workin' on something secret (unless you're a Patron, in which case you know what it is).
As of this blog post, this secret project's Steam page and build have been approved, and the additional content I'm creating for it is at 10k words for my first pass of the script! I'll be working my butt off to get out of my ugly alpha phase so I can throw it at my editor, and hopefully by the end of April/middle of May I'll be able to announce publicly what this project is!
I am planning on making a patron blog for May that goes into this secret project in more detail, so be sure to keep an eye out for that. (Although it might not be at the beginning of the month since I ideally would like it to be after I announce it publicly haha.)
Misc Topic roundup
Let's finish up this blog with all of the short miscellaneous topics that also happened these past two months.
On February 20th I released a blog post for Forget Me Not, that goes into what the first year of my first commercial game was like! If you haven't read it yet, you can do so here: https://solsdevblog.tumblr.com/post/809100175583920128
Another anniversary to talk about is the 1st anniversary of my NaNoRenO game: Madame Ro's Curiosity Quiz. To celebrate not only the anniversary, but also the fact that it hit 1k downloads on itchio, I created a mini artbook full of concepts, doodles, and my ramblings about what went into making the game.
On your usual walk you meet a strange woman who wishes to learn more about you...
Speaking of jams, at the beginning of February I collabed with OTOJANG to create the Strawberry Jam GUI Pack for the Make Visual Novel Assets Jam! I drew the food illustrations, made the quick menu, and set up the controller support (using Fen's pack of course). Be sure to check it, and the other fantastic resources that were released this year, over on itchio!
Strawberry Jam themed UI for Ren'Py.
What's Coming Next
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be spending the time finishing Battle Live's CGs to decide when exactly I want to release it. At the absolute latest I'll be aiming for August (in line with Battle Live's original anniversary), but I'll make a separate announcement post when I figure out when the release date will be.
I'll also be working my butt off on the secret project I mentioned earlier! I believe, so long as nothing major interrupts me, I should be able to get it to a finished beta state by the end of the month. Once that's set I'll be in a good position to publicly announce it (and start collection wishlists for it on Steam as well).
Otherwise that's everything going on with me! My next public dev blog will be in June, so I'll see you all then. Take care~!
Did you know that I have several blog posts on my Patreon that go into deeper looks into what I'm working on? If you're interested, then you can join either of my tiers and read all of them over on my Patreon!
The Steam page for my next release, Battle Live! The Idol School Collection, is finally up! You can take a peek at my upcoming FREE episodic idol school visual novel on Steam and wishlist it for when it goes live!
The Mysterious Thief Forget Me Not 1st Anniversary Blog
Hello everyone!
I can't believe the day is here, but today — February 20th — is the first anniversary of The Mysterious Thief Forget Me Not releasing! It truly feels like it hasn't been that long, but it's been quite the year since the game released, so let's talk a little bit about that!
Initial Release Month
I already went over this in the Post Mortem release blog when the game came out, but the first month went a lot better than I thought it would, honestly.
In that month, Forget Me Not hit 50+ sales and three positive reviews on Steam! I won't lie, I was expecting maybe 10 or 20 sales max — especially since I admittedly am not the best at marketing my work (a certain someone would never let down my sudden midnight release haha) — so seeing that I hit that milestone soon after release was incredible. Thank you again to everyone who grabbed a copy in that first month.
2.0 Update
Speaking about the initial reviews, this is a good segue to talk about the major update I released for the game later in June: the 2.0 Update!
In response to a few reviews mentioning that they wished the game had more romance in it, I got the idea to create what would become the new epilogue chapter for the game. I let myself be super self indulgent with this chapter, and the result is an extra chapter that even had some of those initial reviewers comment that they really loved the addition! As a writer that honestly makes me super elated to hear.
I also got to use the epilogue as a chance to really see how much I've improved as a dev, and I won't lie knocking that out in a bit over a month felt really good.
As well, this update introduced proper controller support, because seeing that a handful of people mentioned playing this game on their Steam Decks made me desperately want to add proper controller support for them (the initial RenPy controller settings are just… so poor lol).
If you haven't played the epilogue yet, or haven't played around with the controller support, then I recommend checking those out to see the work that went into them!
Queer Games Bundle and Itchio Feature
I've talked a lot about Steam up until now, so let's talk about the other site that I released Forget Me Not on last year; Itchio!
Admittedly — and I touched this very briefly in my End of Year blog post — Forget Me Not did poorly over on Itch compared to Steam. Up until August, Forget Me Not sat at less than 10 purchases, and less than 50 downloads of the demo overall. It was pretty disheartening, but it made me glad that I put in the time and effort to release it on Steam.
This all improved when the Queer Games Bundle started, however. Despite the late launch due to some issues they were having, the bundle itself helped give Forget Me Not some more attention. It gained a very good amount of downloads, and it even got more eyes on the Steam page as a result.
As well, the most unexpected development happened after the bundle was underway; Forget Me Not got Itchio front page featured! I still don't know who behind the scenes at Itchio decided they really liked my phantom thief yuri VN enough to put it in the Featured Games feed, but because of that the game got even more traffic than before. While Steam is still leagues ahead of it (entirely due to it being a more popular platform) I am still extremely relieved that Forget Me Not managed to come back and have a successful first year on Itchio as well.
Fall in Love Festival
Speaking of features, let's talk about the sales and festivals Forget Me Not was part of in the past year. Forget Me Not's been a part of 6 Steam sales and festivals as of this blog post, but the one that gave it the most attention was Studio Elan's Fall in Love Festival!
I had the pleasure of not only being accepted into the festival, but also was featured in the special showcase stream hosted by Vtubers LirieLirie and Ran! Of course to be part of the showcase I needed a trailer, so thanks to the combined efforts of myself and my good friend Ironori (the lead of the VNDev Wiki) I was able to create the trailer that you can see on both store pages. It was a lot of hard work, but it was well worth it.
I touched on this in the devblog I released in October, but the whole festival was a very positive experience for me. It of course got more eyes on my game, but it also gave me my first chance to reach out to streamers and content creators to cover the game for the festival! They all had positive things to say about the game, and a couple of them even continued streaming it well after the festival ended (even resulting in what would be one of the funniest commissions I've ever gotten).
I'll of course continue to submit Forget Me Not (and future games) to more festivals and get in touch with streamers/creators, since this festival gave me the confidence to do so.
Misc Topics and Final Thoughts
Before I wrap up this blog post, let's touch on some other topics I didn't get the chance to mention earlier.
One of them is a big milestone for the game, and that's the fact that on November 21st of last year the game reached 10 reviews on Steam, giving it an official Positive rating! I'm floored that the game managed to hit that in its first year, so thank you to everyone who took the time to leave their thoughts about the game on Steam. Maybe in the next few years we'll get close to the 50 milestone next, we'll see.
Another big milestone for the game happened earlier this year! For those who don't know, when your Steam app hits a lifetime gross of $1k USD you get the initial steam app fee refunded in your next payment. Well, I'm happy to announce that thanks to everyone's generosity Forget Me Not reached that! I definitely didn't think I'd be able to reach this goal so soon, but thank you to everyone so much for making this possible!
Along with the festivals and sales, what definitely helped were the Steam bundles that the game got to be a part of. Forget Me Not got bundled together with Crystal Game Works' latest Otome VN, Mari's Magical Deliveries, and later during the Steam Winter Sale it also got invited to join several other games in the Cute Yuri Games Bundle.
I'm still amazed that it's not only been a year since my passion project finally released, but that this past year has been so eventful and positive for the game. While I have no plans to add anymore content to the game itself, I will be continuing to make bonus artwork and other things outside of the game for fun and promo (if you haven't seen them, be sure to check out the birthday artwork of the main cast and the special Valentines' Day comic I made). I hope everyone can continue to enjoy not only this dear game of mine, but other future releases I have planned as well!
Thanks for reading, and Happy First Anniversary, Forget Me Not.
