As some of you already saw on our server, we have the 2026 pages for Otome & Josei Jam ready!
Special thanks to
@transparentgames for sponsoring the Otome Jam banner and Asobinge for drawing it!
Bobbert for drawing the thumbnail art and our new server icon!
@calnite for making the logo and graphic assets, drawing the Josei Jam banner and making our pages look fancier this year!
And YUKIREI for providing a Russian translation for this year!
Things are still being set up, and if you catch any errors or jam rule breakers ahead of time, please report them on our server!
Meet & Greet Dates
Just like the year before, the first M&G will be on the 12th April, 8 AM EST, on the Otome Dev server! The second M&G, 18th April, 2 PM EST, will be on Devtalk, our yearly collaborator and server for game dev with a narrative focus!
The night I clearly stated I wanted to return to Earth,
I was summoned to LHA's room.
He sat me on the bed and straddled me.
Before I could react to his sudden action, I noticed the dull gleam of a knife in his hand.
You: “Huh…!”
LHA looked down at me with an absolutely unreadable smile and brought that knife close to my throat.
You: “…!!”
LHA: "Why leave? We were so close.
You're going to abandon me?"
Each time the flat edge of the knife lightly tapped my cheek, terror froze my body.
LHA must be furious… That's why he's going to kill me…
Yes, I understood in an instant.
LHA: “Well, whatever.”
The blade I braced for to stab me swiftly withdrew from my neck.
You: “…LHA, are you angry…? Are you going to kill me…? Hurt me?”
When I asked, trembling, he tilted his head, looking puzzled.
LHA: "I'm not angry at all. I just thought I needed to do something if you wanted to go back.
Besides, I'm your lover. There's no way I'd kill you."
After saying that, LHA gently pressed his lips to yours and whispered.
LHA: “…So I thought of my own way. A way to make sure you absolutely can't leave here.”
“I won't kill you.” Though you felt a momentary relief at those words and the tender kiss,
LHA brought the knife he held close to his own throat.
You: “Wh-what are you doing!? That’s dangerous…!”
A sudden, unpleasant premonition made me frantically grab his knife-wielding hand.
LHA: "You always worry about me like this. I've told you countless times. We aren't human. Unless something extraordinary happens, we can't die.
There's no way I'd die over some human toy like this.
The wound will just regenerate and heal back to normal."
You: “But I hate seeing LHA hurt.”
LHA: “Wounds? I feel no pain. Or is it because it looks unpleasant?”
You: “…No, that's not it. Even so, that act is self-harm to humans. …So please stop. I'll make you sweets or anything. Please.”
LHA: “…Then don't leave me.”
LHA's expressionless eyes wavered for just an instant.
LHA: “If ‘hurt’ applies to the heart too, losing you would hurt me more. Thinking that… makes my chest ache.
Heal me."
You: “…”
LHA's earnest words pierced deep into my chest too.
He truly cherishes me…
Thinking that, guilt and regret choked my throat.
…Even so, I wanted to return to the world I came from.
As I couldn't bring myself to nod at LHA's words, he let out a small sigh,
then looked down at me again with that cold, indifferent gaze.
LHA: "…ha, yeah. Fine.
Trying to appeal to your emotions? I guess I'm pretty stupid too.
…Alright, let's get down to business."
LHA released gently my hand, then swiftly thrust a knife into his own tongue.
You: “U-…!?”
LHA: "As I said before. Our bodies possess self-repair mechanisms at the nano level.
Even if organs are damaged, they regenerate based on structural information.
We evolved this way to adapt to the planet.
Based on that premise, my hypothesis is…
If we completely replaced your organs with mine… or succeeded in fusing them… couldn't you become a spider too?"
You: “…!!!”
LHA: "You need our kiss to stay on this planet, right?
That means our bodily fluids are mixing inside you, showing signs of adaptation. So I don't think my hypothesis is entirely wrong."
You: “Wait, LHA, what—”
I couldn't understand half of what he said,
but spitting out blood-tinged foam, LHA pressed me down with an almost ecstatic expression and forced his crimson lips onto mine.
His tongue violated my mouth, as if trying to pour his own blood inside.
LHA: "Taste my blood? …How is it? Hey, what's it like? Feels good? I feel incredible right now…!!
Like we're becoming one. …Ah, I want to mix with you more."
The metallic stench made me nauseous.
Bitter and painful… Yet LHA showed no sign of stopping, praying my resisting mouth open with his fingers.
LHA: “Ah… See? Drink more, more? ***, my wounds heal instantly, so hurry.”
You: “Guh… Guh…!!”
The instant I tried to close my mouth, his thumb pushed deeper into my throat, and the terror of drowning in his blood raced through my entire body.
LHA: "We should have done this from the start. Give up being human. Become my true mate.
Spend your life on this planet. With me.
…Well, feeble humans are kinda cute, I suppose? Fine. If you absolutely must go back."
He narrowed his eyes, stroked my cheek, then kissed me again with his red tongue. Then he couldn't hold back and laughed
LHA: "…Hey, how exactly did you plan to get back?
Did you think you could just go back without any basis?
Did you think we or Lord Yakumo would allow it? Or… did someone give you some unnecessary advice?
Tell me, for reference."
You: “…”
LHA: "You're foolish and fragile and incredibly cute…
If the compatibility surgery failed and only you died, I'd be sad. That's why I want to treat you as gently as possible.
If you wish…
If you want to remain human…
Say it.”
He leaned close and whispered.
LHA: “‘Because I love you, I won’t go back.’
Say it!ahaha…ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!”
Hi, I'm Lehxra, a solo indie dev slowly working on my 'debut' Unity game (yeah, I know...), Lecture Me Later. A 3D/Live2D otome game (female targeted, GxB) where you have a nice, pleasant conversation with your very popular University classmate, Vahn. And nothing weird happens.... It's very normal. Yes.
Just recently updated the demo, available for Windows/Linux. Tried WebGL but that thing did not work right lol
Hope you check it out~
Have a pleasant (...) chat with your University classmate
It is time…the first Quarterly Progress Update for our next game starts now! And we're kicking it off with a title drop!!! Drum roll, please! Tom, if you will help me out...
That's right! Heartbreaker joins the fray!
For the record that’s not the real logo, just a temporary one that I slapped together.
Before we get into it I would actually like to glance back at the past and detail what our development timeline looked like for Band Camp Boyfriend. It's possible this one might look somewhat similar.
2015-2017 - Writing
2017 - Commissioned art, created social media presence
2018 - Demo released on Itch.io in August
Programming hell
2022 - Demo released on Steam
2023 - Full game released
The good news is this isn’t our first rodeo and I’m hopeful there won’t be so many growing pains this time. We're also doing 4 routes and a shorter common route so that means less suffering for us. The bad news is I worked part-time 2015-2017 so I blazed through writing and now I work full-time…and I’m old…and my memory is failing me…but it’s okay, I’ve forgotten all the pain.
This time around we want to be sure we get all the writing down before we start commissioning art. We had the tendency to keep going back and asking for more because the game kept getting bigger (saving up money was also a factor). We’re gonna make sure we know exactly what we want this time. We’d also like to save casting voice actors for much later in the process so they aren’t waiting around for years on end. So the demo for this game will not have voice acting. I believe I wrote about this a little before in our post-mortem. We’re learning from our mistakes, woohoo!
That said, this is what we’re hopefully visualizing for Heartbreaker.
2024-2025 - Writing
2026 - Big art commissioning year, a more exciting project reveal, hopefully demo release later in the year!
2027 and on - Programming hell! Casting! Soundtrack fun!
…If this was to line up with BCB that would mean 2031 release. Oh God. No, I wanna release it in this decade, thanks. This is very tentative and we’re determined to not take 7 years this time.
Enough about that! Here is what we’ve worked on this year!
Concept art: Lite was absolutely awesome (as always) and let us have sessions with her in which we worked on concept art of the main cast together. It was super helpful in bringing our visualizations to life and it will definitely aid in writing the story. I can't go on enough about how wonderful Lite is to work with, and it was amazing to watch her go. She would whip up a number of poses, face types, or hairstyles for us to choose from. It was really fun and we're very grateful for the time she spent with us.
The demo: That's right, the demo is written! Woohoo! Unlike Band Camp Boyfriend with its twisting, long-winded common route, Heartbreaker’s common route is a single day! Alex can sigh in relief because that’s one less nightmare in programming for her.
The demo will contain the one-day common route and the first two chapters of two different love interests’ routes (the other two are locked at the start of the game so you’ll just have to admire them from a distance).
Brainstorming: Ahh my favorite part…talking long walks or going for coffee and coming up with ideas. Brainstorming is ongoing and includes character profiles, world-building, and route outlines. This game has a lot more lore and world-building than BCB, so it’s more of a challenge, but we’re here for it. I've already done a badly-drawn map of the setting. Just need to finish up some profiles for minor characters and do some of my own badly-drawn concept art. Then we move on to fleshing out the route outlines.
The first route: One goal I have is to try and finish writing the first draft of the first route by the end of the year! Which is insane because October is super busy for me, but I'm sure I can buckle down when it gets colder. It's a bit ambitious, but aim high, right?
That's all I got for now! Hope you're all feeling hyped and uh, patient, because we won't be able to show you any cool art for a while. ;v; Thank you so much for sticking by us and we appreciate every single comment that has mentioned looking forward to our next game! Enjoy the rest of 2024!!!
P.S. Today is my mom's birthday and yesterday was my sister's birthday, and also my best friend's birthday, HAPPY BIRTHDAAAAAYYYY to these very important people. <3
Hello everyone! Sorry its been a while since the last post. My health was all over the place for a bit and life has gotten very busy. Book Three: Despair Fragments (featuring Jasper and Natalia) is in the works and I'll be posting updates on the progress as soon as possible. So far, all of Natalia's CGs are complete in both art styles, and Jasper's are finished in Style B.
I look forward to updating you guys on the progress soon! Despair Fragments takes a bit of a different approach to things than the previous two installments, with more point of view shifts throughout the story. I hope you'll all enjoy the results!
I have no clue how to make a visual novel but I want to make one so bad. I feel like I could probably figure it out if I tried hard enough, but I'm not sure what I should do art wise. I'm not skilled enough in digital art or traditional to make the graphics and character sprites, I could do concept designs for sure though😅
I shouldn't get ahead of myself though, maybe I should just focus on the mechanics of making a functional visual novel first.
If anyone has any suggestions on where to start researching that would be really appreciated ☺️
We’ve decided to remaster our 2018 otome jam entry, Secrets Unsung. It will feature new sprite art, a new ui, some new backgrounds and music tracks, a rewritten script, partial voice acting, and more!
Relive Calista’s college experience as she struggles to find a suitable topic for her research paper, all the while maintaining a relationship with her old flame-- world famous singer Balder Parisi, or the mysterious and alluring stranger she meets in the halls.
Secrets Unsung: Remastered is a free to play otome game currently in development!
Update 06/01/21 - Life Situations, Moving, and New Art Progress Soon
Hi, everyone!
We’re still plugging away at AVID. Currently, Kimilyn has completed the line art of Sven’s nude and is currently working on his clothes. We’re without a colorist as we haven’t heard from Parallelpie since December. The plan right now is for Justin and me to flat color the sprites until we find a colorist, which might not happen until all sprites are done so we don’t go through similar issues again.
For the past few months, Justin and I have been working on renovating his dad’s house. The house hasn’t been updated since the ’70s, so there’s a lot that needs to be done. Not only are we painting, but we’re also replacing flooring, walls, doors, baseboards, and windows, fixing plumbing and electrical, remodeling bathrooms and the kitchen, and more. We’re trying to get a lot of it done before we move back into the house this summer so the house is safe for our two kittens. We’re working on AVID during our breaks of working on the house.
I’m still adjusting to my new body and some issues have arisen. To avoid getting into too many details, I’ll say that crucial medication for me keeps getting recalled, leaving me incredibly lethargic all of the time and puts me in an almost constant state of brain fog. This makes it difficult to work on AVID and the house for long stretches because I need frequent naps and can’t think straight. It’s actually taken me about two weeks to type this post because of that last point. Second, I’m also having some of the same intestinal problems that led me to get checked out in Cleveland in the first place, which is worrying because of the cancer chances that could come with that. So sometime in the near future, I’ll have to go back to Cleveland to get looked into again, and I’m sort of dreading the possibility.
I do plan to make another post for Backers with art progress images in 2 weeks, but because of the issues above, that could end up being delayed.
Our composer will be working on a new song soon, which will be one with a more serious tone.
Our Dev Discord Server is open. You can join it by clicking here.
I know this post has been mostly about our life situation, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows the current issues we’re facing and know that we’re still working on the project.
