Time for a brand new Killer Trait devlog! Let's see how each section is going, shall we?
BACKGROUNDS
Attention! Drum roll, please!
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁
All backgrounds for the first 3 days have been finished!! 🎊 🎉 🥳
Apart from Arthur's home bathroom and the outside of Fawna apartment, there are also brand new backgrounds for the park and the entrance to Cub of Coffee! Let me show you a couple of sneak peeks:
Ah, but that's not all! Danu's currently working on 3 different backgrounds that will make an appearance on DAY 4!! I'm really excited to see how they'll turn out!
CGs
I have a couple of sneak peeks to show you for 2 more intro CGs:
Cool, right? Mus has done a wonderful job with them!!
At the moment, she's working on finishing Carl's CG and later she'll work on one more cutin CG and a few fixes needed for previous CGs now that certain backgrounds have changed.
Exciting!!
NEW GUI
Surprise!! Killer Trait will have a brand new GUI made by none other than xxmissarichanxx!! Ari has worked with me on multiple occasions already! She made Potion Pleasing's GUI, both Killer Trait's and WWCG's logos and even my Pri Karin gamedev logo! 😊❤️ I'm very excited to work with her again!!
In fact, here, let me show you how the new textbox with the quick menu looks like:
Aaaaahhh, isn't it super cool?! I can't wait to show you guys the full GUI in the new update!!
CODING
I've been pretty hard at work these last few days and I finally managed to code all of the sprites into DAY 3!! I even fixed a few thingies here and there and edited some stuff from the script to make it flow more naturally.
What's missing is mostly adding the new CGs, fixed CGs and GUI once they're all finished.
NEW UPDATE WHEN???
Sometime between late February and early March! Mus and Ari are doing their best to finish the CGs and UI by late February and later I'm getting some help with Beta Testing!
I'll do my best to release the new update for the Amare Festival, but keep in mind that, if there are any delays, it's all to ensure that the update works well!
✘ ✘ ✘
Anywho-hoo, that's all for now.
As always, thank you very much for your support and I hope you have a wonderful month!
Hello, there, everyone! I thought I'd make a general devlog seeing as it's been a while since my last one. I miiiight make it a monthly or bi-monthly thing.
It's a bit long, though, so feel free to skip to the parts that interest you!
WHERE WINTER CROWS GO LATAM SPANISH'S RELEASE
As some of you may have already noticed, I was recently able to release a Latam Spanish translation for Where Winter Crows Go! ☺️💕
It was a lot of work but I'm really proud of how it turned out and I also have my friends Floramisu, Noreemii and Meiri to thank for helping me with the Spanish Beta Testing (Flor and Noree) and the update of the Android Build that included Spanish as a language (Meiri).
Check out their games, they're awesome!!
WHAT MADE ME TRANSLATE WHERE WINTER CROWS GO AFTER PROCRASTINATING FOR SO LONG?
To tell you the truth, translating/localizing this game is something I've wanted to do for quite a while but I never really got around to it and kept making excuses... The reason I finally came around to do it might surprise you, but it has to do with Toby Fox.
Some of you may know that, earlier this year, Toby Fox was involved in a controversy because of a statement he released about why it wouldn't be possible for him to release more official translations to other languages for Undertale.
While I don't agree with the way some people in the non-English fandom expressed their discontent (harassing people is never okay) I was among the fans who were pretty disappointed by his words.
Of course, at the end of the day, it's his game so he can do whatever he wants. I'm not about to tell someone what they can or can't do with their game; that'd be pretty hypocritical of me when I myself have mentioned how exhausting it is when some people demand I add or change features in my games.
The thing is... Undertale has been out for 10 years already. And the reasons Toby gave for not going through with more localizations felt like excuses instead of admitting that he's not interested. It would have still been received a bit negatively but I think many would have appreciated the honesty.
It's fine if he doesn't want to translate his games to other languages. It's not fine (imho) or, well, dishonest to say it's because he doesn't want "his vision" to be compromised or that he could only do it in japanese because he knows japanese. My brother in Christ, what are you talking about? Undertale's japanese translation already has decisions that ignore "the vision" (for example: Sans and Papyrus are still called that in japanese even though those fonts don't exist in japanese; so this joke is completely lost in japanese).
There's also the fact that he said he was happy that fans had taken it upon themselves to make fan translations; taking off the pressure from "official translations" from him.
I don't think he meant to harm anyone at all, but his comments came off like he didn't much care for his community outside of the US and Japan. And there's also the implication in his statement that he doesn't trust professional translators/localizers. It's one thing to allow a random person you don't know to make an official translation of your game (in fact, this is why I don't have more translations for my games; if I'm going to add a translation, I want it to be someone with demonstrated experience or at least someone I know and who I can trust); it's another thing to refuse to do so when you have the monetary means to hire translators with a LOT of demonstrated experience (not to mention he probably has a lot of contacts).
Now, speaking as a person from Latin America myself, I can attest to the fact that game translations from English to Latam Spanish are something that wasn't very common before. We usually received games in English, if at all. And funny enough... even though I attended a bilingual school, playing games in English is what really helped me improve on it the most.
On the one hand, I'm grateful for this. Heck, I even write in English, I love English! But, on the other hand, it's frustrating to see how much Latam Spanish translations are not usually a priority for a lot of companies, are added much later or just ignored altogether.
So, well, you could say this whole incident solidified my urge and need to prove that English games CAN be translated/localized to Latam Spanish. Wordplay and idioms are something that's been a part of literature and life itself for AGES; there's always a way to localize something so that the intended feeling can be transmitted, even if it's not a literal translation. Ironic that it was Undertale, of all things, which filled me with DETERMINATION to make a translation 😂
Anywho... I think I rambled a bit much about all of this but thank you for reading 🫣
The conclusion you can take from this is that I intend to translate (most of) my other games eventually.
The only one I probably won't translate is Hummingbird's Crown. I had a lot of fun making that game with my old teammates from Fable Novel back in 2022, but I'm just not as passionate about that project anymore.
Also, please, don't get me wrong. I LOVE Toby Fox's games and I really admire him as a gamedev and music composer. This criticism is not meant to be seen as hate, but rather as constructive criticism.
KILLER TRAIT'S FINAL DEMO (WHICH WILL INCLUDE DAY 4)
As I've mentioned a few times in the past, the Killer Trait demo that includes Day 4 will be the FINAL demo before the full release. Basically, the last free update.
Where Winter Crows Go's full game amounted to approximately 25k words; so I think you guys will be happy to know that Killer Trait's final demo has already surpassed that! I'm thinking it'll be between 28k to 30k.
At the moment, Day 4 has a total of 4k words written. I'm aiming for at least 8k but we'll see how the script evolves!
Danu has finished one of the backgrounds for Day 4 and is currently on the finishing touches for another one. Then she'll work on the final one 🫶 I've also commissioned another background artist called Nick, who has made one of the backgrounds in Day 4.
I'm still unsure if I'll keep working with 2 background artists to save a bit of time, but I'll make my final decision when I see how many more backgrounds there'd need to be. I'll have to control myself so as not to destroy my budget... I'm looking at you, future Pri 🫵
CG-wise, Mustache is currently working on one of the new ones! I'm guessing there'll be between 2 to 3 new CGs in Day 4. My goal for the full game is to have between 15 to 20... provided I can afford it. I might have to to reduce the amount of CGs for the endings (meaning, only having 3 endings with CGs instead of all 6). Have mercy, future Pri 🥹
Something else I wanted to mention is that I decided Killer Trait's final demo will be a bilingual release (English & Latam Spanish)! This will make the release take a liiiittle longer, but it'll make it easier for me in the long-run when I have to translate the full game, so I think it's worth it 🙂↕️✨️
When is the release going to be? Well, IF POSSIBLE, I want to aim for a mid to late September release 🍂 'cause many people play Spooktober games during October (myself included) and I'm afraid Killer Trait's demo might be overshadowed. If September isn't possible, though, then November.
Once I release the final demo, I'd like to translate a few more of my games. Particularly Reynard, Azure Flame and Petrichor; since they're all very short and it shouldn't take me super long (and it'll help me rest a bit from Killer Trait so I don't get burnout).
After that, I'll resume with Killer Trait's script writing! It's tempting to commission more art for the game during the script writing process, but I want to try to finish writing the whole game before so I can assess how much more art I'll need without going insane 😂
It's been a week since Where Winter Crows Go has been released! I made a NEW DEVLOG with ramblings, thank yous & the matter of gameplays (which I mentioned in the past few days).
I'm still not completely back from my SM break but wanted to share this post.
