Hello, beautiful people! We're back with more info about what we've been up to. August was very slow for a couple of reasons (reason one: too hot), but things have ramped up again for September! Here's an overview of what OBSCURA-shaped things we've been up to in the last two months.

This is probably the most important thing for you and for us: we have figured out our monetisation strategy moving forward. We can't promise this will never change, but right now we're pretty confident this is what we want. Our plan is to release the base story for free. Barring something big changing, you should be able to play OBSCURA from beginning to end without paying a dime (though the donations are all enormously appreciated!). If we do extra side stories they will be paid DLC, but we're not going to charge you to see the main story play out. When all the chapters are out we'll look into making an OBSCURA: GOTY Edition with some fancy bells and whistles and we'll charge for that.

In more tangible changes, we've been tweaking the safeword/aftercare system. We're thrilled with the positive feedback we've been getting around the system, but there are a few things we wanted to address and polish. Firstly, we've moved the safeword prompt to the beginning of the game, before the narrative starts.  We've also added the option to go to the safeword menu via a hotkey. Our last tweak is to how the safeword button will be displayed. By default the button will be invisible and only show when you mouse over the top right corner. This can be changed in the preference menu so that the button is always visible, but this way you don't always see "Pumpkin" written in the top corner while you play if you don't want to. Behold!

We've changed the name input to now suggest Vesper as the default name, after getting comments about not realising there was a default name for the MC. Behind the scenes we often refer to the MC as Vesper and that is the MC's default name (not canon, just default), so players who prefer playing with a suggested/default name will now be able to more easily. (Tip: If a game is built in Ren'py, try hitting enter on a blank input box to see if the dev has programmed in a default name! But maybe save first in case they haven't.)

We've gotten some good writing done! We've extended the prologue to include new branching choices for the two new love interests. We've also gotten good chunks of the new LIs' introductions in place, as well full frameworks for their chapter one stories. It's not all that's needed, but it's an important start! And because you've been so good and patient, here's a sneak peak of the new fellas' dialogue:

That's all we can show y'all for now, but trust us when we say we have some stuff that we are so excited to share!