Well, not literally. That would be rather inconvenient. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I’ve been typing a lot recently, writing a story of sorts. The screenshots below have something to do with it.
Who are these new arrivals? A well-informed person might be able to hazard a guess.
Now that is an interesting question…
There’s still a bunch of stuff to do before the game is ready to be officially announced. I’ve made some of the marketing assets already, but the store page is still far from finished. Writing the story has been so fun that I’m thinking of spending some more time on that before turning my attention to the marketing stuff again…
Part of an event CG: housemaid Laura sleeping with her “little sisters.”
I think that this image tells a lot about the relationship between the protagonist (Eleanor) and her maids. These girls have literally spent their entire lives together and, as such, are very comfortable being around each other. Laura’s sisterly love for Sofia and Eleanor can sometimes be excessive, but ultimately she doesn’t seem to be interested in going beyond that. Sofia, on the other hand, shows very much interest in becoming (even more) intimate with Eleanor.
But what about the young noblewoman herself? Having inherited Julie’s charisma and Nadila’s kindness, Eleanor is a natural-born lover of many. On top of that, she has never bought into the idea of having just one special someone. The only thing that really limits the size of her (future) harem is her shyness around strangers. Nevertheless, she may end up needing a bigger bed…
I’ve made a reasonable number of early-game event CGs by now, so I think that I’ll spend the next few weeks writing the story and the game script, as well as making some new interface elements and so on. Sometime next month, I’ll start designing the marketing assets (logo, cover image, etc.) and preparing the Steam store page for the game. Unlike this blog, the store page will naturally showcase the… less platonic events of the game as well…
This is something that I have considered a possibility from the beginning of the development, but instead of making one game, I will make two games. The first game will be about Eleanor’s life at the dawn of her adulthood. She will do… *ahem*… a bit of this and that with her maids. The second game will be about the arranged marriage of Eleanor and Miranda, told from Miranda’s perspective. She might also do a bit of this and that with Eleanor’s maids, among other people…
By the way, splitting the project into two parts doesn’t mean that the games will be short. I should think that their word counts will fall somewhere between the final versions of Lily’s Handmaid (65k words) and Succubus Research Diary (97k words). However, this does mean that at least the first game is unlikely to get many content updates after the release since I will be continuing the story in the second game.
Now, what’s up with the development lately? I spent most of January working on the event graphics and I intend to do more or less the same in February. I’m thinking of spending March writing the story as well as programming the game features. Announcing the game on Steam in late March might be possible, but I suspect that it will take longer because preparing the store page is a lot of work as well. April seems more likely at the moment.
Part of an event CG: Lady Eleanor (middle) bathing with her handmaid Sofia (right) and the maid chief Helen (left).
This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has played Arcus Plume games before, but there will be lots of bathing scenes in the new game. Lots of them. There are mainly two reasons for this: 1) I love bathing and 2) bathing is a good excuse to get naked without actually doing anything naughty (even though it is entirely possible to do naughty things in a bath…).
On a side note, I’ve had an health issue that has rather hindered my ability to work or do anything much in the past few days. I’m getting better now and I’m hoping to resume to my regular schedule within a couple of days. All in all, the development of the new game won’t be slowed down too much.
