[Development] Memento Progress #5~!!!

Hey y’all,

It’s been a long time since the last development post, which we apparently did in June 2020 (wtf!). So much has happened since then, and we’re afraid this post might end up being just a wall of text.

So instead of bombarding y’all with all the nerdy improvements and flexing our dev penis. Let’s talk about what it’s all for instead, what we’ve been doing in preparation, and the progress we’ve made with it.

Let’s get started!

Personal Development

Something we’ve been doing differently from all the other years is giving ourselves time to practice and experiment.

Part of that practice has been reviewing all the work we’ve done to figure out what’s good, what’s bad, and what needs improvement. Looking at how we can make stuff better, and immediately applying it to the work we’re doing.

We’ve made a bunch of mistakes on past projects. Partly because we never gave ourselves the time to reflect and improve properly before we plowed ahead.

So we’ve been working to change that, refocusing our efforts on more important things to make us happier, and focused on what makes a Zuripai Games’ game.

The best example of this is Buka Chan’s art. If you haven’t noticed how much it’s improved in the last 6 months, it’s ok. We know it can be difficult to multi-task. ; )

Engine Development

We’ve been working on many different parts of Memento, taking the 3 years of Zurizuri Engine and re-building it all from the ground up.

If I had to describe the two engines, it would be like this…

The Zurizuri Engine is the equivalent of a glass window held together with duct tape and chewing gum that we throw ourselves through every time we work on something new. It takes a whole lot of tape and gum to put it back together again before the next new game.

Whereas, the Memento Engine is like a glass door. It has a door handle… so we don’t have to throw ourselves through a window, and any mess we make can stay outside.

We’ve been doing a lot of experimentation, applying a lot of new techniques, and using many of Unity’s new features to make Memento “modern”.

It’s been a steep learning curve, and there’s still a great deal of work to be done. But, we’re getting close to making games again, so we can make something cool (and cute!).

The Librarian Girl Jasmine

The Librarian Girl Jasmine has been moving slowly, as we continue to work through all of the above. It’s mostly playable! But it still needs a lot of testing and a whole lot of art.

Buka Chan has been using their pin-ups as a way to practice, and find the right look and feel.

I’ve been making a lot of story revisions, trying to find what makes a Zuripai Games story funny while still being wholesomely lewd.

I’ve also been working with Unknown Sen to revamp everything to do with the UI, making it performant and generally nicer to look at.

* IMPORTANT: The above screenshots are not final and are likely to be different from the actual release.

Memento Role-Playing System

We’ve had a few false starts. Scrapping a lot of ideas and re-evaluating them to come up with better ones.

It’s been a lot of research and experimentation, which we’ve been applying to a vertical slice to help develop the initial systems.

We have also been quietly working on a 3D art style that we want our RPGs to look like. It’s taken a while, but we’ve recently landed on a style we’re happy with, so we’ll be showing it off once we’re a little more confident with the progress. Expect a sneak peek!

The vertical slice is a little story involving Kareen. And that’s as much as we’re saying publicly right now. Lol : P

It’s getting long, so we’re cutting the post off here o_o”.But we’ll talk more about specific Memento Engine developments in a future post.

And that’s it.

The past year has felt like the longest year ever, with so much happening in that time it’s been hard to keep track.

It has also been a long time since we’ve done a game, and we’re fricken dying to get this all going! >: |

For those of you who have stuck by us, and continued to support us through all the changes. We are super grateful and we honestly couldn’t have done any of this without you. Thank you~!!! T_T

If you have any questions, or you’re just excited, feel free to leave a comment. They’re always welcome.

Now, we hope y’all excited~!!!

~ Zuri Sama ~