Perfect Home [v.1.12]: The Pawbean Café

Meowdy again, folks! I've been SO BUSY lately! Partly for reasons I mentioned in the server announcements, but also with just a lot of work in general... which feels silly to say when I haven't posted as much as I usually prefer to.

I realize I took on a few more projects than I should have all at once, with how excited I was to start the year off strong-- I've posted before about a visual novel and how excited I am to release it, and it really is finished now, save for an editing pass and one piece of art... but in prepping it for release, I was sadly unable to do a great deal of work on Perfect Home, which I feel a little bad about! I want to aim to release it as soon as possible, either later in this month or at the beginning of March...

... but there's a bit of a snag: the theme for the Strawberry Game Jam on itch.io is kind of way too perfect for me not to participate! Like, go check out the page and you'll see exactly what I mean. I couldn't NOT join, especially since joining it has been a long-time desire of mine... but I don't want to do so without showing more of the work I've been doing, that everyone's been so kind to support.

I would feel terrible doing so without giving y'all SOMETHING to show for the effort before I start on something new... so, since I was planning on giving Witch-tier patrons a free download key for the game anyway, I've decided I'll let Witch patrons access to access its very first scenes, assuming that's something you'd all enjoy! As the game is mostly done and is simply rough at the moment, I don't think you'll be losing anything by seeing it in its early form, especially since there will be three other bad ends in the main game! Consider it a demo, more than anything!

As for development on Perfect Home, I'm going to try and focus on better organizing a team of writers I trust so that this doesn't happen again, where I bite off more than I can chew in the pursuit of making the cutest hottest games, and am left with little work to show for it. This update mostly only introduces one new character (a coffee fox named Coco that you can bully), some bug fixes related to Flores, and some art tweaks! I hope to add much more with that little fox (you can currently give him tips after bullying him, which will be how you unlock more scenes/interactions with him in the future), as well as use the new tiny menu it introduces in the Town area to incorporate some tavern scenes I was kind of planning/gnawing at in the background...

Next month, I intend to set aside some time to expand on the fox mansion as I previously intended for this month's release-- ideally this will introduce some scenes/a sort of 'quest' route with Rieki, the shopkeeper fox in the kitsune manor, as well as a less hands-off approach to breaking Citrine for Kano with a new bad end... which would amount to roughly around 5-10k words of content, if I can swing it! The good news is that the game jam product is very much related to Perfect Home, and will be free immediately for everyone, patron or not! I don't think I'd be able to finish that without your support, so as always, thank you all so much!

That's about all I've got for now! I'll keep you all updated a little more consistently in the development chat of the discord. Until next time!

(P.S.: If you're reading this and expecting a story commission from me, I am trying to take care of refunds as I can due to being so overwhelmed and so much time having passed. I sincerely apologize for the delays in this, I want to approach people on an individual level soon but I have been so overwhelmed, and, frankly a tiny bit embarrassed, that I've been unable. I'm going to push myself to start on that soon.)

PATCH NOTES:

• Added in a new encounter in the town after conquering the deer cleric: a coffee shop, in which you can bully a timid fox named Coco!

• Replaced some old art with updated versions!

• Fixed notable bugs related to Flores which were released in their recent update, namely related to the milking shed, and being able to access them prior to hunting them.