turning misery into meaningfulness

Hi there,

Sorry for catching this ask 2 months late! As you can see, we are certainly quite inactive since so much has happened in the last... almost decade now (time sure flies). Still, all three of us are still friends with another, and I've spoken to the other two and we still have the files and can update the links. I'm not sure if you or anyone else is still around and want to play it, but we'll reupload the game and keep it in circulation! We're all still really proud of it and would love people to continue to be able to play it all these years later.

If you want to contact one of us, the fastest response time would be me at missxylia on bluesky. Otherwise we'll post here again on this blog once we finish re-homing and hosting the files. Thank you!

Hey everyone! Since we’re here anyway, we thought we’d give you all a quick update on the status of our upcoming work!

I know we vaguely mentioned that more info on a Persona 5-related project would be forthcoming last month, but, well... life kind of happened. A lot. You know how it is. 

We’re hoping to be able to make a more official announcement by the new year, but for now... here are some slightly more concrete details we can share!

We do have an outline for the script already! And a really massive one, at that - the combined word count for the main script and the confidant scripts exceeds 25k words in itself. (For comparison, the original outline for P4YA was only a few thousand words, and the final script was around 70k!)

We can tell you that the format of this game will be a lot different than P4YA was. While P4YA was more like a visual novel, we’re hoping to recreate the feel of the P5 overworld as much as possible (within reason, as we’re still working with Ren’py). 

Not only are we aiming to recreate the day-to-day feel of P5, but we’re absolutely planning on including confidants for the player to work on as well! If all goes according to plan, there will be five of them available in the game: four that have the option to end in romance (or not, if you so choose!), and one that is strictly platonic. As for the characters involved, well, you might just have to use your imagination for now! ;)

Even besides the day-to-day activities and the confidants, there is still so much more that we plan on doing with this game. We want it to be far beyond just a vehicle to do... certain things... that couldn’t be done in P5 itself (which I suppose is a massive clue about the contents of the confidants, but that’s all right). We want to tell a story, and we want to make it a really good one - so suffice to say there is going to be a meaty plot to the game as well!

All of that being said, we’re painfully aware that this is a much more involved and ambitious project than P4YA was... but even if it takes us a very long time, even if more delays come up (we’re just a small group of people with lives outside of this, after all!), we are absolutely determined to see this through. Both Persona fandom as a whole and all of the supporters of P4YA in particular have been really, really kind to us, and for that reason alone, we are firmly resolved to make this project a(n eventual) reality.

It’s Happening. 

Hi anon! First, thanks for taking the time to write in, and we’re glad to hear that you loved P4YA!

The rest of this reply (the part about Yu/Souji’s parents) is under a readmore, due to length. CW for (non-graphic) discussion of child abuse/neglect.

I guess I didnt download that early since I didnt have that problem (or I didnt pick those options?)

Hi anon! Glad to hear you enjoyed the demo, and we hope you enjoy the full game too!

As far as the writing process goes... we didn’t decide who would write what, or assign sections to any one person, at any point. We had a loose outline that we worked on together, and when we started the first draft, we pretty much just used a Google Doc that we could each add to, and dove in together.

And speaking for myself (this is Lily writing right now), I actually found it very easy to collaborate with Natalie. We work well together in general, but any time we both had an idea at the same time, or disagreed with something the other wrote, we just talked it out until we came to an agreement. I think when it comes to collaborating (and relationships in general!) communication is key... or at the very least, it worked out for us!

That being said, certain sections were written more heavily by one of us or the other, but rather than planning it that way, it just kind of happened. For instance, Natalie wrote most of the chieyuki and kannaorise routes, whereas I wrote most of the souyo route (and the intro and true ending/credits were more or less equally split). I think collaborating in this way allowed us to showcase each other’s strengths and support each other’s weaknesses.

Thanks for taking the time to let us know, anon! :D

Your Affection had three main developers:

Natalie (@wet-noodles, writing and programming): fun facts about me are I know zero things about programming and Lily and I are girlfriends. We chose our first anniversary as the demo release date, woo. 

Lily (@tattedmariposa, writing and visual design): I’m a visual artist and proud parent of two adorable cats. When I’m not having feelings about fictional characters, I spend the rest of my free moments sleeping at weird times or being grossly domestic. My favorite game is Persona 3, but my favorite Persona character, by a long shot, is Yu/Souji. 

Xylia (@missxylia, programming): I'm a programmer-in-training still in school who loves royalty, stuck up geniuses, and cute things! On any given day, you can probably find me poring over either academic works or the canon of my most recent obsession. I've got a soft spot for classic literature too.  My favorite game is probably Persona 3, and my favorite character's got to be between Akihiko and Mitsuru. Within Persona 4, it's probably Yukiko or Naoto!

We’ve noticed that some people have posting screenshots of the in-game illustrations... and we would like to ask, both as a favor to others playing the game and out of respect for the artists, that y’all hold off on doing that. 

Besides just keeping it as a surprise for other people, please keep in mind that our artists all worked really hard on those pieces, and it’s work that they might want to post down the line themselves. (In fact, when commissioning the pieces, we specifically asked that they all wait a month to post the full versions of their work, so that people playing the game could be surprised by it.) 

So please, treat it like any other fanart you’d come across, and think twice about the artists’ wishes before reposting!

Hi there! I don’t think any of us considered that there might be a demand for a plain script... so we hadn’t really thought of it until now. It’s a possibility, but editing it would take a good bit of time (the script clocks in at just under 70k words!) so it’s likely not something we would tackle right away.