#devoted vn

July 24, 2026

Hellooooo gamer friends! Here are some updates + what i'm up to despite clearly intending to take a break. An Actual Break. No Work!!!

HSD:JY 2

Friendship Route, both boys, and April have been written (with April's slowly being coded into the game/experiencing edits). 🎉

I've also sent a playable build to my sibling to test. All of the backgrounds are completed for the friendship route (which is what they're focusing on).

I'm so tired.

Yet 2 weeks of not looking at games files, my self made deadline started dancing behind my closed eyelids so I started poking around in the game files.

Broke some things!!! That was...scary. I was already preparing to have a breakdown over being even more behind schedule 😭

Anyway, I figured it out, figured some other stuff out, decided against other things.

Yearbook messages anyone???

I also have to figure out if I'm going to be adding the achievements to the early access build orrrr if I'll save that for the full version. (Full disclosure, I have NO idea what the achievements are gonna look like nor how I will implement them. Ahh.)

Also...I have not started commission the rest of the art for the EA routes. Mostly because I'm still "taking a break", but also because I'm a little overwhelmed on what to request first? I have a list of all the alternate outfits and each set of characters outside of the main cast that appear in each route. But I made that list BEFORE I'd written a single route. And now I've written 4 routes and things have drastically changed.

For example, Langston has the biggest ensemble of characters, but Florence will very likely have the second biggest ensemble. I have to remake decisions and fuck, is it stressing me out.

AND I'll also have to start drafting Florence's and redrafting Lydia's outlines but given...things outside gamedev, I think it's best to push that to later this year 😫 I do look forward to when I'll be able to give both girls' their time in the sun because I have fun things planned for their routes.

So. That leads me to this cute little poll (I reached out on Bluesky too but I think I have more dev moots there and more players here and itch.o, the latter which I'll reach out to soonish.) I've gotten it into my head about episodic style release and even after a few days it still seems like something that won't leave my brain. So. I wanted to ask the players who will be affected! Anyhoo, here's the poll:

Devoted

Fell free to bop me upside my head but fellow dev @heartsyncproductions is hosting a Trans Otome Jam from November to December. And I'm eyeing it for Devoted. I KNOW I won't a have a written draft by then, but wouldn't it be REALLY cool to have a vertical slice or something of that nature? Idk. We will revisit this.

...Also I may or may not have decided on Keegan's main outfit for her game?? I actually hope to commission it if only so I'll have something to tide me over.

MISC.

I was in and out on social media for the month of June, but caught the jist of the ren'py situation (some links to read by people who explain the situation well and offer insight and solutions if you're interested: here and here and here.)

HSD 2 is going to be my last game using ren'py, but that leaves me with the mental labor of deciding what engine to use moving forward. I'm not opposed to learning something outside of python (but I will grumble about it). Or hell, I might finally make good on my word and finally hire a programmer and just focus on the writing/narrative design shit LOL.

Much to think about. (This also poses a bit of a problem if I want to do a Devoted vertical slice as I'd have that learning curve to contend with.)

But yeah!

Don't let the tenderness fool you, they bickered before AND after this moment was captured 😂😂😂

I think why I've been so insistent, and excited, and impatient, and a bunch of other things about Keeg (and Oke's) story is because Keegan represents a lot of things I love and things I've learned and more things that have helped me grow as a person.

Trans black women are the blueprint in so many ways, and way back when I was trying to figure out Corey's friend group outside of Florence, lol, I knew that this anxious Black boy was going to need someone who loved him as fiercely as he loved them in the platonic sense.

Keegan is girly and vibrant and loud and confident and loving and so many Keegans never get to grow up to be adults. And I'm writing this story where Keegan is an adult, who is surrounded by so much love, and it's so crazy to think that there was a time she wasn't in my head lol.

*swaets, left eye twitches*

....can I...can I start yapping about Keeg's story now??