Thank you for 2,000 Plays!

As both the dev log title and the heading suggests, Candied Hearts has surpassed 2,000 plays! I know I'm going to sound like a broken record by saying this, but truly from the bottom of my heart, thank you. We put our all into the demo, staying up late at night to get various parts of the game done, doing countless run-throughs to ensure there were no bugs or errors (aside from those pesky typos that have since been obliterated), and just putting our heads together on how to make an enjoyable story for players to enjoy. So, seeing the positive reception towards Candied Hearts has been an incredibly gratifying and heartening experience. It goes without saying, but we will continue to put our all into this project, so please look forward to the full release! Speaking of the full release...

Progress Report

It's been a month now since we've released the demo, so you might be wondering where we are at with the game. We've set up deadlines for when certain aspects of the game should be done. For the most part, the majority of the work, such as the editing for Peppermint's route, his last remaining CG, and the writing for Lakritz' route, will be done sometime within August. For example, the CG will be done by mid-August. while the editing for Peppermint's route will be done by the end of August. Of course, life will throw us a curveball so if something comes up, we may have to adjust these deadlines accordingly. As project lead, I will always prioritize the well-being of my team first and foremost before any game.

Announcements (Reginald Route + Merch)

If you missed our chaotic, fun dev stream last week, we announced two things. First, Reginald, the tall guard that bullied our poor little Peppermint, will be getting a route! When Aca first designed him, everyone on the team fell in love with him, and so did many of you! Who would have thought he would have such an effect on everyone? Due to the team and y'all liking him so much, we just had to make a route for him. Anna (LegendEx Games) will be writing his route and submitting an outline sometime in August. Of course, we will be prioritizing our main boys, Lakirtz and Peppermint, first, so don't expect Reginald's route for a bit.

Did someone say MERCH? Yes! We will be doing a very limited run of this as a small test to gauge interest. There will be five Lakritz candy bag shaker charms and five Peppermint candy bag shaker charms up for sale. If people buy it, we will order more and try out different kinds of merch, like small prints and stickers. The reason for quantities being so small is for two reasons!

1) Despite the game reaching a decent amount of players, we're still relatively small indie developers, thus we have a small reach. It's not wise to order a ton of merch, and then not have it sell! I would rather order small amounts of it than big bulks.

2) Merch costs money.

There's no set sale date yet as I'm still waiting on our manufacturer, Vograce, to get back to me with the production proofs. Once they do and the team and I approve of it, the items will be shipped to me.

That's all for this dev log! Thank you all for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night. :)