Hello, it's Chattercap!

It's time for another monthly Actala update!

Unfortunately real life caught up with me a bit this month, so I didn't make as much progress as I would have liked. I've been working through the revisions on Liam's route and rewritten/added a couple of scenes. I've also been tinkering with my rendering style and experimenting with animating hair/skin with more complex shading. I'm already happier with the results; hopefully it looks better for everyone else, too!

I really wanted to get an updated build out, but I've been refactoring some of the code to allow for more complex animations/story branching, so I want to do some more bug-testing/fixing before releasing it! Very grateful for your patience!

And now for a little announcement...

I'll be participating in Otome Jam this year! At first I wasn't going to because I wanted to devote 100% of my attention to Actala, but I've never done a jam before, and it sounded like so much fun! Rest assured, I've made a schedule, and I will still be devoting ~60% of my time to Actala, with 40% going to the jam project. There are also a few coding/art experiments that I've been wanting to test, but it was daunting trying to implement them in Actala, since it's such a big project. If they go well, you might see the results in Actala someday!

The jam project will be a very short one! Two characters, one scene, four endings, around 10k words. The working title is "Karamu!" 

A brief synopsis: 

Nelli broke up with her long-term boyfriend, Raku, two weeks ago via text. She has been successfully avoiding him ever since. One day she encounters him again in the forest when he helps her after her bike chain breaks. He wants to talk, and one thing's clear: he really doesn't want to break up. (He probably won't take no for an answer.)

Here's our adorable protagonist:

And her creepy ex:

If you haven't noticed, Karamu will be quite different from Actala in a multitude of ways. It's set in the modern day, and the genre will be romance/horror, with a dash of psychological thriller. Still, if you enjoy my style, I urge you to check it out when it releases! I think it'll be a fun project :) (and quite yandere-licious). 

Thank you for reading!

Until next time, 

Chattercap