How do you do, everyone? Mangoku418 here!

It's that time of the month again, so here's my second devlog!

This past month has been more on the programming side than the art side, but things are functioning pretty well now!

Mood Points Icon

In the alpha build, whenever you gain mood points from interacting with characters, it would display text saying you received points. Now, that's pretty boring and can get pretty monotonous super fast. It doesn't even tell you how many points you got! I've updated the mood point system to display a small character icon instead of text. The arrows indicate how many points you've received. Short, sweet, and cute. :)

Miso Switching Between Hairbands

In my bio sheet, I wanted Miso to alternate between her purple and black hairband, just to add a little variation. Now I've programmed the sprites to switch between purple and black every day. This also reflects on the small icon that appears whenever you received Mood Points!

Lighting Updates

I went ahead and made some lighting changes to sprites. Before, the characters came out a little too saturated or dark. So, I spent some time posing my characters in different settings to make it work.

New Profile Menu

I think this is one of the biggest things I was most proud of this month. I gave the pause menu a complete makeover and made it in a diary book style. Clicking on the individual icons will display more information about the character and updates based on your current bond with them. 

Phone Conversation

Made a major improvement with the chat system. The phone now saves messages per character/group chat. With timestamps!!! Players can scroll up at any time to view their text history.

And finally: The Official Title.

One of the toughest parts of creating a game is coming up with an official title. Because a title is like your brand. It's a name that defines what your game is about. When coming up with this, I needed to take this slow and think about the story's themes and messages. In the end, I've decided to change "Project Kawasaki" to Dear Mom: My Letter To You. One of the main premises of the story is Ayame writing in a journal,  reflecting on what she's doing, who she met, how she's grown and much more.  Her entries can be interpreted as a long letter to her Mom, sharing her journey.

What's Next?

• Creating some sprite work for Ginta and Akio. Because, man, their glow-up sprites are way overdue. 
• Slowly but surely building my team together to help make this project really shine!
• I have some exciting news for voice actors/actresses. There will be an announcement will later down the road this February. Stay tuned ;)

And that's it! You can get other updates throughout the month by following me on Twitter and joining my Discord server. This is Mangoku418. Have yourselves an Omega Awesome Day, and take care. Cheers! ^^