Welcome to April, everyone! Development seems to be picking up, so I thought I´d put out another update as we roll ever closer to the Kickstarter launch. First off, a small preview of the two heroines I have left to introduce. Shortly back, I teased a black and white sketch of Crescia on twitter, but, here's a full-color preview for our loyal followers here.

Like what you see? While it might be difficult to put names to a face at this stage, worry not! I’ll have beautiful-looking profiles available a little bit further down the line. For now, I’ll name them again. From left to right in the banner, we have Maikah, Alphi, Siona, Rayen, Crescia and Ravia. 

It’s hard to believe that I spent such a long time conceptualizing the sprites for the girls in the first place (funding hardship at the time), but I believe they came out fairly well. Perhaps you have a favorite? There will likely be a poll hosted later on which asks you to name your favorite! It’s quite likely that this poll will influence a certain special image featuring this chosen girl. 

On to the OST, work has resumed here, and we have an updated tracklist for the full demo. 

1. A Zeta Wolf’s Journey (Title Screen)
2. Sophisticated Teachings
3. The Agile Wolf (Ravia’s Theme)
4. Uncertain Path
5. Lust Betrayer 

This leaves us with 9 minutes of custom music so far, with more planned for the full release.

More on the current progress, I’m happy to announce that the script for version 3.0 is complete! This sets us at around 50k words in total, based on initial estimates. Things could certainly increase slightly, but it will be around there, give or take. I’m expecting around 30 minutes to 1 hour of additional content for those who played through version 2.0 — easily in excess of 2 hours in total. That being said, estimating reading speed and total playtime is a pain in the butt, so I’m sure total word count would give a better overview of total content. 

As I mentioned in the prior update, 3.0 is mostly about Ravia and bringing the story along to its cliffhanger ending. An ending that I, believe it or not, had planned since early 2018 when I first started drafting the story. CG assets remaining are about 33% done, and Ravia’s recently came out quite well. The next asset will feature Siona — which I am quite looking forward to. After that, the next assets will likely be marketing only, as I mentioned that programming will stop after Ravia’s introduction. While it’s unfortunate you won’t be able to meet the rest of the girls in-game, you’ll hopefully get a nice glimpse of them in the various media marketing planned (trailer, Kickstarter assets, and so on). I mentioned this previously, but I did struggle with the formatting of the demo, and I sort of piecemealed the story together until figuring out I was going overboard at some point. If I had included an intro to all routes, the demo could easily run around 100k words or more. It’s already on the lengthy side, but I do hope that this decision works out in the end. 

One reason for the odd structuring is due to my desire to treat the events of Zeta Wolf Chronicles in a more realistic way. Even though the Lyca plotline is in the realm of fantasy, I intended the majority of the events to be more grounded, and believable. Throwing five girls at you, and possibly seven, including Lyca and Ferine, would be retreading similar cliches present in other titles — something I absolutely loathe personally. That leaves 10 girls and 1 boy in the cast so far. Sounds like there might be some harem elements in there based on the numbers? Far from it! It would certainly go against the whole “realism” theme, would it not? For those interested, there will be additional male characters, at least 1, and his design will be up for grabs during the Kickstarter. That being said, the story mostly focuses on Rayen and his individual struggles with girls and being a lone wolf, this doesn’t leave much space for a wingman, or additional male characters. 

Kickstarter will go live in Q1 2023, everyone, and I really hope we can stick to that date. The background art is coming together a little slower than I desire, but we only need a couple more assets in that department. Any inevitable delays could result from my inability to put the game on Steam or associated delays. It’s my first time dealing with that, so I truly hope things go smoothly. Here’s my rough timeline of the events of the next few months. 

Kickstarter Page 90% finalized (for approval) → Programming for 3.0 Complete → Launch on Steam → Kickstarter Launch 

Now things may or may not go according to plan here. I’d like to have the Kickstarter preview page up as soon as possible, but a delay on assets could push that further back. I do have a reasonable flex period to work with, so I’m not super worried. Still, it would be nice to have the preview page up so that I can ask everyone to follow (those numbers are super important to gauge interest, so please follow there when you can). Likely, I’ll have to work on the first two points concurrently, while I wait for the marketing assets. 

Lastly, I’ll try my best to ramp up my social media marketing skills, even though I am terrible at it. Be on the lookout for more reveals on twitter! Full sprite reveals for Crescia and Alphi will be going live there soon. I’ll also tease more story beats, as I realize that I have been intentionally vague on that front. 

That’s it for now, everyone. There’s some small comfort knowing I’m on the home stretch, but there’s still a lot of work to do yet.