Hi NALErs! Now that we've out of our launch week, we wanted to make a post to talk about where we're going with NALE in the immediate future, just so you all have a window on the next versions of the game.

PLANNED FEATURES

Update to version 5*

Following release, fans have made us aware of a few small bugs. These were mainly typos, and little niggles that most players would not have noticed, so we've held off so-far. Some of these changes, due to the way they change the game's script files, will require a savedata-wipe to go out with the update, as they would break your older saves, so our plan was to wait until the busy initial launch period was over. Be aware, this should not delete your unlocks, so if you've unlocked Chapter 2, 3 etc. then you'll still have those unlocked - just the actual savegame files will be wiped. We'll test extensively before we push this, because obviously we only want to mandate a data-wipe if it's absolutely necessary. *FYI, the version live right now is v4. Versions 1-3 were prior to launch.

Linux Native Version & Steam Deck

Following the announcement of Steam Deck, we asked for help from the Linux Gaming subreddit, who were enormously helpful. We've now had enough testing on the Windows version via Proton to be able to say, with some confidence, that the game will work on Steam Deck. However, we also intend to publish a native Linux version of NALE S1 in the near future, if such a thing is possible, and we're going to start work on that in the next few days. We can't make any promises here as it simply may not be do-able given some of the weird stuff NALE does with plugins that extend the engine's functionality, but if we can do this, then we will. Watch this space for more info.

POSSIBLE FEATURES

Okay, time to be frank. We know that no-one likes to think about revenue/economics, but there are a range of things we would like to do, but, realistically, could only do if the game's revenue permits. These are as follows:

Additional Character Bust Art - All Characters

First, we want to address a bit of fan feedback; we've had a bunch of requests to replace all of the game's face-art to match Nina/Chad/Dylan for a more consistent style. We would love to do this, however, we would need an enormous jump in sales to make it possible. To put it in perspective, NALE S1 presently has 56 busts, but many of those are variants with different costumes, meaning there are ~25 poses. Contrast that with this - to do all speaking characters so-far featured would require ~250 images, many of which are unique poses. We're talking somewhere in the region of 5x the amount of art we produced for the Season One release, which, technically speaking, we still haven't fully paid off (we've paid the artists; I just mean that I, personally, am still "in the red" on this). There's also the fact that we would need enough artists with enough time to provide the images, which will require organisation, though there's no reason to do that unless we have the money. We'll revisit this in the future if it ever becomes viable.

Additional Character Bust Art - Anya & the Judge

However, depending on sales, we may be able to get some more busts, so we're tentatively announcing that, if possible, we will try to get busts of Anya and Judge Tawny. This will depend also on artist availability. Anya has 8 expressions, each with 3 variants (normal, prison jumpsuit, Aquila Channel catgirl). Tawny has 8 expressions, with just 1 variant (Judge attire). When the game "breaks even", we'll start a chart on the community section for this. NALE has, so-far, always been paid for with game sales, not crowd-funding or donations, and we want to try and maintain that approach if possible - so if people wish to support raising the money, which is entirely up to you - then we would recommend buying the game as a gift for friends on Steam. We're not starting that campaign yet, but of course, if you want to buy the game for friends, we won't stop you! Watch this space for more info on that.

Localisation

This is a big one. Ever since publishing the very first chapter-based versions of NALE, we've had requests to localise the game. The situation with this is similar to the above; it's all about what we can afford. Our priority language is Brazilian Portuguese, because we've had an overwhelming number of requests to support this language. We would also like to support Spanish & German, and potentially French, as these are widely used languages on Steam. Russian and Simplified Chinese are a "maybe", because we are unsure if we can support the character-sets necessary. This will likely require software engineering which raises costs. Ultimately we would like to see NALE available in any language that fans want. Just there are practicalities we have to consider from our perspective.

FUTURE CHAPTERS

I'm sure a lot of you are reading to get more info on this. All we have to say at present is that, as a largely 1-man outfit, work on future chapters is on hold at present until the Season One release is well and truly wrapped up. This is partially because how things go with Season One has an effect on how we approach future content. We will update fans when we "break ground" on that.

Wrapping up

Thanks again, everyone, for supporting NALE's Steam release! We hope to have more info about the stuff above, very soon!