Greetings Terrans! The results for our 2024, post-release survey are here! To get answers, we posted the newsletter advertising our survey in the places players were most likely to have supported us: Steam, itchio, Kickstarter, Patreon and our Discord server. Unlike our 2022 survey, we did not advertise the survey on Twitter and other social media. Survey results never 100% reflect reality. If you took the time to answer our survey, it's probably because you fit most of the following characteristics:
- You bought The Symbiant through Steam, itch, GOG or Kickstarter
- You BOUGHT the game. And PLAYED it.
- You read our newsletters
- You are curious and you know more about The Symbiant that the average player
- Because you are more knowledgable, you made sure to play The Symbiant's un-cut version
- Because you are more knowledgable, you did not buy The Symbiant through Google Play
- You are fluent in English or Simplified Chinese (we used machine translation)
- If the 200+ loving messages we received at the end of the survey are any indication, you really like us!
Where The Symbiant players come from
The most prominent players' countries were:
- United States (163)
- China (134)
- Germany (47)
- Russia (46)
- Taiwan (27)
- Canada (23)
- France (21)
- Korea (20)
Player demographics
1/3 of The Symbiant players are men, which is more than the ~20% I've seen in other BL demographics surveys we've observed. Without surprise, women remain the majority of our players. A player's gender and location will also affect how they discover and interact with the game, as you will see in further statistics.
More than 80% of The Symbiant players are between 18 and 34 years old. The East Asian group is a bit younger and leans more toward "18-24" while other players from other regions reported "25-34" more.
The best boy (or girl)
To the surprise of nobody, Brahve is officially the sexiest character of The Symbiant! Male respondents are more than twice more likely than women to vote Danya as the sexiest The Symbiant character, perhaps because his face and physique feels more familiar and "manly" than Brahve. Despite that however, men still voted Brahve more than Danya. If we split the "sexiest character" votes by region, we notice that North Americans are 15% more likely than East Asians to find Brahve sexy. Oatith is also more popular in East Asia than anywhere else... maybe they liked the bad ending more?
Personality-wise, Danya is the most loved character across all regions. Juniper also received a lot of love, especially from East Asian and gender-nonconforming fans. Important and positive female characters aren't very common in Japanese BL, but you will see them a lot if you play Western BLs.
The most desired features for future games
When asked what features The Symbiant players wanted to see the most in future games, "A longer story with 15+ hours of playtime" and "3 or more romanceable characters" were the most common requests. Both requests could be boiled down to: "we want more content". We expected "Fun gameplay mechanics" to be more popular, but perhaps it makes sense for visual novel enthusiasts to be satisfied by VNs the way they are without wishing for extra mechanics. As for "Both English and Japanese voice acting", we expected to see more votes from Asian players. In the end, only Japanese respondents (4 out of 12) voted this option more prominently. We can conclude that most people are fine with just English voice acting. "Animated scenes" is probably the most expensive option if we want to do it properly, and finding an animator or animation studio willing to do BL won't be easy. "Gameplay" beyond simple point-and-click mechanics would be the most time-consuming endeavor, for we would need to learn new skills and fix more bugs than in a simple visual novel. Both options are nonetheless within the realm of possibility. Many The Symbiant players praised the game's illustrations and voice acting. The only reason we could maintain this quality from the first to last scene was thanks to the games' short length. Everything has a price, and our budget, especially at the time, was limited. At the end of the day, we can't promise you anything. But because of The Symbiant and Re:Union's success, we will have more budget to keep making the kind of BL games we enjoy.
Preferred platforms
Because most survey respondents discovered The Symbiant through PC platforms, it is no surprise that 90% of respondents wish to still play our future games on PC. Had we been able to ask the 1800 players who purchased The Symbiant through Google Play, this number might have been different. Nevertheless, Android is the second largest requested platform, especially among East Asian players: 31% of votes versus 20% of votes from other regions. Should we release The Symbiant on Nintendo Switch, Playstation of Xbox, we'll have to cut the tastiest scenes out. The same applies to Google Play, which is even more restrictive than other stores to an absurd degree. We are considering offering Android APKs as Steam DLCs but we wouldn't be able to provide support for every device.
How players came to know The Symbiant
More than half of respondents discovered The Symbiant through Steam! When combined with itchio, Kickstarter and the rare GOG users, almost 80% of survey respondents discoved the game from game stores. We suspect that the real number may be even higher. Discovery through Steam is especially prevalent among East Asian players: 65% of them discovered the game there. Despite our heavy presence on Twitter and our 5000 followers, only 24 respondents (4%) reported coming from there. When combining Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Bilibli, etc... together, a total of 12% of respondents discovered the game through social media. Back in 2022, we launched a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter, where 748 individuals believed in our project and helped us fund the game. You may find it surprising, but the vast majority of Kickstarter backers discovered the game through ...Kickstarter itself. Today, Kickstarter backers are only a small portion of The Symbiant's fandom, but they are extra-motivated and more likely than average to read our news and answer our surveys, hence the 9% of responses coming from them. "Pirated images" refer to image galleries where comic scans or illustrations are posted: MyReadingManga, E-Hentai/Sadpanda, Danbooru... While viewing a game's images doesn't necessarily mean you pirated the game, these are still "pirate" websites. Along with actual game piracy websites, these pirate sources are one way for a player to discover new games they may have never found otherwise.
Less than 9% of survey respondents had their BL games virginity taken by The Symbiant, with similar numbers across region, gender and age. For this small group, we are honoured to be your first BL game experience, and hope you will enjoyed many other BL games in the future! Here are some random other facts we've learned from survey answers:
- 9% of respondents did NOT play the "mature" version of the game
- Players with no prior BL game experience were less likely to have played the "mature" version
- Most cited reasons were: "I couldn't find it" (38%) and "I didn't know it exists" (35%)
- More than 50% of these players nonetheless found "mature" CGs on the internet
- In reality, Steam statistics showed us that less than half of The Symbiant players installed the "mature" version.
- One person asked where she could find the "mature" version for Google Play. Google Play does not allow "mature" content.
- "Hong Kong" is listed as a top source of sales for us, but only 3 Hong Kongers answered the survey
- Several Korean respondents thanked us for adding a Korean translation to the game.
Greetings Terrans!
We are hard at work on a brand new project we can't reveal yet! New story, different characters, different locations. Picture not related.
In the meantime, we would love to better know you, which is why we created a short survey.
[FILL THE SURVEY HERE!]
This survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. Have fun answering!
Thai and Russian language fixes
Greetings Terrans! :D First off, thank you for reading our newsletters! We've been consistently pushing out at least one newsletter a month since March 2022.
Wishlist The Symbiant Re:Union!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_ReUnion/ Re:Union is currently at 8,623 wishlists! By wishlisting, you help us reach Steam's "Popular Upcoming" section, which will help making Re:Union's launch a success!
The Symbiant Re:Union progress
- The game and its DLCs (patch + artbook) have all been approved by Steam and are ready for release
- The game will release publicly on Steam on January 29th
- We haven't started registering the game on GOG yet. We're aiming for March or April
- added EULA - typo fixes - added Re:Union banner
Greeting Terrans! :D First off, we hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas / end-of-the-year celebrations! Fable got winter socks and Irlana got the flu...
Wishlist The Symbiant Re:Union!
If you have a Steam account, don't forget to wishlist The Symbiant Re:Union on Steam! It helps a ton with visibility. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_ReUnion/
Synthetic Lover now available on Nintendo Switch and PS4/PS5
Our first game Synthetic Lover was released on Nintendo Switch and PS4/PS5!!! Maledoll Studio took care of the console porting and EastAsiaSoft published the game.
The Symbiant Re:Union progress report
- The game is all finished and its build has been sent for approval to the Steam review team
- The game has a demo! SFW version on Steam and 18+ version on itchio
- The main game's Portuguese-Brazilian editor Ivanir has started translating Re:Union as well! We can't guarantee the PT-BR translation will be ready on release day, but it will be added soon enough!
- In case you missed the last update: the game will be first release on Steam on January 29th, then on itchio on March 1st
- But you pre-ordered Re:Union through Kickstarter or The Symbiant's extra tiers on itchio, you will be getting the itchio version on Jan 29th
- Re:Union is currently at 7,176 wishlists on Steam! We hope we can get to 8000 before release.
The Symbiant Re:Union's demo is now available! Don't forget to wishlist the game. :D
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_ReUnion/
What's more, we have a release date for the full game: JANUARY 29th, 2024
Like our previous games, The Symbiant Re:Union will be "family-friendly" by default. A certain DLC will be up for free for you to install after purchase. Depending on your country, you may need to visit other official places to get this free DLC.
Greeting Terrans! :D This update will be quite short:
- All script is done, for both Cayama and Odaria stories
- All art assets (CGs, backgrounds...) are done
- All voiceover is done and inserted
- All scenes are fully implemented and coded
- 3/4 of the languages have been implemented
- 1/2 of achievements have been implemented
- Finish adding languages
- Bug-testing
- Finalize the demo
- Bug-testing
- Make the game trailer
- A bunch of other things
- Bug-testing Bug-testing Bug-testing Bug-testing Bug-testing
Greeting Terrans! :D If you remember our announcement back in August, we've been looking for an artist for your next project. We're happy to announce that we finally found someone and we look forward to working with them!
Wishlist The Symbiant Re:Union on Steam
As usual, don't forget to wishlist the The Symbiant Re:Union on Steam! Wishlisting helps with the game's visibility and this way you won't miss its launch next year! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_ReUnion/
Mobile version of our games
Did you know that The Symbiant and The Symbiant Re:Union both have an official Android version? The "family-friendly" version is on [CENSORED] while the "honest" version is on [CENSORED]. We are currently looking into making an iOS version as well.
Art - CG and backgrounds
We finally have all the backgrounds!!! This means we could finally finish the CGs as well, since, well, CG need a background too. Will that black mask help Danya sleep at night? You will find out in the Odaria story! :D
Voiceover
Irlana has finished cutting and processing all voice clips of the game! Now all there is left to do is insert them into the game. Voicover has already been inserted months ago into the Cayama story.
Programming
All of the Cayama story scenes are done, while 6 Odaria story scenes have been inserted into the game! We hope you will enjoy the Ameretat crew' interaction with their host, Chohra.
Greeting Terrans! We're kind of amazed we managed to keep up at least one monthly progress update all this time.
The Symbiant: After Stories is now The Symbiant Re:Union
After a popular vote that took place on Discord and a suggestion from Yi, our Simplified Chinese translator, the After Stories will now be called The Symbiant Re:Union! We believe this new name better conveys the nature of the game (a "fandisc" rather than a set of DLCs) as well as its story themes. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_ReUnion/ You can wishlist it on Steam right now! It really helps making the game visible.
Art: CGs
Doubleleaf inked another batch of Odaria story CGs. We are still waiting for backgrounds to be finished to proceed with coloring them! In the meantime, we added another CG to the Cayama story (see above image).
Art: Backgrounds
Due to the Odaria backgrounds' complexity, completing them in a satisfying way is taking more time than originally planned. This is the most difficult part we are handling currently, and a lot on art direction in the process!
Voiceover
All voice clips for the Cayama story have been inserted into the game. Irlana also cut and edited several Odaria story voice clips. The game really doesn't feel quite complete without them!
Programming
Ende, our trusted editor, is also a Ren'py programmer! They are providing us assistance with coding Re:Union's achievements. We started inserting Odaria script into the game, but we won't be able to show the scenes off nor release a demo before all backgrounds are fully finished. See you later! :D
Greetings Terrans! If you haven't done it already, don't forget to wishlist The Symbiant: After Stories to be notified of its release. It also helps make the game more visible to new players! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_After_Stories?snr=2_9_100000_ We're very excited to bring you this August update! This month things have been moving forward with the speed of light and we can't wait to share all the awesome progress we made on The Symbiant: After Stories DLC! (More info below) But first things first! GUYS! We have started planning for OUR NEXT GAME!!! We can't share much yet...Best rest assured another sexy BL from HeartCoreDev is in your future <3 We've been outlining ideas, plotting, and creating our characters, so our next step is to find the right character/CG artist for the project.
!! WANTED: BL/YAOI ARTIST !!
For our next BL game project that will take place in the same universe as The Symbiant, we are looking for an experienced BL/Yaoi artist. You can find more information about the project and our contact email in this Google document. Feel free to share this doc with your friends! -----------
After Stories: DLC - The script
THE SCRIPT IS FINALLY DONE for both After Stories. And by that, we mean fully completed, written, and edited by our trusty editor Ende! Here are the final details:
- Cayama Story: 17443 words (takes place after the "bitter" ending) when Brahve breaks up with Danya
- Odaria Story: 19406 words (takes place after the Happiest ending) when Brahve and Danya arrive on Odaria together
Art: backgrounds
All Cayama story backgrounds are done! Meanwhile, Evyan Studio which we recently partnered with is working on the Odaria scenery. We're excited to share Brahve's world with you with its curious alien architecture, exotic plants, and panoramic views! We hope you will like them!
Art: CGs
When we first planned The Symbiant After Stories...we envisioned 5-6 CGs per story, but you know how it goes. We kept adding them... The result: we have been commissioning more sketches from 700HASH, while Doubleleaf is working on inking and coloring them. In order to finish the CGs, we need all backgrounds finished (because CGs need scenery too after all!). This means this is a particularly slow and delicate process, where 3 different artists are involved. But we're getting there!!! :D
Voice acting
The Cayama Story has been fully recorded, and we're hard at work on the voice-over editing! Cutting, editing, and processing all the recordings into voice clips is a time-consuming process that's actually much longer than the recordings themselves! The recording sessions are almost completed for the Odaria after-story too. We only have 2 sessions left with our voice actors, and then we'll jump into editing them! The best part is of course inserting them all into the game - and having the characters come to life <3
Programming
The After Stories are now officially their own, separate game! Most of the UI is finished, with the Extra section needing some touch-ups as the gallery and achievements are being populated. Fable finished laying out Cayama's story. Music, sound effects, and voice clips still need to be added, but the bulk of the job is done. A few examples of the achievements are below:
Translations
Due to popular demand, we have recently decided to add 3 more languages to the list of translations of The After Stories!
- English
- Japanese
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Korean
- Spanish
- German
- French
- Russian
Greetings Terrans!
If you missed our last update, here's a reminder that you can wishlist The Symbiant: After Stories on Steam right now. It really helps with the game's visibility, even if you already pre-ordered a copy through this Kickstarter or itchio!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_After_Stories/
While we are navigating the current social media landscape, we'd like to remind you that everyone is welcome to our Discord server.
Art - Backgrounds
We have tons of backgrounds in the works right now for the second after story. Rebecca finished another piece of a lush Odarian forest while we requested a set of Cayaman skies from Sitai for the first story --they weren't originally planned but we find them neat!
Art - CGs
When Doubleleaf started inking 700HASH's sketches several months ago, they were able to ink and color Danya and Brahve, but not the background behind them. Thanks to the landscapes we received recently, Doubleleaf can now adjust the CGs to the dcor they belong to. In the meantime, we went "screw it, let's add some more scenes" and commissioned 3 more sketches from 700HASH to go with 3 cute little scenes we wrote in the Odaria After Story. Hope you'll like them! :D
Music
We commissioned 2 tracks from Astrophysics, one of which will be used as the After Stories' main theme. See you later! :D
Minor bugfix for the Russian-language version
Makes Steam achievements work again.
Various improvements to the game's programming: [olist]
Greetings Terrans!
The Steam page for The Symbiant: After Stories is officially LIVE! (As Coming Soon)
[url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355140/The_Symbiant_After_Stories/]
WISHLIST NOW >
The first After Story will transport you to the planet of Cayama, where in the main game Brahve finds Danya in the space port and confesses his love to him. What happened to the Odarian in the last two years and why is he so set on getting Danya back after breaking up with him? And where in the world is the Symbiant?
In the second After Story with our love birds you visit Odaria, Brahves homeworld where the team meets his cousin. This story takes place after the happiest ending in the main game. Youll get a chance to explore the luxurious hot spring resort, as well as the surrounding forest nearby and experience some exquisite one-on-one times with Brahve.
Exotic forests, board games with friends, and torrid intimate moments between the two men await in this fun-packed adventure on a new alien planet!
FEATURES
- First After Story: 17.5K words
- Second After Story: 18K words
- Approx 3 hours of play
- 20+ CGs (not counting variations)
- Full English voice over
- Dialogue Choices
- Original soundtrack
Planned After Stories translations
Our current plan is to release the After Stories in the following languages:
- English
- Japanese
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Korean
- Spanish
New planned release date
After much debating, we decided that The Symbiant: After Stories will be a separate game and not a DLC for a few reasons:
- The After Stories became several times longer than we originally planned and although it's still shorter than the main game, its length is still relatively close.
- We invested as much funds for the After Stories as we did for the main game, partially because we wanted to better compensate our contractors (our character and background artists, our voice acting crew, translators, etc...) on top of the project being a bit bigger than planned
- In order to recoup this cost, we need its release at a later date to make as big an impact as possible with extended time for promotion
Greetings Terrans! April was yet another busy month for us in-between voice acting sessions, getting sick again, art direction and reworking the game's programming.
Writing and Editing
We are improving the script of the second After Story before we send it to Ende for editing.
Art
Doubleleaf inked another CG from the second after story. On the background side, Sitai finished the piece we previously showed you: a fancy alien nightclub with a Terran flair!
Voiceover
The first After Story has been fully recorded! The recording sessions went smoothly and will now need cutting and audio-processing before we can insert them into the beta build.
Programming
Fable spent almost an entire month reworking the way the Ren'py game engine interacts with every line of dialogue, in all 12 languages. This change was required to fix the bug that breaks the save slots everytime the game is updated. It has been rolled out on several places but not on Steam yet at the time of writing. Additionally, Fable coded scene 3 of the After Stories. See you later! :D
Greetings Terrans!
The Symbiant and its extras are 10% off. Tell your friends if they haven't gotten the game yet! =D
We spent the better part of the past month working on the Google Play release, which is not too different from the Steam version, although only on mobile and with no DLC.
A Russian player in our Discord server reported that they were no longer able to see The Symbiant's page on Steam (and couldn't purchase it). Further investigation showed that The Symbiant has been completely banned from the country and we haven't been notified by either Valve or any Russian authority.
This is completely outside of our control and we don't even know why The Symbiant in particular is being targeted. We've been waiting for Valve's reply on the matter.
Writing and editing
Irlana has been improving the two after-stories in several places. We're looking to add some more worldbuilding into the script before inserting the text in-game. Here's a snippet of Riemphea's introduction as an example!
Art
We contacted 700HASH and they accepted to draw Danya and Brahve once again for the After Stories cover art! In the meantime, Doubleleaf only has 3 more CGs left to complete, while our background artist Sitai is facing a rather complex background composition. In order to tackle the natural landscapes we'll need for the second story, we contacted Rebecca Hu, who you may know through Andromeda Six's gorgeous backgrounds! They will start working with us next month.
Programming
More bug fixing! We found out through player reports that a certain bug is breaking save slots after a game update and the solution will require reworking the way every line is coded. This will take time, but we'll get there eventually. Scene 2 of the first After Stories has been coded. Here you meet Riemphea, who is Juniper's girlfriend! See you later! =D
If you see any more translation hiccup, don't hesitate reporting them at inquiry.heartcoredev@gmail.com :)
Get your hands on The Symbiant Artbook (PDF) and a juicy pack of 4K CGs and sprites from the game! Peak into the behind-the-scenes sketches, art direction process of the game and more!
What you get:
- All of the PG-13 CGs from the game
- Each CG shown in a WIP stage of art
- Character sprites and expressions
- Exclusive promo-art pieces, commissioned through the course of the game's development
- Character and CG sketch preview from The Symbiant: After Stories DLC
- All the backgrounds from the game
- An artbook of 79 pages
- A pack of 4K (high resolution) all the sprites and all the PG-13 CGs from the game with all of the variations (Separate folder from the Artbook!)
Hello Terrans!
We hope you enjoyed the game's full release (or that you're enjoying it) and would like to remind you of our Discord server where you can tell us what you think! :D
We are still in the process of fixing typos or bugs reported by players for The Symbiant's localizations as well other potential hiccups. If you've seen any, please don't hesitate to let us know through our email or discord.
Art
Doubleleaf has completed 3/4 of the CGs for the After Stories. We are very happy with how they're turning out and we can't wait for you to see them...! On the background side, Sitai completed another room and sent us the WIP of another yesterday.
Programming
On top of fixing bugs, Fable has been inserting images and their many variations into the After Stories as well as working on The Symbiant's Google Play version, which has yet to be released. See you later! =D
Major fixes for Russian and Korean translations
Quick fix for launch problem experienced on some systems
Improvements to Italian and Korean translations
Small corrections for Traditional Chinese language
Small fixes for Simplified Chinese and Portuguese languages.
Greetings! Due to a mistake we made, you may have seen DLCs appear inside the game's installation folder even though you did not purchase them. This mistake has since been resolved and the DLCs should not appear anymore unless you buy them. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Hello dear Terrans!
The Symbiant and its DLCs (Artbook, Soundtrack, Guide and FREE Patch) are about to drop in just 2 days! We are over the moon it's finally happening and everyone will experience the game with all the love and hard work we have poured into it!
As the game nears the release we're also really excited to announce our DLC Package: The Symbiant: After Stories!
About the DLC
The DLC game contains 2 different stories, each being the continuation of one of The Symbiant's endings. The First Story takes place on Cayama and the Second Story on Odaria - where Brahve is originally from! They will both include steamy and romantic developments happening with our two lovebirds Danya and Brahve and also new side characters, new outfits, new world locations and plenty of lore! Be sure to check back on Steam for the DLC or join our Discord server to keep track!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090/The_Symbiant/
Happy New Year to all Terrans!!! :D
We are stoked to announce that The Symbiant will be released on Steam and itch.io on February 2nd, in exactly a month!
Both the full game and the 18+ uncensor patch have been approved on Steam, which means no delay on that front.
Art
700HASH has finished sketching the very last CG of The Symbiant's DLCs, meaning they are officially done with the project. Doubleleaf, on their end, finished inking and coloring the last CG of the first DLC while our background artist Sitai is working on more rooms.
Programming
Bug-squashing, inserting remaining languages + testing them all for bugs and more bug-squashing. This part of development is not fun but it's also essential to minimize the probability of the game crashing or giving you a Ren'py error in the middle of a romantic scene. By the way, did you know we released the Korean version of the demo a few days ago? The translator is Hyeshin, who used to translate Beyond Eden into English!
The Symbiant and its 12 languages
The languages planned for the full release are:
- English
- French
- Russian
- German
- Spanish
- Italian
- Portuguese-Brazilian
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Japanese
- Korean
- Thai
Early Access and latest beta: 0.9.0
If you backed one of our early access tiers between March and May 2022, expect to receive an email very soon with a download link to the full game. After this, The Symbiant's beta will keep being updated with DLC scenes, which will be accessible for the $105 tier on itch and $20 tier on Patreon. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090/The_Symbiant/
Greetings Terrans! We finished inserting French, Spanish and Russian scripts for the game. Additionally, the Thai and Portuguese Brazilian translations are close to completion and will hopefully be finished by the end of this year!
Art
9 out of 10 CGs are complete for the first DLC while 3 more CGs have been sketched for the first and second DLC.700HASH is now switching to sketches-only while Doubleleaf will take care of both linearting and coloring. You might be wondering why we are hurrying with the DLC illustrations when the main game isn't even out yet. You see, in a couple weeks, 700HASH will no longer have time to work on The Symbiant. In order to keep the game's artstyle consistent, we offloaded as much as we could to our second artist, Doubleleaf. This started with the coloring, but from now on, Doubleleaf will take care of the linearting as well, while 700HASH will provide sketches for the remainder of assets needed for the DLC. This collaboration is working well for us so far and we're very happy with how the CG turned out!
Writing
In order to get 700HASH to finish the sketches on time, Irlana is prioritizing writing all the relevant scenes! A good 75% of the second DLC is written.
Programming
These past weeks were dedicated to inserting other languages into the game. So far we have completed: English, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish and Russian, in that order. This leaves: Simplified + Traditional Chinese, Thai, Portuguese Brazilian, and Korean to complete. Fable started gathering all the completed DLC assets and exporting the hundreds of expression layers for the 2 new characters who will appear in the DLC. Having them to the right size and naming the files properly is essential to make the actual coding smoother!
Latest Beta: version 0.8.0, scene 36
The beta now contains almost the entire game, with only one (1) scene left to add...!You can get it on Patreon or by buying a permanent beta key in the $105 tier on itchio.After the game's release, the beta will keep being updated with DLC scenes.
Greetings alien lovers!
We're happy to announce the web version of The Symbiant's demo, available to play on the main project page! To make this possible, the game build's assets have been compressed to make everything 4x lighter and thus easier to load on your device.
You have until Sunday to answer our survey in case you want to sate our curiosity and maybe get a free copy of both The Symbiant and Synthetic Lover!
Art
5 CGs are complete for the first DLC. In order to keep the quality of the art consistent, stay on schedule, and alleviate some of 700HASH's workload, we decided to hire Doubleleaf as a colorist for the remaining CGs. Doubleleaf previously worked on our side story sketches, which we've put on hold to focus on everything else. Sitai, on their end, finished another gorgeous sci-fi interior background and will be working on its variations.
Writing
Irlana is hard at work writing the second DLC! (The first one is finished in case you don't remember us mentioning it!) The first 9 scenes are written and they already include two temperature-raising scenes (with 2 more VERY HOT scenes planned for this DLC!). The mood is quite different between the two DLCs: one is dramatic and angsty, and the one is fluffy and very... very indulgent. We really hope you will enjoy both of them!
Programming
After much trial and error, Fable has finished implementing all 54 achievements of the game! Although more testing will be needed for the Steam version.
Beta: version 0.7.0
The latest beta covers up to scene 32, making more progress on the Blue route! It is available as usual on Patreon and the itch page.
Greetings, alien lovers! In case you missed it, you can still fill our 2-minutes public survey, with the option to leave an email to enter a SMB and Synthetic Lover key giveaway!
Art
Our new background artist, Sitai, has completed a room where much of the first DLC action happens! 700HASH has completed 4 DLC CGs and is working on a 5th one, taking place in that room.
Programming & Translation
Our full build now contains full translation in German, Italian and Japanese. We hope to insert as many languages as possible before the full release on February, 2023.
Achievements
Irlana has finished assets for all 54 achievements, as well as designed the achievement screen you'll be able to consult from the extra menu. This way, these will be available for everyone, not just Steam users. Fable will need to code all the achievements and hopes to do so this week.
Beta: Red route complete, Blue route coming
The Symbiant contains two paths: the "Red route" with 3 endings and the "Blue" route with 1 ending. The "Red route" is now fully available and 2 scenes are up for the "Blue route"! You can grab it on patreon or itchio.
Hi, ya'll! We wanna get to know you (aka our audience) better! Please take time to fill out the 2-min survey to help us out. We'd really appreciate it! You'll also run a chance of winning the game key for the platform of your choice We're giving a way a key for The Symbiant + Synthetic Lover! (bundle of 2 keys!) Event ends on November 20, 2022 at 11:59 PM EST! [url=https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfK3rtkGwEqqbkNeru2lKFskZLIbz39cZ8RYOqNyif6OKMI_g/viewform] View the survey here > https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090/The_Symbiant/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151530/Synthetic_Lover/
Greeting alien lovers! We are proud to announce that The Symbiant's demo is now available in 4 new languages!
Here's the list of all currently-available languages for the game's demo:
- English
- French (translated by Fable & Grimoire)
- Russian (translated by Maria Solomaha)
- German (translated by Marcel Weyers)
- Traditional Chinese (translated by JackO & Yuni)
- Simplified Chinese (translated by Yi/Always and RyuguRena)
- Portuguese Brazilian (translated by Anna Franco and Ivanir)
- Japanese (translated by George "Yuzchastics" Inagaki)
We are also working on getting The Symbiant available in additional languages below, starting with the demo:
- Italian (Erixstudio)
- Spanish (TBD)
- Korean (TBD)
Greeting alien lovers! First off, we have an important announcement: The Symbiant's release date has been pushed to February 2023. This new release date will allow us to really polish the game up while we're both dealing with our day jobs and family lives. Having said that, February would still be 2 months earlier than the hard limit we set to ourselves: April 2023!
Progress status:
- Writing & editing: 38/38 (100%)
- Character & BG art: 33/33 (100%)
- Programming: 38/38 (100%)
- Voice acting: 30/38 (79%)
- Audio engineering: 23/38 (61%)
- Quality assurance: 0/38 (0%)
Voice acting
We made good progress in terms of voice-over since the last update. For Danya and Juniper we are still missing about 40% each of recorded scripts. All of the recordings have been submitted for Brahve, and we're only missing a few retakes. Juniper's voice actress is still in the process of settling in her new home; we hope to receive all the voice-over we need by the end of the month. Kudos to our audio engineer who keeps chipping away at all the lines we're throwing at him as we receive them and select our takes!
Programming
Fable finally inserted the last scene scripts into the game! While this is quite the milestone for us, keep in mind that it's only half of the job, code-wise: we still need to code in the voice acting and sound effects, as well as code other parts such as the music room, re-doing our credit rolls, correct possible bugs, etc...
Beta: version 0.6.0
The latest available beta covers the game up to scene 23, right into the first route of the game! As usual, it is available for Kickstarter backers in the $160 CAD tier and patrons in the $20 tier.
Greetings, alien lovers!
We spent the last few days working on the game's voice acting. The translations are well underway but as mentioned previously, they will be released after the English version as translating, editing and inserting them into the game takes time.
Progress status:
Writing: 38/38 (100%)
Editing: 38/38 (100%)
Character & BG art: 33/33 (100%)
Programming: 32/38 (84%)
Voice acting: 30/38 (79%)
Audio engineering: 18/38 (47%)
Voice acting
July was a very busy month for our voice over production. Irlana has been going over all the recorded lines we received, selecting the best takes and checking back with our actors for retakes for the best possible voice over. We have also been working very closely with our engineer on several different sections simultaneously - cutting, cleaning and and weeding out any glitches! The recording itself took a bit of a delay since two of our voice actors moved, but they managed to finish voicing the very long Part 4. We hope that they can finish Part 5 this month, which is the last part of the game!
Programming
We spent the last 2 weeks bugfixing and inserting Part 3 voice clips to the game. Because voice clips aren't just plug-and-play, this requires additional coding to make it work. Once we receive Juniper's edited lines for Part 3, we'll finally be able to update the extended demo so it has full voice acting!
Beta build: version 0.5.9
We are onto scene 22, taking us further into the game's first route! You can find the build on Patreon or you already got notified on itch if you are a Kickstarter backer in the $160 CAD tier.
Greetings everyone! For those who don't know, we launched a Kickstarter campaign for The Symbiant. This campaign will help us finish the game quicker and on schedule so we can pay everyone, especially our artist and our voice actors, director and engineer who were a big investment in bringing our characters to life! Progress status:
- Writing: 36/38 (95%)
- Editing: 29/38 (76%)
- BGs: 8/9 (90%)
- CGs: 17/22 (77%)
- Programming: 16/38 (42%)
- Voice acting and editing: 6/38 (16%)
The Symbiant's full game is currently scheduled to come out on October 2022 at the soonest, and Mach 2023 at the latest.
The Symbiant
HeartCoreDev
HeartCoreDev
February 2023 - Add to Wishlist!
Indie Simulation Singleplayer
Game News Posts 41
🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
Overwhelmingly Positive
(599 reviews)
https://heartcoredev.com
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090
The Symbiant is a visual novel about two adult men, both from vastly different worlds, embracing their sexuality and their newfound romance. It is also a tale of interstellar friendship and being gay in space!
SYNOPSIS
In the year 5066, Danya and his alien friend Juniper are manning The Ameretat, a humble spaceship that transports goods across the Milky Way.
After a troubled transport gig that left their beloved ship in need of repair and their bank account empty, the team is offered a generous deal they cannot refuse: transporting a beautiful and mysterious alien who calls himself Brahve.
Sometimes at night, Danya hears strange things from Brahve's room. What could he be hiding in there? And how will it affect the connection that's quickly growing between the two men?
GAME FEATURES
- 55K words
- At least 6 hours of play
- 25+ CGs (not counting variations)
- Full English voice over
- 1 love interest, 2 routes, 4 endings
- Original soundtracks
- Processor: Intel Core2 Duo. AMD Phenom II or betterMemory: 2 GB RAM
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GT 750
- Storage: 1 GB available space
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