Hello hello! We hope that you're all doing well and that things are going well in your lives! While we've been fairly quiet recently aside from the odd tease or two, things have been moving behind the scenes for us for the last few months! Firstly, the big announcement: we have a new game in development! It's called Artificial Nexus, and is going to be a sci-fi mystery investigation. You play as Susan, a green haired amnesiac who is trying to figure out who and where she is, whilst also trying to stay alive. Gameplay-wise, we've been looking at what else we can do in a visual novel. Inspired by classic games like Snatcher, there'll be more to this game than just dialogue trees - you'll be able to move around multiple locations, interact with computers, and find items to solve puzzles. If you're cunning enough you may even be able to discover some hidden unlockables... For more information, including screenshots, you can read the full post on our website. The next bit of exciting news is that we officially have a Discord! It's admittedly long overdue for us, but it's something that we're glad to have now, and that we hope will keep us in better contact with the community. Moving forwards, we'll be posting all major announcements and details there, so if you want to keep up with the game's development, drop by and say hi! Of course, it won't just be focused on us - there'll still be plenty of discussion of other games both in and out of the indie scene, and we'll be running events and streams from time to time! You can join our Discord with this link. We're really thrilled to be sharing all of this and can't wait to continue pumping out updates over the coming months - we hope that everyone is as keen as we are!

[ 2024-05-11 05:09:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Fixed an issue where an achievement occasionally wouldn't be granted. If you think you should have previously unlocked a certain achievement, start a new game and it should unlock automatically!

[ 2023-11-01 08:37:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Roadmap going forward

Do I even need to put anything here? Look at that image. Look at how lovely it is. As of recently, I've gotten the remaining artwork for the game - some of which you can see on the store page and socials - and finished putting the entirety of the game's script into Ren'Py. There's only two things to go at this stage that are holding back from releasing, namely:

• Getting feedback from beta testers - I'm certainly pleased with the game, but to be the best product it can be I'll need extra pairs of eyes
• Making rewrites and changes based on beta testers. With a bit of luck this won't be anything too large - the game already had one version go through a round of feedback several months back and had changes made based on that, so these changes will hopefully be fairly minimal.

Once both of those items are done, the game will be released as soon as possible. At this stage it's tentatively going to come out in July, but who knows? It could potentially be as early as June depending upon what the changes needed are. I can't state how fulfilling and enjoyable it has been to have worked on this game for such a long time, and how exciting it is to be so close to the end. All of the feedback and support I've received throughout the process has been absolutely wonderful, so thank you so much for anything you've done - whether it's been commenting, sharing, or even just playing the demo. Keep an eye on things moving forwards and get ready for July!

[ 2023-05-23 09:54:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Big news!

If you've been following the game for a while now, or if you've looked at the previous announcement posts that were made, you'll know that a little while back I set up a Kickstarter to try and get additional funding for the game. It wasn't successful, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't somewhat disappointed. Still, as much as it pains me to admit it, it shows that the game is lacking something, and that lack is making it harder to reach the audience I'd like. It's been several weeks now, and after doing extensive market research and looking into feedback from our players at PAX, I've realised that for the game to be sustainable, it has to change. It needs to leave behind its pulpy chrysalis and emerge as the beautiful moth that I want it to become. Luckily, I know the exact direction that the game needs to go in: the characters need to change, and what better way to change them than to make all of them Victoria? Yes, after going through feedback from PAX and playtesters, the data is clear - Victoria is the most popular character. With this in mind, it seems clear to me that people want more of her, and that there's no way that adding in more of her will dilute her character or lead to overexposure whatsoever. You've spoken, people, and I'm listening! Here's a few of the changes you can expect in the final version of the game:

• The game's name will be changed to The Many Victorias of Lily Kosen.
• The plot will have you playing as Victoria throughout the entire thing
• All other characters will be removed from the game, and replaced with alternative versions of Victoria. This includes the titular character Lily.
• All choices will be removed from the game, so as to allow the player the authentic experience of playing as Victoria

Some of these changes have already started to be made in the game - just check out some of the awesome screenshots we've got below!


As you can imagine, this is all very exciting for us to be working on and developing, and we're very keen to scrap all of the previous progress and work towards what the market wants! Thank you so much for you continued support - we appreciate it all!

[ 2023-04-01 00:00:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Roadmap going forwards

The status of the Kickstarter

So, if you've been following the progress of the game recently, you'll know that I recently set up a Kickstarter to try and get some additional funding. You'll also probably know that the Kickstarter was unsuccessful, only hitting around 70% of the goal. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit bummed out about it, but hey, what's happened has happened. At the end of the day, I didn't do a good enough job with the social media and marketing aspects of the game, so to an extent this isn't too unexpected. (Or maybe my game just sucks, lmao). Anyway, in spite of the campaign not hitting its goal, I'd like to thank everyone who supported it through contributing to it, spreading the word about it, or in any other way. I've said it before, but it bears saying again - it really does mean a lot to me that people helped out, and I really can't thank you enough. I want to get the best possible product out there, because that's what you all deserve. With that out of the way, here's a rough plan for how things will go from here.

The roadmap

Sort out the CGs for the game

The only major asset that I don't have for the game at this stage is a collection of CGs, for showing off important and dramatic moments in the story. At this stage I need to assess what money I can afford to spend and then what sort of artist I can get based on that; either one of the existing artists or someone new. Between finding an artist, their schedule and backlog of work, and the time for the actual artwork to be created, it's difficult to estimate how long this will take, but if I'm being overly optimistic, I'd like to think that it can be done within two to three months. In the alternate timeline where the Kickstarter got funded, I'd also have liked to get some more character sprites added in, but as it is things will stay as they are for now. Depending upon how things go for me financially, I'd definitely like to revisit this idea down the track.

Finish off the writing

Two pieces of good news for this one - firstly, the majority of the game has been written out and programmed in, and secondly, some early testers have provided me with feedback. I'm in the middle of writing out some additional stuff right now (which itself is nearly done), and I'll have some more feedback to go through before long, but for the most part, the writing part of the game is done. I anticipate that this can all be finished off in parallel with the artist creating the CGs, so this shouldn't cause any delays in the development cycle.

Release the game

Yeah it's...kind of that simple. There's a handful of minor programming things I need to do after finishing off the writing stuff, but the bulk of the work has been done at this point. The most important thing is getting the CGs in and addressing feedback, then it's basically ready for release. Neat, huh?

Updates and bug fixes

Naturally, my beta testers are only human, so there'll probably be the odd bug or typo that they miss that get caught by players, but they should be easy enough to fix. Other than that, I'd also like to try adding in some features to the game that were originally stretch goals once the game is out, but for now the priority is getting the vanilla version out.

Other information

I think I mentioned in my previous post something about updating the UI styling for the game - I've since gone back on that. Turns out, updating the game's styling for only a portion of the story is a bit more difficult to do than I anticipated, especially doing it in a way that doesn't then affect the rest of the UI when in the main menu and other sections of the game. Ren'Py veterans, I eagerly await your comments explaining that it's actually quite easy to do. Also, I had a look at some stuff on my website and realised that the contact form has been broken for a while. Oops! Apologies to anyone who tried submitting things through it - it should be working now, so I hope nothing important was sent. Take care, and thank you for taking the time for this. Your support is acknowledged and appreciated.

[ 2023-02-19 00:58:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Kickstarter, Updates, and Kickstarter Updates

Hi, everyone! You've all caught me at a time when I'm in a pretty good mood, so how about I give everyone a bit of an update on what's been going on recently?

Kickstarter Campaign

It's been nearly two weeks since the Kickstarter campaign for The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen was released, and at time of writing it's 53% complete! Regardless of whether or not it gets completed, the game will be released, I assure you - but supporting the Kickstarter means more money for additional assets and potentially more features down the line. To everyone who's supported the game already or shared the campaign around - thank you so much. For the most part I'm one person trying to run all of this, and your support and help honestly means the world to me. If you haven't supported the campaign yet, please consider doing so - it's going to make a massive difference, and shouldn't cost you that much money to get the full game. Everything you do is appreciated.

Updates

I'm doing more than just the Kickstarter campaign at the moment - I've also been working on adding in new scenes to the game, and working out a few tricks in how to present them along the way. I don't want to go into too many details, as the things I'm currently working on are literally listed in my notes as secret scenes, but I'm hoping that what I'm working on will help to enhance and expand upon the backstory of the game a bit, while also being concise. While I've been working on these I've also found a few things in Ren'Py that I can play around with, which in turn's given me a few more ideas about some presentation updates that I'm pretty sure I can add in without too much difficulty. Thankfully Ren'Py is pretty great to work with once you get over the learning curve of, "how do I do more than add in text and display sprites?", and none of it should impact the timeline of the game's development by much.

In Conclusion

To sum up - the Kickstarter campaign is coming along nicely, and the game's getting a nice round of updates which in turn is giving me ideas and plans for additional features and ways to enhance the story! If you haven't already, you can follow Two Many Teeth at Twitter or Instagram - I post more updates, more frequently there! Or, you know, don't. Social media's pretty toxic, tbh.

[ 2023-01-30 11:34:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Well, it took a few months longer than initially planned, but as of - checks watch - like thirty-odd minutes ago, we've got a Kickstarter for The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen! Hopefully I'm preaching to the choir and you've already read all of the previous announcements and bookmarked the link (wow, obsessed much?), but if not, you can access it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/too-many-teeth/the-many-deaths-of-lily-kosen-a-horror-visual-novel The game is going to be released regardless of whether or not the Kickstarter is successful, but here are a few things you can look forwards to getting, depending upon which stretch goals we reach:

• Different gameplay modes
• More CGs and sprites
• Voice acting
• More platforms

While this is admittedly very scary to do, it's also something that I'm very excited for, and I'm very much looking forwards to being able to provide better and better things in the future of the game. Thank you to everyone who's supported me so far and everyone who supports me in the future; it really does mean the world to me <3

[ 2023-01-18 09:29:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Third announcement's the charm, eh? I'm pleased to announce that after putting in the effort to actually finalise some plans, the Kickstarter campaign for The Many Deaths of Lily Kosen will launch on January 18th. While the game's going to be released regardless of whether or not the Kickstarter is successful, having a Kickstarter will allow me to release a better product, with some of the goals including:

• Different gameplay modes
• More CGs and sprites
• Voice acting

While I don't want to give away too many details at this stage in case there are some last minute changes, I can confirm that the Kickstarter is aiming for a fairly realistic amount to be funded, and that by supporting the $5 tier you'll be able to get a full copy of the final game. That's $5 AUD, by the way - only about $3 USD! If you haven't already followed the Kickstarter campaign, please do so! Every bit counts, and everything you do is appreciated. Following the campaign means that you'll be notified as soon as it launches, and won't miss out on any of the limited tiers! Before signing off, here's a bit of an update on what's been going on recently - I know I'm a bit slack when it comes to updates.

• An initial wordcount of the entire script, across all routes, comes to a bit over 120,000 words. I'm a bit blown away by this, to be honest - my initial estimates were that the total thing came to around 80,000 words, so this is very exciting!
• I've made some initial placeholder CGs for the game - while the quality's nowhere near good enough to use for it, they'll be useful in using as references for my CG artist.
• Some feedback from some beta testers, regarding some later parts of the game, has been coming in, and I've been working on responding to it and making changes where necessary.

Thank you for all of your support - while it's a bit early, I hope that whatever holidays you celebrate go well, and that 2023 is an excellent year for you!

[ 2022-12-13 11:06:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone, Thanks for all of your support and kind words, and for playing the demo! A hefty amount of work has been done on the game over the last month or so, and the feedback from beta testers (AKA my close friends) has been overall positive so far! I'm just as keen to get the game out as you all are, so look forwards to more announcements about that in the future! Regarding the Kickstarter campaign: after assessing some things and doing some number crunching, we've decided that we're going to hold off on launching our Kickstarter campaign for the moment. Don't worry, it'll still be coming soon - we're aiming for late-January 2023! As things are at the moment though, we need to make sure that we can launch a campaign that satisfies all of our backers and meets everyone's expectations. (And to be completely honest, the thought of competing with upcoming Christmas things is a little daunting). Thanks again for all of your ongoing support, and we'll update you further as we have more news!

[ 2022-11-12 01:13:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Recent News

Hello, and thank you to all of our wonderful players who have been played the demo so far! It's been a bit of a hectic month for us - we managed to exhibit at PAX across the weekend, which was exhausting but rewarding! Since then we've been working further on the game, updating some aesthetics and tweaking things here and there. That's all in the past though - you're here to learn about our Kickstarter, and we've got some great news regarding that!

Follow the Kickstarter here

We're aiming to launch the Kickstarter within a few weeks, and almost certainly sooner rather than later! For now we're still tweaking some of the rewards and stretch goals while we work out what our budget can afford - while there's lots that we want to add in, we don't want to promise things that we can't deliver. Here's a few things that we can confirm right now:

• Supporting the Kickstarter at the $5 tier will get you the full game as a reward! That's AUD, too - roughly $3 USD. What a bargain, right?
• Three of our stretch goals, if achieved, will let us add in new modes to the game, letting you play the game with a different experience.
• Want to appear in the game? One of our tiers will let you do so, with a surreal, glitched out image of you!

It's very exciting to be undertaking this, and to think of how much more we can improve the game once we've acquired more funding. If you're not already following us on Twitter or Instagram, we post updates, news, and memes there - it's the best place to hear about updates for the game. Thanks for supporting us - you won't regret it!

[ 2022-10-20 05:22:31 CET ] [ Original post ]