Greetings and happy Monday, Mythies!
This update comes a day later than usual because yesterday I went to a Cherry Blossom festival! You may have seen some viral videos going around about how absolutely stupidly crowded the festival was in DC… thankfully, that’s not the one we went to! There’s another park near DC that has Cherry Blossom trees where we literally only saw one other couple walking their dog. Then there was a celebration going on at the National Harbor where there were a lot of vendors and we even got to see a live Taiko performance (which made me think fondly of a certain Mythos character).
I kinda didn’t bother dividing this up into personal life and game update sections because, um… the first game is done and I haven’t started really working on the second, yet. Right now there’s really only one hurdle left before I can start working on Book Two in earnest: Steam. Book One is still in the review queue, and I’m sure they’ll find some reason to reject the build and have me resubmit. As soon as Steam approves the game for sale, however, there will be an official release date announcement with all the hoopla.
Bear in mind, you can still grab Book One on itch.io if you don’t wanna wait! A cool feature of itch is that I can actually load Steam keys into it, so if you buy it on itch it will automatically send you a Steam key when they’re available.
As a little treat for reading this far, I’m going to give you a bit of a teaser into what Book Two is going to be all about. If you haven’t finished Book One, you may not wanna read any further because like… spoilers.
Book Two will take place a few years after Book One, but I’m not going to be specific about how many years… simply because tying Book One to a specific year painted me into a corner with some narrative choices. Years will now be ambiguous! However, we’re keeping most of the story to the Baltimore area – especially since the finale of Book One has made Baltimore the epicenter of the explosion that made magic public to the world at large. Lots of supernatural beings have “come out” openly as to what they are, which has very suddenly warped the social landscape. As was noted at the end of Book One, the public emergence of the supernatural has been suspiciously taken in stride by humanity. There’s not much friction on whether or not these creatures exist; it’s just been accepted. Nobody seems to know why, if they even think to question it at all.
However, that’s not to say all humans are okay with this. There’s a small, but loud faction of humans who are very opposed to these “monsters” living amongst them. While the governments of the world scramble to find ways to integrate these beings into society (do centuries-old vampires owe back taxes?), there are angry pundits screaming about how these “dangerous creatures” need to be dealt with. The years since the ending of Book One have warped the world severely and irrevocably.
Now here’s the part I’m hoping everyone is going to trust me on: Book Two is going to feature a new main character. Again, you will get to select male or female (and, if it’s not too hard on me, I may allow you to pick he/him, she/her, or they/them pronouns independently of your body type), but it will not be Kylie/Kyle Nelson.
Before anybody can complain about NTR (especially since so few people who complain know what it actually means): None of the love interests from Nelson’s circle will be love interests in the new character’s life. That specifically means that Tara, Sophia, B, Rain, Mara, and Lisa will not be romanceable by this new protagonist. Likewise, Nelson won’t get to romance any of the Book Two love interests when they get to headline another game.
Why a new MC? I was going to try to keep Ky as the main character, but the stories in my head were always told from various viewpoints. Trying to make it all on Ky makes them feel a bit too much like the main character of the world, which they were never meant to be. Plus, being as I plan to keep making stories in this world, having them be the target of every love interest’s affection feels weird to me. Each main character will have their collection of ladies to choose from, though characters from the others’ stories will be making appearances. So don’t think you won’t see your favourite Book One girl in Book Two; you just can’t see her naked this time. Don’t worry, there may be a whole new character you find even more appealing!
Plus, the romance was never the focus of the games, but I think everyone has come to accept that by now.
Anyway, that’s all the rantings I have for today! Next week I hope to have some news on the Steam progress! I won’t be giving any more clear previews of Book Two until Book One has made it’s full Steam release.
Keep the legends alive!
– Nine