Lemma Soft Forums

From my experience in hanging out with the yuri crowd, people will not get too upset about side-character relationships if they do not overwhelm the story and do not feature sexy content. I don't think anyone expects all yuri games to take place in a World Of Gay where nobody is heterosexual EVER.

If your "side couple" takes over the limelight at any point, like there's a section where you're playing as them or really focusing in on their lovey-dovey moments, or there are CGs of them making out, or (gasp!) h-scenes featuring them together, then this will upset some people if the game is promoted as a "yuri game" because that's clearly non-yuri content. Many yuri fans will still play a game that has some yuri and some non-yuri content, but they really don't like being surprised by it.

A background girl mentioning her boyfriend should not cause trouble. A "bonus add-on!" that's all about her romance with her boyfriend is going to get people protesting that it doesn't belong in a yuri game.

Also, if you have any bisexual love interests, some yuri fans are a little nervous, especially if you don't find out they're bi until later or they reminisce about a male partner. And any "bonus scene" focusing on them with a male partner, if the game is marketed as a yuri game, is going to get a lot of complaints. OTOH I'm pretty sure many of those same people would be okay with a game that was completely about stealing a girl from her boyfriend, partly because they'd know up front what to expect. There have been a handful of games where bisexual character routes turned out to be "Surprise! Now you are required to watch your love interest and/or your own character have sex with men!" which makes people a little wary.

If the game isn't marketed as a yuri game to begin with, just a game that "contains some yuri", then you don't need to be nearly so worried.

If you market it as a yuri game, all the romantic CGs should probably be yuri-only.

Not sure if they'll stick yet, but I've made some edits to the title and description to downplay the "horror" genre advertising.

For whether the game counts as "Yuri" or not, I'm inclined to believe none of the problems mentioned are present in this game, but I'll probably continue to not use the term myself when marketing the game. That will probably shrink my already-small potential audience, but I don't want to end up being part of a controversy. I may be in control of how the game is advertised, but I have no control over whether others consider the game to be Yuri or not. (Kind of like how the beta testers didn't consider it to be a horror game.)

Now that the portraits for the main characters are complete, here are a few work-in-progress screenshots of the game:


[Cho, Yue, Akomi]


[Kagami, Yue, Akomi]


[Yue, Akomi]

(As a side note, if there's a way to resize images with the BBCode used on Lemmasoft, I'd like to know. I feel like these screenshots take up quite a bit of the screen at base size.)

One of the routes is now art complete, and I estimate that a little over half of the game has all of its art implemented. Most of the art assets that don't exist yet belong to the bonus features, so the rest of the main game will hopefully be finished relatively soon.

I've also been working on an itch.io page for the game, which includes a new piece of promo art and potentially final screenshots. Not sure when I'll make that public yet, but it's nearly ready from a design standpoint.

After the portraits are finished for the game, there's just one missing art asset to go and then it'll just be implementation of sound effects and final testing. If things go particularly well, the game might come out sometime this year. We'll see what happens.

Every scene in the main game except for one now has a first draft of its art implemented. All that's left for art integration is to wait for the art assets for the bonus scenes and revise anything awkward in the current draft. In the meantime while I wait for the bonus scene art, I'll see about adding sound effects to appropriate sections of the game. Though finding good sound effects has been rather difficult...

Might be time for me to consider my advertising plans... This is my first commercial game project, so that part of the process is new to me.

All of the game except for one bonus scene now has art. Once the last few art assets are finished sometime this month, all that will be left are final fixes and adjustments before the game is ready for release.

I might consider looking for a beta tester or two to help with the final checks to make sure everything is working properly. That way I'll be sure that no bugs make it through to the final release.

I'm not ready to set a release date, but it's looking like I may be able to release by the end of the year or early next year, if everything goes smoothly from this point on. I'll probably make the itch.io page for the game public once I get the last few art assets, so people can get ready for the launch.

The itch.io page for the game is now up. Final testing is underway right now, so hopefully the release might be soon. I'm hoping to release either sometime this year or sometime early next year. The current planned price for the game is $15 USD.

I hope some people are looking forward to the game! I didn't expect this game to take the better part of five years to make, but it may almost be ready now. Just a little more to go.

A release date has been set: January 4th, 2019. Unless a game-breaking issue comes up in testing before then, the game will go live sometime on the 4th. I'll also post a new thread for the game in the "Completed Works" section of the forum at that time.