Hey guys.

So two weeks ago I reached a breaking point and had a major mental breakdown and almost deleted all my games and accounts and drank like half a bottle of whiskey. Then the next day I started working on something new while listening to Bear Ghost's Jiminy album on repeat and it distracted me from wanting to die, so I threw myself into it, as I am wont to do, and now two weeks later, I have a game that's close to being ready for an initial release.

So yeah there will be a new OW side game soon. Does "side game" really still work in this situation? Unsure. I feel like side game implies a connection to the original universe but this is a complete AU so it feels a bit different. Ah well. New OW AU game then maybe hahaha.

What is this game? Well it is a vampire AU because why not. I have a penchant for getting a random little thought in my head and then turning it into a complete story and universe within 24 hours. Though it is somewhat silly. I feel like the vibes are more like OFW in that it doesn't take itself too seriously and is mostly just campy fun, though there will be some darker and feelsy bits in there, too. Just don't expect anything too serious. This is not an epic of literature, even if my weird writing style sometimes lends itself to that LOL This is just a ridiculous story I have written in the middle of a mental breakdown.

Ok Carrot but what is this game actually about, besides vampires? You may ask. And I am happy to tell you.

It revolves around Iggy meeting Genzou one night and becoming a bit smitten. Except the reason he becomes a bit smitten is because Genzou wants to suck his tasty tasty blood and is therefore charming the socks off of him. Cue the start of their ridiculous relationship wherein Iggy is completely oblivious and Genzou is hungry. See? It's very silly LOL You will need to make choices in the game to keep Iggy alive. Basically if you are able to charm Genzou enough he will change his mind and start falling for Iggy, too. If not, Iggy will get bloodsucked. Though the "charming" just involves Iggy being his typical oblivious and cute self.

There will also be other characters and vampires involved down the line. For instance, at some point it will switch from needing to charm Genzou to needing to charm other vampires as their lives become more interconnected. All the while Iggy still being completely oblivious that they all want to eat him. I haven't even decided yet when Iggy will finally figure out the truth haha.

Actually that's the thing, that I still have zero idea where this story is even heading. That's why I plan to just work on it in chunks I'll call "episodes" because they kinda feel like that. I'll just work on new eps for it as I get ideas and have inspiration. This also means less pressure for me, which is good, because I'm becoming unemployed and will have to start job hunting and maybe taking classes with the unemployment agency all while being very depressed, so this will allow me to just work on it in small chunks as I have time and inspiration between my other projects and the disaster that is my RL. Currently I have pretty solid ideas for the first two eps and where they'll go, though after that I only have sporadic ideas of things that could happen, so it's quite open where everything may end up heading down the line.

Oh also this is technically a crossover because it will have both OW and WtDSR characters because I thought that would be fun and silly. Most of the chars will end up being vampires I think though some will be involved in other roles. I already have some of their designs floating around in my head, though they likely won't appear in the game until at least the second ep. I'm being pretty fast and loose with vampire lore and just having fun with it though so as I said, don't expect anything too serious with it.

Since I'm mostly just writing this as a fun distraction for myself, I'm not worrying about or focusing too heavily on high production value, so it may feel a bit less polished. I'm not sure. Having said that, I'm still spending hours scripting lots of ridiculous movements and expressions and using shaders to get the vibes just right because I can't not. Maybe it'll just be that there are less CGs and other art and such. There will still be some of course but I'm allowing myself to not feel like literally everything needs new art and just let the sprites do most of the work for me except for key moments I feel really need it.

I currently have around 15k written and 11k of that scripted. I'm in the middle of writing the final scene, though the final scene is quite long and involved. The first ep will probably end up being around 20k total with all the choices so maybe like an hour and a half long or so. I also have most of the UI and menu stuff already done since I borrowed heavily from one of my other games to set the foundation and then just changed it from there to fit the new vibes. That's the nice thing about having multiple games under my belt with a variety of different menu and UI styles: makes it a lot easier to whip up quick nice-looking UI bases for future games without too much trouble.

And that's about it. I hope to have the first ep done pretty soon. I will likely release it without a whole lot of fanfare or polish because to me it just feels like a silly side project. However it's a silly side project that's keeping me alive and I am having quite a lot of fun with it now, so hopefully others will have fun with it, too! I hope you'll enjoy the silly vampire shenanigans and getting to see some of the characters with new designs and some new dynamics!