? Dev Log 9 – Public Post: On Recent Controversies and New Content

Hi! Zak here ?

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⚠️ About the Itch .io Delisting Situation

First of all, I feel like I should address the whole delisting of NSFW content on Itch.io thing…
Well… it sucks. xD

I’m not informed enough to say who’s right or wrong or whether this will be a permanent change or just a temporary wave.
Regardless of that, my focus remains the same:
To try and make Trueclash one of the best visual novels in its genre. That’s it. And I’ll keep working toward that.

Still, I won’t be a hypocrite:
Your support, reaching new players and growing our community is essential to making that happen.

Right now, I’m paying Mark (our GUI artist) out of my own pocket… which is not sustainable. ?
And I have two close friends who have done everything for free so far, and that’s not fair either. Eventually, I’d love to bring in more artists to contribute with their work but that won’t be possible without a stable and self-sustaining income.

I really don’t like asking this this kind of thing but due to it being a dire time, allow me:
With Itch currently down and limiting discovery, please consider spreading the word. About what’s happening with the platform but especially about our game too.

Whether it’s on a site, a forum or a Discord you trust, anything helps.

Thank you again, truly, for being here.
Let’s keep pushing forward together! ?

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? Trueclash SFW Version

Some of you may have seen it on social media - we’re preparing a SFW release of version 0.2 for the public build.

We actually had this idea before all the recent drama started but it gave us a push to make it happen sooner than expected. Truth is, Trueclash as it is, already contains very little explicit or sensitive sexual content so making an adapted version wasn’t that hard.

We wanted to do this to help the game reach a wider audience, to share the world and story of Trueclash with more people.
Because in the end, this game isn’t just about adult themes:

 It’s about people. And how you connect with them along the way.

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? New Content – What’s Been Added

This week, I added about +2,000 new words to the story.

We're now sitting at around 8,000 words of total content for patch v0.3.

On top of that, I added +1,665 words of combat descriptions.
I’m listing these separately because they don’t really count as standard playable content, they’re part of how the battle feels but not seen in full during every playthrough.

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✨ A New Ending

I wrote a new ending this week and honestly?
It’s the one I’ve enjoyed writing the most so far but also the one that took me the longest

I used some skills I had from building scenes in other tools and tried to apply them in Ren’Py.
This scene includes:

• new transition animations

• new music

• new ambient SFX

• 4 unique scenes or CGs (some with variations)

• and a new fight sequence

It was way more fun to build and every time I test this scene in-game, I feel genuinely proud of how it looks and plays from both a presentation and storytelling perspective.

This is exactly the kind of direction I want to keep exploring, especially for story-heavy or emotionally important scenes.

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? Combat Strings

I also worked on the combat strings, the short bursts of text that show up during a fight based on the choices you make.

They took a bit more time to write and I ended up reducing the number of variations to focus on quality over quantity. These even have sound effects and animations heheh.
I’m really happy with how it turned out and it’s less buggy than Matt’s combat sequence was, so that’s a win-win!

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? What’s Coming Next

Next up, I’ll be wrapping up the end of the night scene which can play out with different characters depending on your choices, though there will be special focus on Harry, Matt, and Diego.

Let’s talk about Diego first:
Until now, the only solo moment you could have with him was a short talk to get to know him a bit better… and honestly? That’s just not fair compared to the other two ?

With Matt, you can go to the rooftop, train with him, or even bring him along to help handle the Harry situation.
With Harry, you can get physically closer, dance, have a deep conversation at the bar… or have an awkward bathroom moment <.<

So yeah, Diego deserves a bit more.
That’s why I’m expanding the solo training session with him to make it more meaningful. And you’ll be able to reach this scene through different paths, depending on your choices.

That said, even with the improvements, he still won’t have as many intimate moments as you can have with Matt or Harry… but maybe we’ll balance that out further down the line.

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?️ Mechanical Updates

The fight system used to be really bulky.
Every time I wanted to create a new fight, I had to copy and paste around 150 lines of code, then go through them one by one to tweak and adapt everything for the new match ?

But now that I understand Ren’Py coding a bit better, I managed to reformat the whole system so that all I need is… 4 lines of setup to start a new fight xDDD

Here is a print I took so you can see the difference visually without spoiling anything for you.

Honestly, this is a huge improvement for me!
It took some time, but now adding new fights will be way faster and less of a chore.
Just define those 4 lines and then it’s all about writing the dialogue and the fight itself, simple as that.

This new system is already in use for the upcoming fight but not for Matt’s.
I felt like changing Matt’s scene would be a bit risky for now, especially since I’ll probably keep refining the system even further.
So yeah, Matt’s training still runs on the old system but from your perspective as players, you’ll probably notice almost no difference.

However, now you’ll have animations, sound effects and a bunch of extra features that were hard (or nearly impossible) to implement with the old setup.

I'm really happy about this one! ^^

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? Visual Updates

I also made 7 new scenes/CGs, already implemented in v0.3.

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?️ GUI Updates – From our artist Mark

Mark’s been working a lot lately.

This week, he made several adjustments both in terms of code and in testing different parts of the UI that hadn’t yet been fully implemented in-game.
Here are a few examples of what he’s been cooking up:

? Credit screen sample:

?️ Choice menu implementation (still in progress):

We’re now dimming the background to give more visual focus to the moment.
The choice bars have been updated and Decision Echoes are now clearly highlighted.
(Note: The current highlight color is just a placeholder and will be replaced later.)

He’s also been reworking the main menu and testing some ideas on the title screen but we’re not ready to show those just yet ?

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? Music and Sound Effects? 

I saved 32 new sound effects to use and enhance scenes: 22 of them are already being used in v0.3! ?

Aim To Head Official has kindly allowed us to use their tracks in the game ?
Two brand-new soundtracks have already been added!

Also, this week I’ll be showing you Harry’s “not drunk” sprite!
I spent all day yesterday working on this one (because who needs rest, right? <.<) and I finally landed on a base I really like.
I’m excited to share it with you… But since my friends gave me feedback that pointed at one or 2 things that could be better… I’m back to the drawing board (photoshopping <.<)

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? Final Thoughts

That’s it for this week!
It was full of emotions, lots of improvements to both my workflow and the game’s overall quality.
One step at a time, we keep going ?