Hey everyone!

It has been an awfully long time, so first of all, sorry for staying silent for so long.

I guess, before I start about what's new with the game, I owe you a short explanation. I won't bore you too much with details, but starting about two years back (which was around the last update), my health started to act up. This included seeing the interior of a few more clinics than I'd have preferred, and forced me to take a few steps back. Naturally, this also impacted actively working on the game, which for prolonged times came to a halt completely. I apologize for not communicating about this earlier, but recovery took longer than I initially expected.

To make things worse, in the meantime the plugin I used for developing the game engine was discontinued indefinitely, so I spent some time to evaluate feasible alternatives, of which for a non-programmer there were discouragingly few. The ensuing controversy about Unity as a whole last year didn't make things any better. Eventually, instead of building everything new from the ground up, I decided to just stick with what I have, which for the time being still works best. Let's hope, it stays that way.

With that sorted out, and with my health having recovered, I'm finally back to fully concentrate on continuing with the game. I haven't been completely idle over the past two years either. While not actively creating content, I've refined much of the story and characters, which future content as well as the new update should heavily benefit from.

Speaking of the new update: So what's new?

• I reworked all character sprites and animations, to give them a more coherent, and also more animal-like look. Some (most visibly probably Aaron) have changed considerably, while others have received a more subtle update
• Updated the UI to give it a more unified, polished look
• Added a new intro scene
• Heavily reworked the dialogues and added in some new ones to better reflect character background and new story elements, with especially the scene at the harbour now being much more streamlined
• Trimmed down the Photo Mode and kicked the Photo Share feature completely, since it didn't justify the amount of work involved with every new photo, and I wasn't sure how to further implement it in a meaningful way
• You can now turn off those pesky tutorial messages at any time in the Settings Menu
• Fixed a number of pacing issues, generally sped up some UI animations and screen transitions
• Probably one of the biggest changes, at least in terms of working hours and production cost, created a new, original soundtrack. I wasn't really happy with the stock music I was using to begin with, so I invested in some audio equipment, set up a small home studio and decided to make it myself, which resulted in a more atmospheric soundtrack that reflects the mood I was actually going for.
• Last but not least, added a new story sequence

I also finally created a Patreon Page, after there has been shown some interest over the years, and also to cover some of the production cost. In return supporters will get some insight into the production process, like work in progress artworks, tidbits of music, and so on. Future updates will also be available on Patreon two weeks prior to the public update here on Itch.io.
You can take a look >> here

If you rather prefer a one-time donation and still would like to support the game, I've reactivated the Ko-fi Page

Again, sorry for the delay, and I hope you enjoy the new update.

Thanks for staying around!