In this first month of 2024 I’ve been working hard on House of Chavez, obviously. Some good news: I’m at very good point. I am also really enjoying working on the game, since it’s refreshing coding all the new mechanics and coming up, once again, with new ways to use Ren’Py! By the way I made a vlog about the devlopment of the game if you’re interested in the game design / technical side:

And now, a little bad news: I’ve already gone over the budget by a good amount lol

As I think I’ve already explained in the past, the amount I ask on Kickstarter it’s just the amount I need to (hopefully) break even on launch day. In reality, in the vast majority of the cases, I go over that amount (and I don’t even count my own time…!). Then I hope that the regular sales will cover the rest, and in the following months/years will bring me some earnings.

Problem is that this time I’m doing a game that’s very different from everything I’ve done in the past so it’s all new to me. I honestly didn’t think it would take so long, but in an adventure game, you can’t “describe a puzzle”. You have to have icons for the items, design the mechanics, test them, adjust difficulty, and so on.

Many things that in a visual novel can be described by words, in a more visual game like a point’n’click adventure, need to have a visual counterpart. And all of those things takes time and money.

A possible solution

In any case, don’t worry: the project will be finished in time as promised. The only compromise I might have to make, is this: in one of the stretch goals, there was the possibility to have a naked version of all CG in the game, even the one not regarding the love scenes. Like this one below for example:

To keep things realistic, the naked version of those pictures would be unlockable in the gallery, by playing a simple puzzle game.

Now I might not make a naked version of just two images: one where Dolores and Adriana eat an ice cream together which I posted a while ago, and the other one is a scene where Silke and Adriana watch an horror movie, which you can see below:

I haven’t made my mind yet but to avoid going too much over budget I could do this. I need to see what happens at the end of the month, when I should have all the remaining art finished! In any case I don’t think it will be a big deal, since there is still a lot of other content in this game – there’ll be over 22 CGs, many of them with many variations, so even with just two love interests this game has as similar amount of scenes as, for example An Elven Marriage, which is crazy!

Conclusions

Regarding the game, as I’m testing it, you can of course replay it both romancing Dolores and Silke, so that should already give some good replayability. As I already posted, the minigames will be skippable the second time you play, or if you fail them too many times, so even replaying a game like this full of gameplay shouldn’t be an issue for those used to visual novels only.

There are also some optional things to discover, that won’t prevent you to reach the ending, but can shed some light on the characters of the story, and will be tied to specific achievements.

In summary, considering this is my first attempt at something like this, I am moderately satisfied with the result. If money and time wasn’t a problem, I’d probably also have liked to voice the entire game, since I think it’s common in adventure games to have the voiceovers.

If you’re interested in the game, please wishlist it here!