For me, at the end of the day, it's more important for the game to sell than how it looks. As far as 'which of your games is the most fun to play' ... this was literally the one I sunk hours into enjoying the gameplay. It came out feeling pretty damn balanced and fun as hell to play. I want this to sell so you're willing to make more card games in the future.

Well, as balanced as a card game can be

Jokes apart basically everyone who played it said the gameplay and story were great. Problem is that not many people played it because of the art. That's why the art reboot, though of course there are no guarantee that it will work. At least I've learned the lesson on what kind of art to never use again in one of my games (at least when romance is involved).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCvxoNhXUAAU-hf.jpg" style="max-width:100%">https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCvxo2cXsAAHsic.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

starting to update the steam banners (of course they won't go live until I have published the update).

When I look at it, I wonder HOW I thought that kind of art was OK. Maybe I was possessed by some demon? Well at least I managed to stop in time for Roger Steel

So, today I checked the texts changes to make to match the new hotter CGs, and surprisingly they were really few!

The only two were Alex/Mira and Alex/Samuel. In particular this last one since they're fighting in front of a crowd, they can't get suddenly naked!!



But all the others could work. I mean, it's normal that in the romance CG texts the writer describes the "whole process" from dressed to naked and kissing, and in many other games I had either only the couple in underwear, or both naked (depending on the game). So they work fine.



I am going to upload a test build with the new art, before putting this on Steam. The musician also made a cool remix of the theme song, more slow, I think sounds nice Of course remember that the manga version CG are MUCH HOTTER (full nudity) so if you don't want to see that, remember to turn the suggestive content option off when you play the game. And obviously when I update the mobile versions, the suggestive content option won't be available there because of the appstore policies.

It's still too early to say if was really a good move or not (but I have no regrets) though at least during the Steam Summer sale, PSCD was NOT the worst seller like in the past (and in "the top10" even). Might be the "new art" effect, we'll see in 3-6 months. But I'm optimistic that it was a good idea. And I'm 100% sure I'll never do "realistic/painted" art styles EVER AGAIN!

The most popular titles are as always the RPGs. Good thing I'm making another right now...

Mark me as super disappointed by this. Personally the new art is so much worse than the original. I am sad that there aren't others that like that style, at least enough to make it viable for you.

When they say that as indie you have freedom, is a big lie. It's enough to make stuff slightly different from what people want, and you might throw months of hard work (and money) in the toilet...

From what I understand, the old art style will still be available, right? The manga one is to give players a second option. I'm thinking it's kind of like how Hanako had two different art styles for Black Closet and you could choose which one to use. I think it's fine to have the new art style as long as the old one is kept, too, for those who like that one better.

Yes of course the old one is still available

All realistic art romance CGs seem to crash the game in the Steam beta (if it's still in beta). Manga works fine though.



Only got a text output file from one of the crashes, this is the short version:



I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.



While running game code:

File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 256, in script

python:

File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 260, in <module>

renpy.call_in_new_context("_main_menu")

File "renpy/common/00action_other.rpy", line 375, in __call__

renpy.call_replay(self.label, self.scope)

File "game/plot/romance.rpy", line 4298, in script

RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded while calling a Python object

Uh, weird. Do you have a savegame before that happens ? I think I tried a few and it was working, but might be some particular situation...

Edit: nevermind I found it too. Will check that tomorrow!

OK I found the error, was quite tricky (some Ren'Py issue with checkign for all the possible CGs and the manga on/off thing I added). I update the Steam beta, I tested here a few CGs and they were all working. Thanks a lot for spotting this!!

I finally came around giving the new version a try and I think the manga artist did a great job redrawing the sprites. It's a huge improvement especially on the guys. (Christophe is waaay too hot for me now! )

...

As much as I love it though... why on earth does Samuel lose his beard on the romance CG?!?!

Ah lol, I completely missed that! I'll see if artist can do a quick fix

That would be much appreciated.

Or I could just add a line:

"Samuel quickly shaved his beard before plunging his tongue in your mouth."

would make perfect sense, right??????

That would be hilarious!

In my opinion both artstyles have strong and weak points, the best CG in the original were the ones with Rigel, all yuri romances (mainly because Diana looks hotter in the orginal style than in manga style in my opinion) and the one with the robot, in rest i prefer the manga ones especially because i was very disappointed with both of Kaidan's CGs, i think he was the one of the hottest male romance options and I'm happy with the new CGs, my favourite CGs were the moonlit picnic and the majestic sunrise in both styles, the most romantic and sweet

Sure there can be pro/cons for both styles, but as matter of fact since this manga update the game consistently sells more, so... stats don't lie, the vast majority of players prefers this new art style

So today got the "Samuel CG beard fix", so I'm updating the Steam version, no longer beta since nobody found any other issues I'll also update the installers on my own site later today or max tomorrow.