Hello!

It's been a while since I've updated this game on Itch! I've been dropping dev updates on Twitter here and there. It's about time I collect it all in one place. 

First of all, I got a lot of new followers! Aloha! I'm Ari, a Filipino American from Hawaii! I'm a freelance hobby artist, stumbling through life and creating things for fun! Since I graduated university in 2019, I've spent a lot of my time catching up on all the drawing and art I wasn't able to create while studying. I learned that I really enjoy drawing beefy dudes, and I like exploring a lot of different genres and media! Thank you for supporting me on my art journey!

Now, about this project. A lot of stuff has changed in the last two years since Demo v.2.0! Other than COVID, I found a job and joined the work force,  opened a merch shop, and really got back into the world of drawing and creating! To be honest, I wasn't too happy with how the game was before, so I scrapped it and reprogrammed a totally new version! This will probably be a really fat update because I have a lot to talk about. We'll start with coding!

CODING

You might not be familiar with how Ren'Py works, and that's ok! In the previous builds, I used imagemaps to code the UI. That meant, if I wanted to add a new setting or move something around later, I'd have to upload whole new images for the entire UI and it also meant I had to reprogram the hotspots so buttons worked like how they're supposed to. BEGONE IMAGEMAPS! SOBS YOU MADE LIFE DIFFICULT! 

I've since made it so that if I wanted to add or remove elements in the UI, life would be much easier. It'd also be easier for translators too (maybe, idk. i have no experience in translating), if they ever wanted to translate this game. 

The game now uses Ren'Py DSE (Dating Sim Engine) more effectively! I confused myself with the relationship points and stuff before, but hopefully, now that I'm using the DSE properly(?), it'll be easier to track relationship points and it'll make your decisions/choices in the game more meaningful. Now, you'll need to reach a certain threshold of points in order to advance your relationship with the love interests. Before, it was messy and I have no idea what I was doing LOL.

WRITING

The intro has been rewritten to resemble romantic comedies better? It's just more fun to me and I removed a lot of unnecessary dialogue. A lot of Sidney and Basil's events have been rewritten too for continuity's sake. 

I can't forget that this is also an educational game, I added cultural/creator notes about the game's setting! The game takes place in Hawaii, so I added some little tidbits about the food or lingo some characters use. You can toggle this feature in the options menu!

There are also (and have been) chemistry quizzes and lessons in this game! They are now completely optional! The chemistry quizzes won't occur unless you've attended a chemistry lesson earlier in the week. Also, I haven't updated any of the chemistry portions or lessons because my focus has been the story and characters for now.

ART

Ah yes! Art! My love, my strength. My bread and butter. I was debating redrawing the sprites and CGs for a long time since my current art style is inconsistent with the art style I had when I started this project. Well, I finally decided to do it! The main cast now have new sprite art (and sidney has bigger muscles yayyy)!

I also redrew some CGs!

(old)

PATREON

Some have expressed their interest in supporting me on Patreon! Thank you so much for your interest, but I know myself well and as a full-time pharmacist with a chaotic work schedule, I think I'll struggle keeping regular updates. As you can see, I'm very bad at updating regularly and I kinda just post whenever I want. Art and creating is my passion and I'd like simply to create and share my love with you. If I ever made a Patreon, it'd be for a sticker club or NSFW art or something. But all that takes a lot of planning. No Patreon from me for now. 

The best ways to support me are to follow me on social media, comment/leave reviews and constructive criticism, and/or share my work with your friends! Even though I can't always reply to your comments, I do try to read all of them and am thankful to you for sharing your thoughts with me!

FUTURE OF APC

None of the above changes I've mentioned are reflected in the current demo I have up. I'm still smoothing out some wrinkles and coding Basil's new sprite into the demo, so give me some time to make everything look nice before I give you Demo v.3.0. I'll keep chipping away at this project! I hope to release a complete version without Kagami's route and the chemistry lessons first. This means just Sidney and Basil's full routes and none of the events that lead to Kagami's route. I'd like to reiterate here that progression of Kagami's route is linked with your progression in learning chemistry. After all, he is literally "Mr. Chemistry". Anyway, I don't want to keep you waiting too long so I'm prioritizing Sidney and Basil first. I'll release an update with the chemistry later. If you feel differently about this, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

CLOSING

After-Party Chemistry is the first project I ever started using the Ren'Py Engine, and working on it helped me understand game development. I was a senior in high school when I first slapped this thing together, and I've been working on it now for almost a decade... Wow, I feel old. That's okay though! I've accomplished a lot in my adult life, and I'm happy I'm still able to create. In retrospect, it was foolish of me to jump into such a big project with little planning and zero experience. It was very overwhelming and frustrating, but I've learned a lot since my baby days LOL. I think, moving forward, all the changes I've made will make it a little easier for me to complete this project. Regardless of how long development takes, I love these characters very much and I'm thankful to those of you who have been following my journey as a creator. I hope you'll continue to support me! I appreciate it a lot and can't thank you enough for helping make my dreams come true.

Stay safe, stay well!

Ari