Hi Everyone,

I thought I would give a little update regarding where I'm at right now, as it holds some importance on the development of Brave Paradise. 

As always, there will be a TLDR at the end. This will be a lengthy post that summarizes the thoughts I've been having for the past two months.

In my last Devlog, I mentioned that I needed some time to take a break from Brave Paradise for some important matters happening in my own personal life. Well I'm happy to announce that two months later, I'm a happy homeowner and I proposed/got engaged to the love of my life (I told you that good things were happening!). Taking a pause on Brave Paradise to handle the more important things in life has given me some time to reflect on myself as a person and as a developer.  While I still need more time to plan our wedding and to make sure that our house is set for the years to come, I will be starting to work on Brave Paradise again slowly.

Great, so... you're getting back to work on Brave Paradise? ...What's the catch?

While I was taking some time to reflect, I had a lot of thoughts about the direction I was going with Brave Paradise. At the beginning of the year, I took a hiatus to figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell. I really like what I came up with and I think it will be a great story. However,  I've started to thinking about where I stand as a developer. I started reading lots of VNs over my two month break, such as Echo, Password, Physic Connections, Far beyond the world, After years, etc. It's been pretty inspiring to see what all of my fellow furry VN developers have been doing with their own projects! I have also been listening to Let's Plays of Brave Paradise, which I have loved to see but it also gives me pause.

As a solo dev, there a lot of things to consider. How long is this project going to take? What are my strengths as a developer? How much time should I be realistically dedicating myself to this project? These are the matters that I have been thinking about for the past two months and I've come to a couple conclusions. Please remember that I've never worked on a project like this before, so many things here are new to me. I've never written a story besides a short webcomic 10 years ago, so a good amount of this is new territory.

As a writer, I beginning to know what style of writing is best suited for me and what would be best suited for the project. As an artist, I've come to learn about some things that are working artistically and what things are I could improve on with the genre of the story. As a project leader, I've come to realize that while I enjoyed the thought of being a major powerhouse for this gigantic project, I had ultimately been setting myself up for failure. While I was warned beforehand while working on this project as a demo, 8 routes is a lot. Obviously. If you've ever read anything like Password or Echo, even with a flow of constant updates, that can take YEARS to accomplish or even get halfway through the story. As much as I like working on Brave Paradise, I need to feel like I have an end goal that at least FEELS obtainable.

As an newly engaged homeowner approaching his thirties, the gravity of this project has changed. I have bills to pay, a full-time job, and loved ones to spend time with. I need to make sure that I don't let this project takeover my life. When I started this project during COVID while my job at the time was taking a break, I had a lot of time to myself.  We were encouraged to stay in our homes and learn new skills. As we begin to see progress with things starting to change (Not saying it's over, I'm saying that I'm vaccinated and slowly but surely able to see people in person regularly in person again), I need to be cautious of how much time I sit alone and work on Brave Paradise. It's not good for me to be spending a gratuitous amount of time in my room alone, getting lost my own fantasy world. I need to dedicate just as much time to friends as and stay communicative. It's why I don't setup any release schedule or Patreon page like every other VN. I need it to stay a side project in my life.

Essentially, if I'm going to stick with this project, I need to be working smarter, not harder. But this is a good thing. This is growth. This is me, learning what it takes to make a visual novel and making choices for what is best for me and for the project.

What does this mean for Brave Paradise?

Although I hate to do it again, I'm going to need to go back and rewrite a good amount of things. Over the past week, I've been thinking about what it's going to take to see this project to the end without compromising it. I've written a good story that I like. Now I just need to make it work for me. I'm really, really sorry to everyone who has started a Let's play because I know that updates like this are brutal (Sorry Shin and Ushio!). It feels bad for me and everyone who likes Brave Paradise. But I was at the point of either calling off the project and starting something different or salvaging all of the hard work I have done for the past year to make this feasible. While it took some time to weigh my options, I decided that I couldn't leave my precious boys behind and I know that many of you still want to see where this all goes.

So what is going to change? 

Unlike the last hiatus and rewrite, I've got a solid story that isn't filled with plot holes that kept me from moving forward. The intention of this rewrite is to bolster up the story with  the things that I'm good at, the things that I have found that aren't working for me or the story are going to be taken out, and the scope of the project is going to be cut down.

Here are things that are planned to change for certain:

• The narrator is going to change from Amalea to Emilio. This was something that really wasn't working for a couple reasons. People were confused about who was the narrator was, writing in Amalea's purple prose style of describing things wasn't working, and people simply enjoy Emilio's character with his sense of humor. Listening to the lengthy descriptions of Amalea's style of narrating was painful to hear on a Let's Play and doesn't necessarily fit my strength as a writer. This does mean that some things will need to change to fit the story as the perspective of everything is changing. For example, there will be a new opening from the perspective of Emilio leaving the portalport to Amalea island (this means you get to meet his family!). I've already written a rough draft of it and my editors have loved it, so I hope that you will as well. I think for many people, this will be a very welcome change.
• I'm changing the route system, which will change the way the story unfolds.  The newer system will be much more linear and will ultimately lend itself to a better story because I will have more control on when information is presented to the reader. In the new route system, Emilio will be joining a team, rather than competing as an individual.  This means that Emilio will be joining specific people on specific days and there will be a two linear paths in the game, depending on which team you have him join. You will still be able to spend private time and get a special ending with a character of your choice based on which path you choose, but it will be presented differently. This will make more sense when the next update releases.
• There will be some updates on the art. While on a break (I couldn't help myself), I already designed new menu art and updated the logo of the game a bit. Some of the characters and objects will be getting some updates to their designs as well. No promises but I would also like to do some more painting and clean up some of the CGs in the game.
• Still thinking about the chatrooms and what needs to be done with them. I do want to keep them and I think they are a fantastic addition to the story but with the new formula, it will need some reworking. More to come on this later.

When is the next update going to be? How long is this going to take?

To be honest, I don't know. I'm still setting up the house and planning the wedding. Rewriting everything is going to be a huge task for sure. Not only that, but I don't want to continue to only move backwards. For this reason, I'm gonna hold off on this update until I finish Episode 3. That means the next update will have days 1-5. So... it will probably be a while before we see anything but I will try to post updates on my twitter account of how my progress is going!

This sucks.

I know. I don't feel great about it, either. It feels bad to go back yet again but for the sake of the project and my own sanity, I know it needs to be done.

The TLDR:

I need to make changes to Brave Paradise again. It will take a while but I will make sure to progress the story in the next update.

Thank you for everyone who continues to show interest in the game and stick with me as I fumble my way through making this goofy visual novel. Hearing how much people care about this project keeps me motivated to keep going!

Best,

Dai