Hello hello! Originally I wanted to post this on my birthday (on the 12th) but I didn't have the time to. Thankfully April is a based month full of special days (did you know that Animal Crossing turned 24 two days ago?) so posting today still allows me to celebrate someone's birthday. That's right! Happy birthday Anatole France!! Oh and Hara I guess 🙄

he hid himself to cry after this

So. News. Hm. Where do I start. Oh well.

SHAMELESS PROMO MOMENT

ELGM now has both a Steam and Itch page!! Realistically speaking I don't think I can do anything cool with the algorithm but if you wishlist it on Steam you'll get an email notification when it will be available for real and if you follow me on Itch you'll get that + email notifs for devlogs as well. I think. I'm not sure how this all works. 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3604100/Et_le_grain_mourut/

https://fuelli.itch.io/elgm

I'll definitely try to make the store pages prettier (and add better screenshots as the graphics progress) later but this will do for now...

Progress + about the upcoming beta test.

The game itself is fully playable! By this I mean that all the (French) text, backgrounds and music have been inserted, and that all the extra features (inventory, gallery and achievements) are fully functional as well. Two friends have playtested it so far, and I'm very happy with their first impressions :) It's SO satisfying to finally be able to talk about their feelings on everything.

I still need to finish incorporating their feedback + improve the graphical aspects (aka draw draw draw) but the second wave of French-only beta tests is coming soon... Which is precisely why I created the store pages that "soon": I'll be using Steam for all beta tests from now on, which I hope will make things easier for both me and testers. So if you'd like to take part in that, be sure that you have a Steam account!

Introducing... the portrait gallery!

One of ELGM's extra features is the portrait gallery. As you play, you'll be able to unlock character portraits and discover additional info about the cast. Most of the portraits are unlocked pretty much naturally as you go through routes for the first time, but a few are "hidden" behind specific choices. I hope that this feature will help players gauge their progress on the game in a fun way :] I'd like to do special illustrations for those (making unlocking a portrait even more exciting!) but I'm using sketchy sprites as placeholders for now. There are 21 portraits to unlock in total!

What's next?

I'd like to come back to you as soon as I'm able to proceed with the playtests. For now, as I said, I'll focus on drawing more placeholder sprites and CGs to make the beta pleasant to play!