We're very, very happy to announce that A Very Important Date has been Greenlit on Steam!
This wouldn't have been possible without you, our backers and our fans! We thank you and we're forever grateful to have all of your support!
There are just 6 days left on our Kickstarter! The money gained through Kickstarter will greatly speed up production, but it’s still an all or nothing scenario. Remember we’ve just unlocked 2 add-ons: new poster and our digital OST!
We were recently attacked for establishing diversity in our cast for our visual novel. We expected to be attacked because the internet can be a toxic place and trolls are gonna troll. It can’t be stopped. Artists and writers have to develop a sort of thick skin to be able to handle this sort of thing. We expected to get complaints about 1) being a visual novel and not a traditional “game” 2) not liking the art/writing/story or 3) for not being someone’s cup of tea. We also take criticism we get to help strengthen our game as a whole. But to be called essentially unrealistic PC nonsense strictly on the grounds of creating characters that are different races and having some of them not be straight? That was never expected, especially with yuri and yaoi VN’s being popular stories. It was especially unexpected to get that sort of message from a fellow visual novel developer.
So, here’s a quick rundown of the diversity in A Very Important Date. Though our game mostly takes place in another world, the continent that the main character finds herself on one morning is made up of 6 nations. The people that make up these nations all have their own common traits, be they skin color, eye color, hair styles, what have you, that separate the nations from one another. The ancestry of our first 8 suitors can be traced back through 5 of those countries. These same 8 characters come from multiple socioeconomic backgrounds. Within these same 8 suitors are 2 different LGBT characters. We have planned suitors beyond the first 8 that are also LGBT characters, including a transgender character (MtF). We didn’t do this to be all inclusive, we did it because we wanted to create actual, realistic characters, but making different characters is apparently a problem for this dev. We don’t see it as one.
Even if you don’t think you’ll play our game or don’t like the visual novel genre (which is fine, everyone has their own taste), please vote for A Very Important Date on Steam Greenlight. We need to “normalize” diversity because there truly is no “normal” and having the media perpetuate what they consider “different” as a problem in our society shouldn’t be something that we’re still dealing with today. Creators, like myself, can be too afraid to go “outside the box” because of comments and attacks like this, even to the point where they close up and stop creating. We can’t have that. Creativity can not be silenced and if we spread news of new diverse media, it can help encourage others to explore diversity and break from this close-minded bubble.
Preview: Our First Unlockable Add-Ons and Greenlight Link Fix
Hello, all you wonderous folks! We posted a public update on Kickstarter, but we’re going to give you a glimpse at what it said right here. Though, we haven’t hit our first milestone yet, we showed off our first unlockable add-on: these super cute chibis!
If we get 42 more backers, these will be turned into 1.5 inch acrylic charms that backers can get when they add-on to their pledge!
Also on the Greenlight side of things, we’re 19% of the the way to the top 100! Thank you all so much! If you have a Steam account and have not yet voted for A Very Important Date, we would really appreciate it if everyone could vote for us and share our Greenlight with others.
Our Thunderclaphas reached 20 supporters! However, we still need 80 more by December 19th to help with the last push of our Kickstarter. Please consider joining in on our Thunderclap to help get our name out there and bring more attention to our game!
We were told there was a problem with our Greenlight link in our previous post. We’re posting the proper (hopefully working) link here to help alleviate this issue. We would greatly appreciate it if those who reblogged our original Greenlight post could reblog this post as well so that everyone could get access to the working link. Thank you!
See you guys soon with more news and updates! See you guys soon with more news and updates!
Here at Naive Sprites we’re happy to announce that we have just joined Steam Greenlight! Greenlight is a system used by Steam that allows users to vote for games, mods, and software that they want to be sold or downloadable on their site. If we get enough votes, we can sell our game on Steam!
Being on Steam would allow us to have the DLC setup that we are aiming for PC, Mac, and Linux. This allows players to be able to buy stories individually instead of buying all the contents at once for a heftier price. Being on Steam and being able to release our content in this manner makes it so we can release our first batch of game content at a sooner date.
So click here and then vote for us on Steam Greenlight and please reblog!
Hello everyone, Noelle here!
Sorry for the delay in updating! Studying for final exams and Kickstarter are really time consuming.
We're 45 backers away from unlocking our first add-ons! I'm so excited! I've seen the art for these add-ons, too, and they are super cute. @darkenmarr only has a little bit more to do with them before they're finished, but they don't unlock unless we hit 100 backers.
We added a snapshot of Gwyn's Live2D sprite to our Kickstarter's description. Once he's fully finished (with animations/face and limb changes) it's onward to Emil's sprite!
In our third backer only update of Kickstarter we showed off two night time backgrounds and some WIP images of Gwyn's body pillowcase including a much more risque early sketch.
Tomorrow around 11 AM we're going to have a very important announcement! We would very much appreciate it if everyone reblog it for us and possibly take part in it once it's announced.
Also we would like to remind everyone about our Thunderclap! Taking part in it or reblogging it would be greatly appreciated.
And that's it for today! Remember to check back in tomorrow for our special announcement!
We’ve just posted an update on our Kickstarter page and have opened up donations through PayPal. This is a very important update, and that’s not just us being clever with wordplay. This update highlights what our backer-only posts will look like on Kickstarter and also reveals the direction our sprites will be moving towards for A Very Important Date’s final release. Here’s a hint: the word “moving” was actually wordplay that time. So click here to go over to our update on Kickstarter!
Also, we are still taking dev questions and in-character asks and we’ll get back to them shortly, so be sure to send in your questions here on tumblr!
It is our pleasure to finally announce that the time has come, A Very Important Date's Kickstarter is now live!Check it out here!
We have some wonderful rewards for our backers and they start at just $1 USD! Throughout the campaign we'll be updating on the game art, adding more features to the demo, discussing the future of our sprites, revealing some CG art, and finalizing the designs for some of our rewards (like the body pillow cases)! We will also be updating here with In-character asks and developer questions, like usual.
If you are unable to back us, we understand, but you can still help us out by sharing our links and spreading the word!
We’ve also added Linux demo to itch.ioand you can now fill out a form to be invited to our mobile demos.
Thank you all for being a part of this journey with us. We are so looking forward to seeing where this rabbit hole goes.
Because of how long it was taking to implement some of these features, we were unable to add in the Fast Forward feature for the updated demo.
For those that plan to play Gwyn’s and Emil’s chapters, you’ll want to save in the Prologue when Alison says "Um... I guess I’ll work with…”
To pull up the menu bar, press ESC or P keys.
Our mobile demos will be released in a few days. We’re currently working on fixing a bug in our Android demo.
We’re going to send our Kickstarter campaign information in in a little bit so it can be reviewed. After the approval process, we’ll let everyone know about it through all of our social media pages. We can’t wait to show you what we have in store for all you Very Important fans! Stay tuned for that announcement!
We’re down to just the final few hours of our giveaway! Be sure to get your entries in quick because this giveaway ends tonight, November 1st, at 11:59 PM Eastern Time! To enter, please visit these links:
which character has been the most fun to write for?
Justin V., Editor, Co-Writer, GUI Artist, and Background Concept Artist Most fun? Depends on the context, really.
If we’re talking most fun writing individual lines of dialogue, then I would say it’s a toss up because each character has their own tics and idiosyncrasies that set them apart. I like having to write overly verbose sentences for Gwyn and Emil. I like having to make up innuendo for Rory. I like having to write out Sven’s panicked lines where his mouth can’t quite keep up with his stream-of-consciousness. I like having to write more grounded lines for Harlan, Alison, and Julianna. I like the challenge that comes with writing for the twins, although they can be very time consuming when their together. They all have their quirks that appeal to me, but the most fun I had with dialogue has definitely involved Rory’s long con jokes and Emil’s long-winded insults.
If we’re talking about which character’s story I had the most fun writing so far, well, that’s difficult to answer since I haven’t got to Sven, the twins, or Julianna’s stories yet. Gwyn and Emil were fine, Rory has been a problem, but Harlan has definitely been my favorite. The mediator dynamic he has between everyone, the close ties he has with Gwyn, the bond he has with his croquet teammate, and the connection he has with his brothers makes him such a well rounded character for me. Seeing him overwhelmed with all of the different aspects of his life, while he tries to hold onto his happy Harlan facade made the character more appealing to me than I anticipated. I expected to hate writing for him, but he has easily been my favorite.
Noelle Hyzy, Project Director and Lead WriterLooks like Justin and I both agree on this topic. We love our characters for different reasons, but we have the most fun writing lines for Rory and Emil.
Both of these character types were new territories for me as a writer. I think part of the reason why Rory was fun to write for as a character was because of the jokes Justin and I would make while we were working and editing him. We would just slip in-character Rory styled innuendo into the scripts to see if the other would notice. These jokes would often find their way into the finished scripts because they worked so well. I think Emil might need to go over the sexual harassment policies with us, lol.
New territory is an understatement for Emil’s character for me. I had never written anything like him before, but writing for Emil and Alison in Emil’s story allowed me to tap into some pent up anger that I didn’t know I had. Somehow, writing for Emil was like therapy, which seems oxymoronic to say when you think about it. But once that unknown anger was gone, it became easier to write his lines because I now understood that mindset. Now Emil’s little outbursts are more funny to me, especially when put against the reactions from the other characters. After writing for them for this long, I’ve found that Emil and Rory tend to have stronger reactions to the other characters more so than anyone else (so far), with Rory being prone to make a joke and Emil quick to fly off the handle and berate someone.The most fun I had writing for a character’s overall story is pretty hard for me to decide. Gwyn was the first route I route for, so I feel his has a special place in my heart because of that. He’s the kind, sweet character that I usually write, but I also liked how his story developed as I got farther through it. His story also allowed me to develop the others and their backgrounds and the history of Mimsboro. So Gwyn’s really pretty important to me, but Emil’s story has a special place in my heart. Again, he was a foreign concept to me, and I even hated the character at first, but the challenge in writing him made him such a fun character. His story even contains my favorite piece of dialogue in the game. So it’s impossible to choose, I love them all, but Emil and Gwyn have been my favorite routes to write… at least thus far.Don’t forget to enter in our giveaway on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook!
We’re taking a break today from posting an ask or developer question while we work on some other important game related matters, but we’ll be back tomorrow with another! Over the course of the last few days though, we have posted a few supporter only updates and exclusive images on our Patreon page! If you’re interested in all the behind the scenes information, become a supporter on our Patreon today! Two of our tiers even allow our supporters to pick their own sketch to keep from an exclusive Patreon-only set, all drawn by our amazing sprite artist @darkenmarr!
Wanna see even more of darkenmarr’s beautiful artwork? Check out and follow her brand new Facebook page to see more of her non-Important Date related art.
Have you entered our giveaway yet? There’s still three days left, so you better hurry! You can enter once on each of our social media platforms. Click the links to find out how on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook . Good luck everybody!
See everyone tomorrow with another in-character ask or developer question!
Would you guys consider using voice actors for your game?
This is a question that we get asked quite often and we’ve definitely toyed around with the idea before. However, because of our current budget and how large our game is (speaking in terms of both word count and file size), we currently don’t think it’ll be possible. I don’t think we could do it for the main routes due to the number of characters we would need voices for and we would want all lines voiced to add the player’s immersion. Some visual novels only voice a set few lines here and there, and that works for many of them, but we would prefer to have all of our lines voiced or none of them and at this current point, that seems like an impossibility. Since we’re also updating episodically, getting certain character’s voice actors back to voice more stories could prove to be another complication.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we’ve fully ruled out the idea of having voices in the game. Personally, I would love to hear Rory and Emil bickering, Harlan’s laugh, and Sven quietly stuttering his way through an explanation, but voices bring a whole new set of expenses that we’re just not capable of working with currently. But if our Kickstarter showing somehow takes the game’s budget to far unexpected levels, we would definitely put it at the top of the list for considerations.
Hello all you wonderful fans! We're going to throw out a quick update between all of the questions and work we've been doing. Here we go!
We're working super hard on updating the next demo with more content! Right now, we're adding music and sound effects at the proper cues, making sure that choices work correctly, and making sure our Quit, Save, and Load menus actually do what they're supposed to do. We're getting closer and closer to getting this done, and just earlier today we finally ran our first test on our iOS devices! We're super excited about that, even if it woke up some sleeping bugs. We will work as hard as we can to make sure everything is in full working order before we post the newer demos so we can launch the Kickstarter campaign with our best foot forward.
On the writing front, Justin and Noelle have been working on Rory's main story where they're currently in his sixth chapter. We're going to have our reviewers look over Rory's first four chapters soon. Like Harlan's and the others before him, we'll take this critiques into serious consideration and use them to improve his story.
On the sprite, @darkenmarr is working on Gwyn's first CGs and will soon start on sketching one of our super special body pillow case designs that will be one of our Kickstarter Rewards! I just can't wait to see them!
Some background news, lordless just finished another background today and @furude is currently working on another. Combined, our two background artists have completed more than 50 backgrounds for A Very Important Date! There's only a few more to go! Who knew Mimsboro was such a BIG place?!
That's all the news for now. We'll be back tomorrow with another ask or developer question!
Dear Developers, What type of music do you listen to when you want to be super productive?
@furude, Background ArtistEither jazzy cafe songs or the more upbeat one (read: EDM XD).
@darkenmarr, Sprite and CG ArtistI listen to soundtracks, K-Pop, and Epic network music, you can find a few good playlists on YouTube. LAUV and OLWIK are some of my favorites.
Justin V., Editor, Co-Writer, GUI Artist, and Background Concept ArtistMusic, eh? If I want to be productive, music doesn’t help me, but I will say I’m a punk at heart. From early punk to pop punk to hardcore, it doesn’t matter, but it distracts me too much. Anymore I use various let’s plays or TV shows as background noise.
Noelle Hyzy, Project Director and Lead WriterListening to music while working is a relatively new thing for me. I would always pay too much attention to the music and not enough on what I’m actually supposed to be doing, but that seems to have changed now. Lately I’ve been listening to Aruvn’s covers and One OK Rock on Youtube or any one of my Pandora stations, like Hurts, Panic at the Disco, +44, Gotye, X Ambassadors, Poets of the Fall, Digital Daggers, or Billy Joel. I have a pretty broad taste in music, but if I listen to anything while wanting to be super productive it’s usually fast paced and upbeat or absolutely nothing at all.
Hello all! We would like to present to everyone to our fourth track, “Eat Me!” by @geoffmooremusic. This track will play during the game’s more angry and tense moments, when agitation and frustration run high.
For even more enchanting melodies, be sure to check out Geoff’s music on his Soundcloud.
While the development team is working hard to assure the next stage in development transitions smoothly, we wanted to remind everyone to check out the short demo we put together. You can find it on itch.io at https://naivesprites.itch.io/a-very-important-date! We have downloads for both PC & Mac a the bottom of the page. If you’re feeling generous, we encourage you to rate & leave a review as well, all feedback is greatly appreciated. You can see some pictures from the demo below!
We have some exciting news for all of you wonderful fans!
Our team has worked really hard the past few weeks to bring you our first completely in-house built demo for Windows and Mac. This demo uses the official engine the game will be using from now on. New features in this prologue demo include:
In-game menu with functional Settings, Resume, and Quit buttons
Ability to change Textbox Transparency, Music Volume, Sound Effect Volume, and Screen Resolution
Along with San Japan prep, we're working to make our demo available to mobile users.
We plan to add more features, like Save/Load and Fast Forward, and content, like Gwyn's and Emil's First Chapter(s), to these demos before our Kickstarter launch date.
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