Happy New Year everybody! 2021 kinda came and went kinda quickly, wouldn't you say? But this post isn't about how our 2021 was, it's about talking about updates for our favorite old man Marine VN! This post isn't going to be well organized because I have no idea how to write DevLogs. But, we're in this together.

The last update for All in Love and War was about a month ago. Since then, I took two breaks. One was to study for my Finals (I just barely passed) and the other was, of course, for the holidays and dealing with my family. I still tried my best to make sure I was working on the VN, albeit at a slower speed than I was during the Jam. During the month of December, I wrote roughly 12.5k words and I started on 9 CGs (4 of them are part of sex scenes, so get excited for that). However, right now I'm at a point where I have no idea how much I have left, so please don't ask me when the next build is coming. Last DevLog, I said I would like to get the game finished by 2022. This DevLog, I learned my lesson and decided to not give any specific deadlines. Thankfully I didn't get any comments asking when the next build was coming, but I figured I might as well clarify now.

Part of the reason why it's up in the air when I'll actually finish is that I want to retouch the current parts of the story I have uploaded to itch.io. Everything in the current build was rushed out due to the deadlines set by the Jam. While this made me work harder, this didn't give me much leeway when it came to editing. I spent last month figuring out a good rhythm between working on the game and my own life, so things should be smoother on my part. Expect to see a few changes to the story you have already in the next build. I'm also interested in adding a few things to the VN (such as text options or a start-up screen), but we'll see what happens.

Another thing that's been requested is sprites for side characters. So far the only characters that have sprites are Hardy and Mr. Mahmud. I'll probably give sprites to Eddie, Richards, and Hanks but I can't really justify giving sprites towards anyone else because of how little they appear. I also want to work on Mr. Mahmud's sprites a little bit because right now they look a little... weird. And maybe I'll give Hardy a new outfit.

I also want to say that composer Dust0 is creating one more song for the game. I think you guys are going to like it a lot. However he is quite busy, so the next build may not contain it. But eventually, the game will have the song.

The last thing I want to talk about is that I want to clarify what type of VN this is. This VN has only one ending, and none of the choices you make will dictate what ending you'll get because there's only one you can get. I got a couple of people asking if there were other routes planned and there's only one. If you are interested in a VN with multiple routes, and multiple guys to pick from, then I'll have you know that I do have a project that's exactly just like that. I mentioned that in my last DevLog and I'm mentioning it again now. So yeah, look out for that. But for now, we have All in Love and War, and it's just one route, one ending.

The next build will probably feature the complete story. I can't say anything about the rest of the story because then I'd be spoiling stuff. I will say that I'm expecting a good chunk of my audience isn't going to like it. This is mostly because I'm a novice writer since all the editing in the world won't be able to hide the fact that this is my first VN. That's fine if you don't like the ending, just please don't get angry at a small VN dev who just wants to draw hot old men banging each other and simply tell me what you didn't like about it. In the future, I'll use the criticism you guys give me and make a better product and we'll all be better off for it.

And that's about it. I'm so grateful for everyone who has downloaded All in Love and War, it means so much to me since this is my first VN and I want to make you all happy. I want to make content that gay men can enjoy so I'm glad you guys are enjoying the VN and telling me what I can do to improve it. If you enjoyed it, please rate it 5 stars, it means a lot to me and the project. Also make sure you check out the other project I'm working on, Dwarven Destiny. The writing's really cute and I made all the sprites:

 

See you later!