Hello everyone! After seeing the response By Your Hands received I want to clear some things up as this has been a bit of an oddball project for me. Before that, I want you to take this survey and tell me which project I should focus on in the future. After you're done, make sure you come back to this devlog. Also, this devlog assumes you've already played the first build of the game so it will contain spoilers for the first build.

First, I want to talk about how I came up with the idea for this project. Gay furry Visual Novels are always something I enjoyed because I liked the diversity and the different kinds of stories they could tell. However, time and time again I noticed several things that were recurring in several of them. The characters would often be wolves, tigers, dragons, or other common animals, the setting would often be a college, or at least the characters would be college students, there'd be a really dominant and aggressive love interest whose actions aren't questioned, a character's masculinity would be exaggerated to the point of being unhealthy, and there would be VNs that would deal with touchy issues with…little tact put into them. And a lot of the time the protagonist would just be a bottom which isn't great for me. I thought about a VN that deconstructed these common tropes and featured uncommon species and came up with the basic plot and characters for the VN, which was originally called "Loser School" as it focused on the characters who would often get ignored by other VNs. Now, this idea of a "deconstruction of common GFVN tropes that would feature a cast of uncommon species" was kind of pushed back, or at least I didn't feel like limiting the game's concept to just that. Since then, I realized I didn't really like the terms "deconstruction" or "deconstructing" because I feel like those words have lost their meaning and I really should pay more attention if a story is good than if it's making some commentary on something that really doesn't need commentary. I was also tempted to call it a "post-structuralist" work of fiction, but that sounds pretentious as fuck even if I did know anything about post-structuralism beyond that one Hennesy Youngman video. But that's the reason why the popular students are all canines and felines because those are species you're most likely to see in the furry fandom. I wouldn't say that the current version of By Your Hands is a "deconstruction" but rather it uses your expectations and perceptions about many furry visual novels and flips those expectations to make an interesting story. Like, Tucker's death would be a lot less shocking if he was like a naked role rat or something like that. It makes it more surprising when it turns out that Owen and Vlad are love interests. And it's certainly going to make both Wyatt's and Liam's roles in the story a little fun. I feel like the love interests being less common species made the VN more interesting in my opinion. However, for some reason, I was really insistent on hiding who the love interests were pre-release. I shouldn't have done this, because it made people think that Tucker, Wyatt, and maybe Liam were love interests. This would be considered false advertising, and for that I'm sorry. I'll be more open about the kind of content I'm bringing moving forward. 

I wanted to make this VN but I didn't want to split my efforts into another project when I had both Dwarven Destiny and Barachoda Bloom to work on. So I decided to hire a writer for the project. That would be Nemo, best known for being a part of the Minotaur Hotel team. I had him in mind as I love Minotaur Hotel and I knew he'd write something great. Going back to what I was saying about this VN flipping expectations, you could say that, on a meta-level, having the writer of the story not be the lead of the project is a subversion because they're usually always the lead in an FVN project, with the art being made by other people not being uncommon. I honestly thought it would be a nice experience to see someone else write the story I came up with. And it was really fun seeing him write the script and come up with ideas I never thought of. I made sure to make as few edits to his writing as possible because I didn't want to tamper too much with his craft. Change too much and the whole thing starts to crumble. I think he did a really good job on the demo. I'd only have to worry about making the art and code. When it actually came time to make the VN, I had different intentions than when I was working on the first build of BB. With BB, there's very little competition concerning non-furry bara VNs, and so my intent was to make a game that contained all the stuff I wanted to see (hot DILFs bottoming as well as being cute and sexy, a protagonist who was awkward but still managed to be charming in his own way, a story that represented me and my issues) and to inspire non-furry gay creators to make their own gay VN. So I put in a lot of effort that it looked good and had many eyes on it as possible, which is why it has things such as partial voice acting, original songs, and slightly more involved game mechanics. With this VN, there are literally hundreds of GFVNs out there that I just didn't want to compete with. Before release, I was really afraid of trying too hard with this game and standing out too much. Like with BB, I'd get random 1 or 2-star reviews from people who probably weren't interested in the game in the first place, and I feel like part of it is because it is trying to be that "role model" game but it doesn't quite hit the benchmark since it's so early in development and I only have the experience of one previous VN. Though part of it might have to do with how some people diss non-furry gay games. Anyways, I didn't think there's really anything that makes this GFVN stand out from the dozens of great GFVNs out there other than superficial things like, "there's a datable orca whale" and "there's a horny teacher you can fuck". If people were interested in this VN, it's probably because they're already a fan of GFVNs in general. That's what I thought anyways. So I didn't attempt to do anything to "elevate" it from other GFVNs, which is why the UI's generic and the soundtrack are all public domain songs aside from the title screen music (Then again there wasn't a lot of music in the first build). Barachoda Bloom was my passion project, and I wasn't sure about spreading that passion to another project. Looking at the reaction, I can see that the only thing people complained about was the lack of shading on the art, and even that wasn't too major.

That said, with the different intention of this VN as a side project and the more straightforward structure of the VN, I was more willing to do things I would have never done with BB. For example, the character designs were more sexualized than what I normally do. This is so it would be more in line with games such as Extracurricular Activities and After Class which had highly exaggerated body proportions for its characters and sexy outfits for most of their characters. This is most obvious with Kamil and Mr. Baker whose designs I would never create outside of a furry VN, but I was quite indulgent in drawing unrealistic bodies I found sexy. The bigger the tits and ass the better. The obvious exception, of course, is Ben whose body is pretty plain-looking even in a more "mainstream" story. This was intentional as this is supposed to make Ben less notable than the other characters with sprites, despite being a weirdo to most other characters. This probably contributed to Ben being one of the least popular characters though. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the people liked the designs for Tucker, Wyatt, and Liam more than the other characters pre-release, which is not intentional but I do think them being considered more "attractive" than the main cast was something that makes sense within the story. Another thing I did with this VN was that I was less afraid of creating characters who are potentially unlikable. I don't like writing characters who are unlikable because I don't like thinking about unpleasant people in general, but since this VN is written by someone else, I'm more willing to put in characters that have bigger flaws. I had the desire to make a VN that included raw conflict and explored dark themes, instead of the generally sweet vibes that BB has. This VN deals with some serious issues, but so far we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. It's going to be interesting to see how people react to certain points of the story. I've already had some fun seeing people talk about their reaction to Tucker's death. I also made sure that the love interests were more balanced. In Barachoda Bloom, I made it pretty obvious that Ahmed's the most important love interest. For this game, there was no reason to push a particular love interest so no love interest is more valid than another love interest. I feel it's important to highlight this as there have been demands for more variety in love interests and I didn't want to downplay that diversity by having most of the love interests be overshadowed by the "elite" love interest. Kamil and Connor have slight biases towards them because they're Rex's childhood friends, the first two love interests you meet, and Connor's route is where you have sex the earliest, but that's more because I had a specific story in mind rather than me trying to push those two as the two most important love interests. Pick whoever you want and don't worry about one love interest getting more focus than another. Also off-topic, but if you're going out of your way of making love interests that are more important than the other love interests in the game, don't make the most important love interest your favorite love interest. You need the perspective of someone who's not all that into the love interest and making sure your favorite love interest doesn't receive the most attention is going to make your bias more balanced. The final thing is that this game isn't just for tops. I'm not going to spoil the sexual positions of all the characters, but not all the LI are bottoms. Some of them are bottoms, but others are verses or tops. I decided this because I couldn't see some of the characters as pure bottoms so I decided to let them top. Also because I don't consider all of them to be more attractive than the protagonist, I wouldn't be hung up if they never bottomed at all. There was one guy who was a little upset about the idea of one of the guys being a top and I'm like, "maybe he should be a verse". We'll see about that.

The one thing that confused me a little about this project was the genre. Developing the VN, I was certain that this was a murder mystery first and foremost, with some contemporary dating sim elements mixed in. Then I thought about it and I was like "Wait. Is this psychological horror?" And I was like "No, it can't be, there are no supernatural elements to the story." But then I saw people calling it horror and I was like, "huh, maybe it's got a little horror in it." Overall though, I don't consider the main genre to be horror, but a mystery. But it was kind of funny because I was reading the script and I was like, "Holy shit, there's a shit ton of stuff we have to address in the future." It's like when you eat a bunch of pizza in one sitting and at first, you think you're not full but then a few hours later you're in pain because your stomach feels like it's about to destroy your gallbladder. Just me? Okay. But yeah, it's going to be a wild ride planning out the rest of the VN with all of the things we established in the first build and I'm kind of excited. This project definitely looks to become much bigger than I intended it to be.

There were a lot of reactions to the VN that I just couldn't ignore. I'm really proud of how I and Nemo handled Tucker's death. I think we succeeded in making his death shocking and have a big impact. I expected Kamil to be the most popular love interest, but to my surprise, Mr. Brendan ended up being the most popular. Kamil was the second most popular character though, and people generally reacted positively to him. I also didn't expect the more "scandalous" options to be the more popular ones, although I really should have expected it, so we're going to have to write the rest of Brendan's route with that in mind. One worry I had was that there would be people who played the game solely because of Tucker or Wyatt, but thankfully even the people who were disappointed that they didn't have a route enjoyed the game enough to stick around, for the most part anyways. I expected Vlad to be the least popular of the love interests and I was correct about that. I think for his route, me and Nemo are just going to have fun with it and not care what people think as long as it's good. I don't have much to say about Owen because the reaction to him is pretty much what I expected, although I will say that someone caught on to what's going on with him. which I'm proud of. I'm glad people enjoyed Rex and thought that he was his own character because I was worried that people would see him as "generic" before they saw his more defined characteristics. Finally, for Connor, the reaction to him wasn't as fascinating as the other love interests but I am glad that people do like him and his route. There were also a few people who made a few correct guesses, and a few entertainingly wrong ones, but I'm not going to say what they are because of spoilers.

That brings me to the issue of the future of this project. Currently, the plan is to focus on Barachoda Bloom and do sporadic updates on this VN. One thing I was concerned about is that this VN would engulf the popularity of BB solely because it's a furry VN and I would have to focus on making By Your Hands because it's the choice that makes the most sense for me financially. I didn't want that to happen because part of the reason I wanted to make BB was that I wanted to show that you could make a non-furry gay VN a success, and focusing on a furry VN would go against what I was trying to prove. This project is written by Nemo, and I'm not sure how he would feel about working so much on a single project in a relatively short time period. On the other hand, I have been starting to get a little burned out from working on Barachoda Bloom. While I was seeking money when I started a Patreon, the main reason for that was that I wanted to give myself the motivation to work on BB every month. That quickly made me burnt out on working on BB and I felt pressured to work on it every day so I'll be able to finish it. Considering I'm an amateur writer tackling a complex project, the idea of taking such a project at a slower pace doesn't sound too bad. 

I made a pros and cons list of making By Your Hands my main project:

Pros

• By Your Hands will be completed a lot faster.
• I'm able to work on BB at my own pace.
• Since Nemo's the one doing the writing, I wouldn't have to force myself to write everyday and be able to improve my writing skills at a slower pace.
• I'd put more effort into polishing the VN (Improved GUI, more CGs, more music, possibly original music tracks and backgrounds made specifically for the game.)
• I'd be able to get more feedback on the game with each update.
• The more complex art style and character designs will force me to improve and better understand the art fundamentals compared to BB's comparatively simple art style.
• I'd be more comfortable doing experimental things with BB as I wouldn't have to worry about patrons not being satisfied with the content I put in BB.
• Furry artists are more likely to make fan art of the game.

Cons

• Barachoda will take a lot longer to work on.
• I'll have to rely on Nemo to write the script each month.
• By Your Hands's murder mystery plot would lend much better to infrequent but large builds as monthly builds might lead to a lot of either odd cliffhangers or janky pacing.
• Patrons might spoil things from Patreon only builds to the public which would be annoying for both me (since I have to delete those posts) and the non-Patreon audience (because they got spoiled on something they couldn't have read). This also goes for BB currently but it would be worse for BYH due to the several twists and reveals planned for its story.
• It would go against the original reason why I created BB in the first place since I wanted to prove that non-furry gay VNs could be as successful as furry ones.
• A lot of furry VNs have Patreons. If BYH became my main project I would have to compete with those other VNs for a potential fan's attention and money.
• My original player base will probably forget about me if I put BB on hiatus.
• People will nag me a lot more to give Wyatt and Liam their own routes.

Seeing the reception I've gotten already, I have a good idea of what I'm going to do next, but I want to confirm it. I've made a survey on what the future of the project should be. Please take it so I know which project to focus on. You can take it here.

And that's about it. I could talk more about the characters themselves and how I came up with them, but I'll save that for another time when I have more time to myself. Honestly, I'm just astounded at the response By Your Hands has gotten this past week. It's already surpassed Barachoda in terms of ratings and it's already on track in beating it in downloads. I've gotten over 300 itch.io followers, a good amount of Twitter followers, several new people joined my discord server, and a whole lot of comments on the itch.io page. I've even managed to talk to some creators I've looked up to. It almost feels like my life changed overnight. Thank you everyone for making By Your Hands as big as it is.

See you later and have a great day!