It's that time again. Kamil's route has developed into quite the beast and I received some feedback on it. As is the case, I'd like to take a step back and see how developing this part of this route has turned out.

Before that, however, today is my birthday! Happy birthday to me, I'll be sure to enjoy it to the fullest. Anyways, onto the meat of the devlog.

WARNING: COMPLETE SPOILERS FOR ACT 1 OF KAMIL'S ROUTE.

I mentioned this before but Kamil was initially intended to be the first route to be updated. My intention was that his route would be the one players would read first since he’s more welcoming than the other LI. Due to Brendan's popularity, however, Kamil's route ended up being developed later and I believe that changed his route quite a bit. I think you can tell in the game itself. In Day 1, Kamil is the friend Rex relies on when needed and Rex just learns about some things about Kamil he didn't know about before on that day. Starting with Day 2, Kamil’s distance with Rex becomes more apparent and it's shown that Kamil isn't as close to Rex as the player would assume just reading the first two hours of the game. That's how things ended up as we went through the development process and it's definitely not a bad change.

I came up with a lot of ideas for Kamil's route while I was still working on Brendan’s route, a lot of them going into stuff that would become relevant in Acts 2 and 3. I had a bunch of rough ideas at the start of 2023 but I really polished them up before we started proper on Kamil's route. Kamil's character became a lot clearer in my head in that period and I figured out who exactly he is. There was a point where everyday I would message Nemo a new thing I wanted to implement in Kamil's route. Even after development on his route started, ideas kept coming that I couldn't resist adding to his route. This is why Act 1 of Kamil's route just has more stuff in it compared to what's currently in Brendan's route. I just had a more vivid vision on how Kamil's route would play out compared to the other routes. I'm not sure why it's specifically Kamil, but I guess it could be that his values and struggles resonate with me a lot. Regardless though, he became a fixation for a good amount of time.

From what I've seen, Kamil is a divisive character. While I haven't seen a lot of people say they outright hate him, there have been a noteworthy bunch who say they can't really get into his character. He's a nice and dependable guy, but his distance, his doormat tendencies, and, of course, his homophobia are sticking points against him. I understand if people don't like Kamil for any of those reasons, they don't make him favorable to the player. It doesn't help that there are a bunch of lows in his route, putting Kamil into more situations where he can't really show his good sides well. However, you're supposed to not like those aspects and when it’s time, the player would want to see Rex call him out and find out what's motivating him to act like this. A lot of the big moments that needed to be written were difficult to pull off, but I think we achieved what we wanted to do. I'm glad he's gotten a lot of fans so far. He's a very complex character, and it's great to see people appreciating what he has to offer and what we were going for with his story. That he's a good person who truly cares about his friends but he has a lot of room to grow. And like with Brendan, a lot of my sexual preferences were put into his character. I'm not sure if I have said this before in public, but I find that insecurity can be really sexy. Combine that with Kamil's appearance and personality and you can see where I'm at from a spiritual perspective.

The side characters are also worth mentioning. I'm glad that Fiero and Yousef got the love they eventually got considering how they rock the boat. Fiero in particular makes me more confident with Vlad's route. Yousef didn't get much attention initially but Day 5 made sure he had gotten a following. Him being unremarkable in the beginning was intentional as it feeds into his character arc. He's the support Rex and Kamil need in order to make things start to happen. He's also a sweet baby boy. Dai is the opposite. Initially being popular for his design, the reveal of his homophobia dampened public opinion of him and caused a bit of a ruckus in my server. Saul and Kyle became very popular for their attractive designs and being sort of detached from the drama that's going on in the route. The rest of the football team didn't get much attention, aside from Liam and Wyatt getting the reactions you'd expect them to have. Finally, I'd like to mention Paul and Hank, the two guys that approached Kamil during Day 3. I've gotten mixed reactions on them, with some saying they were really suspicious while others didn't seem to mind them. I just thought that was interesting and enlightening.

Developing Kamil's route was a huge stepping stone. If developing Brendan's route taught me what BYH is, developing Kamil's route taught me what BYH should be. Kamil's route marked a huge turn in how Nemo and I worked on the game. A lot of ideas were solidified during this period and I became more accustomed to working on the game. We started a document where Nemo and I would spit ball ideas about the game. I learned more about how to best work with Nemo and I even wrote large portions of the script myself. I started to implement cut ins into the game and made use of the camera function and ATL in Ren'py. I remembered to focus on the new content first before reworking old stuff. And there's a lot more side characters in Kamil's route compared to Brendan's route. Basically we did a lot of stuff with the game and made it evolve into something we're really satisfied with.

We've gotten a lot of help by one of our patrons who's an athlete who used to be on a highschool American football team and he's been a big help for information relating to Kamil. Nemo got a lot of inspiration from his musings. I also talked to other people to help work on some concepts in Kamil's route and it was really fun working on the themes and getting even more material to work with. Some of these people included a FVN dev friend of mine and another writer friend who's Muslim. I just want to say, “thank you for everything”.

We also can't forget to mention the first side story the game has gotten. I'm going to be frank with you guys, I love Victor and writing him and I'm so happy people have taken to him well. I wish I'd have gotten this side story out after Day 6, but it couldn't be helped with how things were going at the time. Still, the performance of this side story has given me confidence to work on more of them and give spotlight to other characters.

I will say, I have gotten critique of certain aspects of the game from people. Not just randos who I barely know but also my fans. And I get it, there are some things about the story that aren't perfect. However, Nemo and I accept that. While we can change story as we develop it, we'd rather avoid changing parts of the story people have already read as much as possible. And it's all subjective. Some people might find one aspect of the game to be brilliant while others find it quite lame. I'm quite sensitive to feedback and will either makes changes in response or talk about it with someone worrying all the way. Recently, I've been trying to make sure to restrain myself whenever someone critiques my stuff because even if it's true that it's not perfect, it's better to trust your instict than trying your best to please everyone when that's impossible.  And keep in mind, the people who you hear talk about your work are just a small amount of people. So far, I've gotten 35 responses in the form about Kamil's route when currently there are over a thousand people who have downloaded build 0.14.1. If I were to respond to every critique I got, I'd ignore everyone who didn't say anything because they had no problems with the VN. Some critique has value, especially if it's a sentiment shared with multiple people, but not all of them, and that's certain I've learned these past few months.

Development was overall both exciting and exhausting. There was just a lot of work to be done, especially for Days 3, 5, and 6. The downside of having so many ideas is implementing them all. We might have gone a bit overboard. I had this online acquaintance of mine that was obsessed with planning out all of his writing projects. I didn't get it at first since I think too much planning can be boring. But now I can see why he acted like this after working on a project like this. It's the snowball effect, you can add an unremarkable feature early on and it can grow into a huge thing that you have to work on. Things can spiral out of control if left unchecked and you don't plan ahead. The end result turned out great, but I think I've gotten the experience to make the development process go a lot smoother moving forward. And one of those things is to pay attention to your health, especially your mental health. It can become really easy to burnout without even noticing so always make sure to slow down when things are becoming overwhelming. You can't work without yourself. I feel assured of myself and Nemo that Owen’s route will be easier to develop.

All in all, the future is looking bright for By Your Hands. Both me and Nemo are still in the middle of taking a break from the game and hopefully we'll be able to return to development with much gusto. A lot has happened in my life since I started working on Kamil's route and all I can say is that I have no idea what the future will hold. I hope you guys enjoy Owen's route when it starts updating!

Thank you for reading and have a good day!