Author: SaltyJustice

Development Stuff

I’m packing up the WHI release to send to Steam for approval, and fixing various bugs as they come up. Urimas is spriting, and Koops got us a lovely cat and Hund is working on a big environmental piece.

This cat appears on the achievements screen for WHI meaning that all the Bottled Starlight team members get to appear in the credits because they all technically did something!

Only a few things left to go before the game is totally done and polished, but there’s always more polish that can be added.

Fan Art

Parsley, a canon character from chapter 4, rendered by Hadezmuze.

And Lotta getting a headpat from Parsley, without killing her! Truly cats are unknowable.

Curious Unknowable

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Witch Hunter Izana’s Steam Page! Go wishlist it! (Itch.io page comes later)

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

The WHI Trailer

Note: You probably need to go to Youtube to see this as they marked it as Adult Only, which it isn’t? Thanks, Youtube.

You can also see it on the Steam store page. Go wishlist the game!

Budget Report

It’s July so I’ve posted a studio budget report. Why didn’t I post this earlier in the month? I forgot.

I’ve spent about 3000 dollars of MY MONEY on this game (Studio members other than myself get paid their usual wages instead of it being out of the game’s profit) so it’s going to be good, I guarantee it.

Fan Art!

HadezMuze drawing a Jeanne DnD NPC caricature! I wonder who his favourite character is? Maybe it’s Sanya. Or Zeke.

And we also have a bee transformation by Luuco! I love the bee designs a lot and can’t wait to see more of them when it’s time for chapter 3.

Other Development Stuff

I now have most of the sprites and tiles I need for the WHI finale and have put them in. Probably another two days of spriting and a bit of music from DrDiss, and the game is done. I’m currently going back through the game (again) and adding secrets and new areas that will smooth the difficulty curve out, and features the bug testers asked for (such as the ability to break down Adamantite. Which can easily be ported over to RoP!).

Patrons get to see a new piece by Giga this week, which will be in the chapter 1 update. Get psyched!

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Witch Hunter Izana’s Steam Page! Go wishlist it! (Itch.io page comes later)

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Meet Giga, our New Artist

Bursting out of the gate with this excellent Kitsune Sanya piece, we finally found a new artist to work on the game! He’s already made a few more pieces but I’ll keep those Patron-only for a little while. He’ll be both making character art and talk sprites, helping to pick up the various slacks we have going around.

Other Development Stuff

I’m still killing myself trying to make WHI as good a game as possible. Urimas hurt his arm so I have to pull in some help to get the sprites done, all the voice acting is in, I’m fixing bugs and editing balance all over the place. It’s a mess.

Koops is working on some achievement stuff, Wispy is updating the talk sprites for some of the chapter 2 characters, and Hund is making a nice finale image for WHI.

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Coding and Stuff

I’m presently going through the voice acting (yes, there is voice acting in Witch Hunter Izana) and getting all the clips cut up and ready. Otherwise I’m cleaning up the remaining bugs and getting ready for the last round of content additions. Hund is making an ending image, Chicken got sick (again) and Urimas made a fish. Glub blub.

We hired a new artist but his first piece isn’t quiiite ready so you’ll have to wait until next week!

Witch Hunter Izana Steam Page!

It’s under review. Should be done soon, I’ll post a link next week so you can wishlist the game. It was probably dumb to send it for review on the 4th of July weekend right? Oh well.

Patreon Rebranding!

I rebranded the patreon to Bottled Starlight since it’s mostly a one-cat show (that cat is Niko) but we like to pretend we’re a team working together.

You can find the new patreon here.

Curious Cat

The Niko Links

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Patreon Site Update

Patreon is updating a bunch of sizing stuff so now is as good a time as any to rebrand it to Bottled Starlight. You can take a look at the new images courtesy of Stinkehund. It’s a WIP and Patreon doesn’t really do the preview thing so whatever, deal with it!

The patreon will also be changing URLs from Saltyjustice to BottledStarlight at the start of July. Update those links *long sigh noise*.

Development Stuff

Remember Urimas? He’s making sprites. Hund is making a finale background for WHI, and I sent off a test build on Saturday. I’ve already fixed dozens of bugs and made tons of small balance changes, so that’s going pretty well. The testers think the game is “fun” and “good”.

Expect a trailer by the end of the month, followed by the launch of the Steam and Itch.io pages so you can wishlist the game.

After that it’s back to the Chapter 1 Update.

Niko

Honestly I could just end the post here. Who’s going to keep reading after this masterpiece?

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Coding and Stuff

Witch Hunter Izana now has a predicted release date: September 1st, 2023. Why September? Because the game will probably be ready in August but I’m out of town for a lot of that month and it’s a bad idea to release a game when you can’t bugfix it.

This also gives some extra time for polish, which is never a bad thing.

As for the game’s status, it is now “Complete”, in that it is playable start to finish and all the bad ends and good ends are done. There are, as usual, a couple oversights and bugs to fix, I need a bunch more sprites and tiles (I actually wrote WINDOWS on a wall where I don’t have the tiles for them) and other little things. I still have a lot of journal and UI alignment stuff to do, so don’t worry. My plate is always full.

Urimas is about 2/3rds done the game’s sprites and I need some talk sprite stuff done. I’m getting Hund to help make some of the big art for the good ending. We’re also still looking for a new artist so there’s that.

The Steam and Itch store pages will be up “Soon”. You will know as soon as they’re public.

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Witch Hunter Izana’s forums is “Coming Soon”.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Coding and Stuff

8 more bad ends to go and Witch Hunter Izana’s bad ends are all done. After that I need to finish up the (somewhat more involved, obviously) good ending, clean up a bunch of stuff, and add a few sidequests. Then it’ll be time for testing!

Stinkehund got me a new defend animation and Urimas is making sprites because that’s his job. The other artists are unfortunately engaged but we’re presently working on hiring a new one.

Fan Art!

Holy shit, it’s Mannequin Christine by HadezMuze! Probably my new favourite fan art pieces and there’s a ton to choose from, I just love the outfit too much. It’s like a remix of clothes! It’s so cute!

Curious Cat

That is Slinky, not Dmitri! Just because they are morphologically identical (no bone structure, made of pure darkness) doesn’t mean they are the same cat!

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Monoceros will get a forum thread once the demo comes out sometime in 2023.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

The UI is DONE

Witch Hunter Izana’s UI is DONE. Here are some shots.

As you can see, it lends a lot to the game to have a unique appearance. Most of the base code is the same but it took me weeks to get all the new assets in place and realign everything. Even now there’s a lot of text that needs to be updated and realigned.

Because there’s a lot more space on the victory UI, characters now have quips they will say after battle. I can track all the variables and have lots of unique responses to add a lot of replayability.

Oh, Urimas is doing sprites, Koops finished a harpy piece, and I am told Chicken is “drawing” but got no details on what. Mysterious!

Pictures of Cats Sleeping

I got explicitly asked for more pics of cats sleeping so holy shit am I going to deliver.

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Monoceros will get a forum thread once the demo comes out sometime in 2023.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

Coding and Stuff

I’m most of the way through the UI upgrades to Witch Hunter Izana. They will definitely be done by next week, and I’ll show some of them off.

Urimas is making more sprites (it’s his job) and Koops is slowly getting the harpy characters ready. Hund has made a few more combat animations which will go into WHI and might migrate into RoP as well.

Poll Results

Yeah it’s gonna be the Chapter 1 update. I’m surprised more people didn’t want to see Project Carnation but it’s not like I’ve told you very much about it. Oh well.

Oh and I talked to Paul. He said he wasn’t happy but the patrons are what’s important. He said he understood but I can’t help but feel he was taking it way harder than he let on. Poor guy hasn’t had a megahit in decades and this was his comeback. Oh well.

Curious Cat

The Underground/Sky Island Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Monoceros will get a forum thread once the demo comes out sometime in 2023.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!

10$ Patron Pal Poll!

If you’re a 10$ or more patron pal, check the patreon (but not the Subscribestar) for a link to a poll. This poll is to decide which TF-content thing you want me (Salty) to work on. The artists and whatnot are still working on Pandemonium but what do you want to see next?

For a bit more detail on the poll options:

Chapter 2 Harpy Tower Defense: Originally meant to be part of the previous chapter 2 release, but it got cut and pushed back. Once Sanya joins the harpies she can play a tower defense minigame to help secure Trafal against an advancing army of looting bandits. Place harpy “towers” and “recruit” fallen bandits to join your army! (Estimated dev time: Maybe 2 months)

Chapter 1 Addon: The Rubber Queen Mei costume is ready and needs to be implemented, but I will also be adding a new transformation and a new subquest. (Estimated dev time: A month)

Project Carnation Prototype Featuring InkyFluffDraws: Inky and I have been working together on a game prototype. I don’t want to reveal too much, but it does have TF stuff in it. We want to make a prototype to gauge audience receptiveness before proceeding. (Estimated dev time: 3+ months)

I’ll be doing all three of these in 2023 once Monoceros is out, and then it’s back to the next part of chapter 2. Decide what order I should do them in by voting!

Curious Cat

The Link Pile

Rationally debate this post on the forums!    Discussion thread for String Tyrant!
Monoceros will get a forum thread once the demo comes out sometime in 2023.

Pandemonium’s Steam Page! You can get updates automatically.

Maiden Sealed in Stone, a game Salty translated!

Buy String Tyrant, our gaiden game, on Itch.io! It’s on Steam too!

Ask us questions anonymously on Curious Cat!

Buy our merch on Redbubble and Teepublic!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Alternately, give us money on Subscribestar so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

DO NOT join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers might be cats, I can’t tell!