Hey! Her Jentle Hi-ness was nominated for two awards at the Pavs this year, the one for Excellence in Narrative Design and the one for Excellence in Representation.
This news comes to you two days late because of impostor syndrome đ how ridiculous, right?
I’m absolutely thrilled to be a part of the Pavs line-up again, and with an amazing cohort which you can check out here: https://nzgamesfest.com/the-pavs/2022-finalists/
That’s right folks! After 25 months of brewing away, Her Jentle Hi-ness has now reached its full form and it is out there in the world, available on Steam and itch.io. Try the demo, buy or add to your wishlist here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732310/Her_Jentle_Hiness/ or here https://skybeargames.itch.io/her-jentle-hi-ness-final
Thank you so much to everyone who made this possible, including but not limited to: Sean Miller, Michaela Cornelius, James Dunning, Lauren Wilson, Tom Tobin, Dave Agnew, Johanna Grönfeldt, my family and friends, all the public domain artists I borrowed from and the Met for providing the images, Ren’Py Tom and everyone who helps maintain Ren’Py, helpful users of the lemmasoft forums who provide troubleshooting for Ren’Py, early playtesters Nam Tran, Alyssa Heimann and gamerchrist, and the KickStarter backers: Brent Ahuriri, Apollo, Jade Kukula, Ricky McKee, Lauren Wilson, John, Oden Rasmussen Hammarström, Siobhan Tate, Doug Fitzgerald, Marie, Antony Phillips, Eddy Dauber, Richard Hawkes, Joy Houston, Vicki Hsu, Aaron Neugebauer, Anna Rose Northey, Anne Odette Nymous, Verena Pschorn, rataplani, Gillian Scott, Anonymous, Anonymous, Dennys Antunish, Alexis Barroso, Sage Bee, Michelle Caldeira (Mcportugalem), Sarah Daymond, Dino, Carl Dungca, Bonnie Erin, Eversong, Alex F., Fishheads, Kathryn Flucht, FRB, CJ Gibson, Sally H, Sydney Hall, IronRequiem, Jacky, Leevi LĂ€hteenmĂ€ki, Samantha N., J Norville, Owens, phoenixianheart, Purdie Picot, Cassi Rae, Kate Rave, Rebecca, RenvierMel, Lynn Saddington, Sappari, Bree Seberos, Julia Schiller, Cheeky Parrot Games, Sarah Sugas, Theodora Tzanis, Unboxed Games, Xenophiliac42, Cathy Ahuriri, and Timmy ‘FishOfPain’ Petersson
Another quick update this week as I am deep in the pre-release workload. I’ve completed all my testing. This one took about twice as long as my other games to test all the way through the code (to be clear, code written by me, not all the codebase of Ren’py!) but my run is done now, and I’m just waiting on the feedback from my tester to see if there are any more bugs to fix, and my editor to see if there are any sentences that need improving or any Gs I missed! So in the meantime, my time outside of work and family is spent doing all the admin for getting the game out next Friday (NZT) and all the other things I owe the Kickstarter backers.
There’s more news and more thoughts on the future but I’m going to leave that until two weeks time with the next update, when the game will have been out for just under a week. Look forward to talking to you then, when things are a bit more calm!
Happy St Patrick’s Day!
That’s right, what it says above!! All aboard the hype train!
There’s not a heck of a lot to update on here, except that testing is carrying on apace. I’ve got the help of the wonderful Johanna as a tester, she’s a twitter friend of mine and is finding OMG so many bugs….. Seriously, this game is the biggest one I have done yet – about 75K words as opposed to 45K for Nine Lives, 25K for Wonderland Nights, and that’s just the words you read, not even including the code! So I am so grateful to her coming on board and absolutely thrashing the thing. Sean’s work is mostly over, same for the voice actors James, Tom, and voice editor + actor Lauren, Michaela is tinkering here and there with things to get them just right, and Dave is editing as always – shout out to him because jod damn, I would not want to be editing this thing. It was hard enough writing it and missing all the Gs. So I owe big thanks to the team who have my back.
Well, gotta get back to the testing! Seriously, it takes up all my free time these days. I am really looking forward to it being done!!
That’s right folks, I’m officially announcing a release date for Her Jentle Hi-ness, my next narrative-heavy life-simulation style game. The game will be released to the public on Steam and itch.io on March 25th! You can wishlist it and check out the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732310/Her_Jentle_Hiness
The next thirty-six days of my time (outside of my day job) will be spent on the final testing run and responding to the beta feedback from the backers. Exciting times!
Hey there folks, just a quick little update to let you know that I hopped on the SWW Show with hosts Mike and AJ to talk about my upcoming game, Her Jentle Hi-ness. We got to talking about the wider genre in general, and I had a great time chatting with them. Check it out here: https://anchor.fm/sww/episodes/SWW-Interviews-Episode-81-Her-Jentle-Hi-ness-e1df91mhttps://anchor.fm/sww/episodes/SWW-Interviews-Episode-81-Her-Jentle-Hi-ness-e1df91m
Wow, what a week! Rewriting my to-do list and setting new goals, I have been able to knock a decent chunk off my Her Jentle Hi-ness to-dos every day. It’s still a huge undertaking, and I’m not totally confident in getting it out by the end of the year, and yes, I am shaking my fist at fate for throwing a major lockdown-shaped spanner in the works for me this year, but the end is growing ever more rapidly in sight! Here is the kickstarter update for this week: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skybeargames/her-jentle-hi-ness-a-linguistically-twisted-visual-novel/posts/3349116
James has finished his first draft of the next Dragons of Tirenia zine, so I’ll be proofread that in time and together we’ll get that out for all you Tirenia heads out there. It’s got a very exciting cover which I will drop closer to the time. James has also come up with a fun little TTRPG which we’ll probably just drop as a free PDF or a charity-linked one if we can make the right connections.
We still haven’t gotten back to the podcast, and I’m sorry but we’re unlikely to while we’re still in lockdown. But things are changing, and James may be heading back to work next week. I will either have a huge weight lifted off my shoulder, or things will get 100% worse for me depending on whether daycare takes our child into their bubble, or if I am supposed to somehow work full-time 5 days a week at home and mind my child alone at the same time. Ah, the joys of this present time… But if it comes to that, I will have to shift my expectations for myself away from productivity and onto sanity and coping and just giving my child what he needs, so I don’t stress overmuch about not meeting my targets. What a year this has been, huh?
All righty, that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!
Last week the Her Jentle Hi-ness ended with 127% funding achieved. I’ll link my updates to the game here every week, starting today: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skybeargames/her-jentle-hi-ness-a-linguistically-twisted-visual-novel/posts/3289183
But for now, it would be a great help if you could put the game on your wishlist on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1732310/Her_Jentle_Hiness/
I’m afraid there will be no podcast this fortnight, as James and I are very, very busy trying to entertain our toddler while I work a full-time job from home in lockdown. Last podcast was actually really stressful to edit, so I’ve made the executive decision to go on hiatus until we can fob the toddler off to my mother. James has been trying really hard to get work done on his zines, but he’s been bearing the brunt of the childcare. So I ask, please be patient with us!
Wishing you a safe and happy time, til next we speak!
Today we interview the composer of the music for the next Sky Bear Games major release, Her Jentle Hi-ness, who is Michaela Cornelius of mikattemusic.com . We ask her about her background, creative process, favourite game soundtracks, and talk generally about games she enjoys. Also featured are short clips of three of her songs from Her Jentle Hi-ness, in order: Royal, Tavern, and Quiet ambience.
Unfortunately we did have to cut a fair bit of stuff towards the end as our mic started to cut in and out. Such are the woes of recording while our sleeping child is in the house, and we’re stuck with him full time in lockdown!
Check it out here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/46215728
Less than three days to go now! Fully funded, and the top tier is sold out, but you can still get your face in the game!
Pledge now to receive Her Jentle Hi-ness, a dark comedy game, earlier and cheaper than the rest of the world, with add-ons including physical merch, and even the opportunity to have your face and original character in the game!
Pledge here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skybeargames/her-jentle-hi-ness-a-linguisti…
Play the demo here:Â https://skybeargames.itch.io/her-jentle-hi-nessÂ
Sky Bear Games 