Hi everyone!

Paper Lily chapter 1 has been out for 6 days now with over 4000 downloads. Thanks to everyone who played so far!

Now let's talk about it for a bit!

On the day of the release, some people expressed concerns about a few bugs (most of which have been fixed by now in v1.0.3) and also the integration of the action minigames, namely the spikes and Miss Knives fight. At that time, we weren’t sure how well the game would be received, so after release, we were both really happy that many people loved it, but also overwhelmed by the amount of things that needed improvements.

Due to the differing opinions on the action minigames and facility primals, we decided that launching a Kickstarter in this state was not wise, so we announced that we would delay it to think about the direction of Paper Lily a little more. Thankfully, after a few days and a few bug fixes, we realized things aren’t nearly as bad as we thought!

The results are almost the same as the last Project Kat survey! Phew!

So let’s go over the needed improvements:

Minigames

Paper Lily has two “action” minigames (Red’s treehouse and Miss Knives) in which you avoid a series of obstacles/attacks. Some people noted a high difficulty spike for these minigames, or expressed a preference for more puzzle-oriented minigames rather than skill-oriented. It is true that in Project Kat, the skill-oriented minigame was optional so those who didn’t care for it were able to avoid it by choosing another path. In Paper Lily this is not the case, so we plan to find a balance to accommodate for all kinds of players.

Judging by the survey, the spike minigame turned out to be way too difficult (we were aiming for under 5 tries, so it will definitely be nerfed a bit (I guess our testers were so hardcore we didn’t notice the difficulty issue)!

The Miss Knives minigame is a lot more balanced (5 to 10 tries is what we aimed for). Opinions are divided on this topic: some players said they beat it in 2 tries and it was too easy (wow), while others spent over an hour trying to get past it (sorry). We'll figure out how to balance this a little better. 

Those dreaded primals in the facility

It seems a big majority of players decided to take out the fuse that keeps the dungeons locked and unleash the primals in the facility. Please remember that there’s always another way, and that was the worst way xD. Still, this could be shown in a clearer way to the player.

That said, we will still improve the mechanics of the primals so that they are less frustrating (but still abundant since you chose to set them free). As of v1.0.2, we also added dialogue which warns you that taking out that fuse is a bad idea.

※ Friendly reminder that you can update the game version and your save files will carry over!

The Future

Truthfully, for several months leading up to the release, we worked nonstop on Chapter 1 (I can’t remember the last time I picked up and played a game for more than 20 minutes). These months made us realize the massive scale of this game. In order for us to deliver this game to everyone and remain sane, we need to make some changes. The first change will be in the form of chapter by chapter releases of Paper Lily, instead of the complete game releasing in one go as we originally wanted to.

Now, we ourselves are not huge fans of episodic releases in general (why play this unfinished game, might as well wait until everything is done, right?), however it might be a necessary change in order to both keep our motivation up, keep goals realistic and quality high, and for you all to be able to enjoy the story within your lifetimes. At the very least, we can promise you that: 

• We will do our best to keep the story engaging and have a satisfying conclusion to each chapter (like story arcs).
• Paper Lily isn’t an infinite game. It has 5 chapters that have already been written. We don't deny the possibility of decreasing the number of chapters to reduce scope, but increasing it is not an option. 

Steam Version

The Steam version of the game was supposed to be released relatively fast, but due to all of the feedback we got, we want to take our time to make the proper changes.

Therefore, this version will be released with all the endings, some collectibles, and the improvements that we promised soon, but it won’t be in the next two weeks. We'd rather not rush it like we did with this version and risk having several bugs on release. 

If you prefer to have a complete experience with the best quality game, we recommend you wait for it. However, the current version of Chapter 1 is still fairly complete, so its up to you to decide. 

Please note that when we say “Steam version” we mean “the first version that Steam will see”, but the same update will be available here on Itch.io on the same day (basically the only difference will be achievements).

The Kickstarter

This topic is very tricky. We initially planned a full-fledged Kickstarter to crowdfund the rest of Paper Lily. All of the preparations were pretty much done, and then on the last day, over a cup of tea, we realized that this game was causing us a lot of stress in our lives, and we aren't even burdened by a promise that we made to backers yet.

As things stand, we have the possibility to take breaks, work on different smaller games if we wish, change the direction or length of Paper Lily, all of which are things that would be difficult - or impossible - to do with the pressure of not disappointing backers once a plan has been set in the campaign.

Ultimately, we were basing the future of Paper Lily (and our future) on the results of the Kickstarter, rather than focusing on what we think is best for this game. For these reasons, we no longer plan to run that campaign. 

However, since we did so much work and research on Kickstarter to prepare for it, it would be sad to let it all go to waste, so instead we'll set up a Kickstarter for a merchandise run. This means mostly physical rewards for those of us who want to have some physical Lacie or Kat or whoever in our lives. The funds gathered will go towards the production of Chapter 2, but for the time being, we will not be promising a full game.

We hope this doesn't come as a disappointment, and we hope you all understand our reasoning behind it.

We'll be using the same page for it, so you can follow it here if you're interested (and if you haven't already)! 

Money

So... this is a bit embarrassing, but although we spent several thousand dollars on the development of Paper Lily so far, we’ve made exactly $0. Naturally, the reason for this is because we never allowed donations or contributions on any platform, so that people wouldn’t feel cheated when the eventual Kickstarter came. Now that we decided that the Kickstarter will have a different shape (and so people around us stop looking at us like we’re crazy for working so hard on a free game), we’re going to have to be more open about accepting money for our efforts. Namely:

• The previously mentioned Kickstarter merch run
• Chapter 2 and above will be paid (we will do our best to keep the price accessible)
• Both Steam and Itch.io will receive a “Supporter Package” DLC with a few goodies like wallpapers, dev commentary, maps, etc (no in-game content though). Project Kat will receive it first, in a few days.
• From this moment on, donations are enabled on Itch.io.

That said, we will keep Project Kat and Chapter 1 free on both platforms as it has always been, and that won’t change. Of course, the amount of donations might affect the speed at which we develop Chapter 2... but we will develop the project with all the same love and care nonetheless.

TL;DR – Roadmap

Here is the current order we'll be doing things in. If anything changes, we'll update this list:

1. Finish fixing all critical bugs in Chapter 1
2. Supporter Package DLC for Project Kat
3. Add remaining features in, and release Chapter 1 on Steam
4. Kickstarter Merch Run
5. Chapter 2

Also, the soundtrack will be available soon, and translations will be discussed in the next devlog as well.

Thanks for reading this far! If you read all of this, feel free to tell us your favorite dessert in the comments below :3