Hi everyone, it’s the end of March! We’ve already been over some of the progress for Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon, so today we’re going to be looking at the progress for Asphodelium.

A major component of Asphodelium is self realization and discovering yourself, which wasn’t something I was able to dive deep into in the original release. The main character Hazel is a trans man who has lived as a man the past 2 years, but has hit a rut in his life because of his adventures. Depression and a lack of aspirations have taken a hold of him, preventing him from focusing on his future.

Similarly, the love interest Aster has to tackle his own identity problems, believing that he’s the doppelganger of the man you killed. While Hazel’s depression will be a point in the new scenes, today I want to look at Aster’s identity and how that relates to the player.

The upcoming extended edition will include a new storyline with new endings, but will also include new scenes for the existing storyline. One of these scenes will focus on how Hazel—how you—perceive Aster. Aster believes he’s a doppelganger, but what do you believe? Even if you believe that’s not the truth, does it matter to you? I want to allow players to consider who Aster is and whether that matters or not. These choices will impact the ending, which can have slight variations or entirely different endings. Will you help Aster in his own self realization and come to terms with your new future, or will you both fail to understand each other?

Names, personality, ambitions – they’re all important aspects to our personal identities, but those identities vary on how you perceive a person. There’s the identity that we each have, and the perceived identity that others see & interpret from us. I hope these concepts will make sense in the full game!

That being said, I was able to script several more scenes in the new storyline this month. The screenshot about is from one of those scenes, where I added a few more romantic moments in the later half of the game.

The full extended cut will be releasing in June, with almost double the word count, lots of new endings, and brand new CGs. Join our newsletter to support development!

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