While I like to make these update devlogs on the first or second day of the month, recapping the previous month, I was a little preoccupied with something very important – Canvas Menagerie’s Act 1 beta test!

I’m very happy to say that Act 1, the first third of the game, is now being beta tested. This means that a small group of people will be playing through it and giving me feedback on the game, from bug reports to pacing issues to art glitches and more. This beta testing will be going on in the background for at least the next month and then further on when Acts 2 and 3 are ready to be tested.

If you would like to join the beta test, sign up here! Note that this form will be closed at the end of May.

This also means I spent a majority of April focusing on scripting Canvas Menagerie to get it ready to play. But before we dive into that, let’s look at the writing progress (because there was some writing done).

I was able to write a little over 10k words in April, most of which went to Canvas Menagerie (the rest? who knows......). That brings the total word count for CM to over 130k, very close to my estimation of 150k!

Now back to the scripting. Like I said, April was a big month for wrapping up the scripting in Canvas Menagerie and polishing it up for beta testers. This included implementing a new NVL mode into the game for when Niko has a Lot of Thoughts.

It’s to help break up some of the monotony of having all the text at the bottom of the screen while also allowing for more interesting compositions.

One thing I want to aim for with Canvas Menagerie is to have it be visually interesting despite it being a fairly grounded slice of life story with no fantasy or supernatural elements. To do that, I’ve been using a combination of tinting artwork, creating cutins (using Fenik’s wonderful tools) and being more mindful of my compositions.

We’ll see how the playtesters like it!

One last update is this brand new artwork by Lycoristyx! I wonder who that is in the back...

— Arimia