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In 2020, we were all hit by a plague called Covid. We have all suffered from it and we all still suffer from it today. Me, you, everyone around us, we have all been touched by this disease.
Since that year, I have had a very difficult period for several reasons. I had to stop the development of the SECRETS game, a game and above all a story that I love passionately, but everything that happened to me kept me far from the game.
Since many of these things that have happened are very intimate, I hope you won’t mind that I don’t expand on certain topics.
But concretely, since 2020, here is what has happened.
I had Covid, a severe form, people close to me also had it and they are no longer here today to talk about it. It devastated me. With the economic crisis due to this epidemic, I lost my job. I had to move and make sure I could raise my two children.
These last two years have been dedicated to rebuilding myself personally, and taking care of my children, ensuring them a decent life and giving them all the affection and attention they need.
I have tried, several times since, to rework on the game but in vain. I made a few pictures, but nothing more.
Motivation has gradually returned, and I am beginning to regain some semblance of a calm and regular life. I have a job again that allows me to live with my children. And I can now devote a little more time to the game.
I really went through all the mindsets regarding the game. What should I do? Give it up completely? Give it to another developer? I seriously thought about it several times, I was even close to erasing everything. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The story of SECRETS was written in 2018, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy a story on which I spent so much time working and which I particularly like. I also thought of rewriting it to make it a book only, removing all the “adult” part. I even started the first pages of a comic book, but this form did not satisfy me.
And also, SECRETS isn’t the only story I wrote in 2018… There’s another one, started in 2018 and finished in 2020 in the midst of the chaos of everything going on around me. A story so powerful and so important to me, that I will have to release it in one format or another. And the Visual Novel format will be the best. You know Julia, Lucy, and Zoe, I can’t wait for you to meet Emily one day…
After so many questions swirling around in my head over the past two years, there was one that kept coming back. What to say to you? That I quit developing the game and that’s it? Move along, there is nothing left to see!? While I made so many promises to you and you followed me in my projects… I can’t bring myself to do it and you helped in some way to get me back on my feet and resume the development of the game.
So here it is, my projects are simple. Two games. SECRETS and the other. And then we’ll see, I don’t plan anything else.
I worked on SECRETS again, but the current state of the game no longer suited me. The beginner side of the first episodes bothered me and so I decided to redo some of it.
The story is always the same, but I will tell it differently. I realize that the game is about something that happened in Zangary, and that the girls are gifted thieves, but you don’t see any of that. I had the idea to show all of this later in the game whereas in the story that I wrote, all of these elements are shown at the beginning. So I took up the game to tell it as I had originally written it and stopped wanting to focus on mystery and “secrets” as I did. So I also decided to rename the game to focus less on secrets, so it’s now called “The Velvet Paws”, a title that represents the name given to this group of thieves that operates in Montara. (Thanks Louise for the name!)
As for the second game, it will come after Secrets, I had thought of making it a “mainstream” game, but since it includes an obligation to get someone pregnant, it was difficult and above all less funny, and less sexy.
So I’m starting over, I’m working on Secrets, and I’ll release the game, episode by episode, hoping to finish it one day!
The first four episodes will be free for everyone. The idea is that anyone interested in the game can experience the story right back to where we left off, with Lucy in the bathroom, and even a little more with episode 4 where you take care of the preparations for your first heist with the girls. The other episodes (there are 12) will be free for anyone who purchased the Complete Editions (Online Edition, special offers on Patreon). If you have benefited from one of these offers, you will have all the episodes.
I will release a Collector’s Edition which will include all upcoming episodes and goodies because it takes some money for assets. And there will also be an option to subscribe to something like on Patreon. I do not count on these offers to develop the game, only those who wish to participate in the development can be interested in it. The game will remain free for most of you anyway.
As you may have felt, I am less inclined to communicate these days, I still need a little time to regain the enthusiasm necessary to manage a community. For the moment, I am giving information, I do not expect feedback, and everyone will appreciate, hate, rage, love, as they wish
All I know today is that it will all start again on March 7, 2023. This is the launch date for the new Secrets, The Velvet Paws. I hope you will be there.
Thank you to all those who have followed and encouraged me over the past two years, you are very brave, and I will not forget you.
Eric.