Happy New Year, everyone! I'm back with the first game status report of 2026.
Today's cover image is the brand new main menu. Creating the new menu for an update always makes it feel more "real" to me, so I'm super happy to have it done. I'll go over it a little more below.
Like many of us, I'm still getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. Progress slowed down between US Thanksgiving and New Years Eve, but that doesn't mean it stopped. I'll have the updated to-do list below.
First, though, I want to kick off 2026 with some frank talk on the overall plan for the game, which has been revised since I last talked about it at the end of 2024 in Status Report #70.
The Game Plan
The past few years (especially 2024) showed me time and time again the limitations that come with being a solo developer. Not just the workload; if anything like illness or family emergencies take me out of commission, it leads to even longer delays. There's literally no one else to pick up the slack.
Then there are issues like the assault on adult games during the first half of the year which led to me having to pivot on a lot of plans. That forced me to figure out how to add content toggles to meet new, stricter guidelines, plus also completely change some story points.
I did ultimately get a new update out at the end of last summer, but as it was a Grind'm scenario rather than a story update, I'm not sure it was the most exciting thing. I've been fully in swing creating the continuation of the main game's story for the past several months, but it has a lot of remnants of the Morning After Update I've been cleaning up that's making it take a little while.
I don't want to make you wait a decade just to get to the end of one week in game time; hyperbolic as that may sound, the original scope of the game and the pace of actually making it made that not so unlikely.
So here's what I've been doing since the last release to make everything more manageable so you can actually play what you've been waiting for!
Shortened Timeline
I detailed the time span of the game in Status Report #70 at the end of 2024. In brief, the game was divided into 10 parts that took place during September and October of an unspecified year, ending on Halloween. The first two parts were Day 1 (orientation) and Day 2 (first day of classes). From there I broke it down into eight weeks, with each week covering a certain theme.
Considering how long Week 1 has been taking, I decided I could combine some of the original weeks and narrow the timeline from two months to just October. The game is now broken down like this:
Day 1 - Orientation
Day 2 - First day of school + 3 evening paths to learn more about the guys
Week 1 - The fallout of the end of Day 2, leading into a series of updates called Getting to Know You, which will have the first true one-on-one dates/hangouts with the main characters.
Week 2 - This will combine what originally covered two weeks: In Their Element and Going Deeper.
The first part of this will let you see the guys actually doing their artistic discipline—things like watching an audition or sitting in on a music rehearsal. The latter part didn't really need to be its own thing; there can be hangouts/dates surrounding those events that let you go deeper both mentally and, you know... other ways.
Week 3 - This will include updates called Getting Closer and Cooling Down, which will cover what the names suggest. There will be some ebbing and flowing of relationships as you get to know everyone better.
Week 4 - This combines the updates previously known as Complications and Defining the Relationship. This will involve situations that can change your perspective of other guys and vice verse, and in resolving that, you can figure out what you and each guy want from each other.
Week 5 - The theme for the final week is Happy Endings, which seemed fitting no matter if you followed a romantic path or went on a hookup spree!
Ultimately, nothing is really missing from what I originally planned. The themes combined pretty naturally, and I didn't have specific story beats so planned out that I'm cutting much if anything from each storyline. On that note:
Cutting & Trimming
There are some plot points that have always been planned for, and those will remain, just reshuffled and with a lot of surrounding fluff trimmed out. This is made all the easier because I actually already moved up a bunch of events.
You were only going to get sexual with Will for the first time in Week 3, for instance, and similar for Matt. Due to the length of time between updates, I moved those earlier in the story so you wouldn't have to wait literal years to get your hands on them.
When it comes to cutting things entirely, it's really only stuff that hasn't been introduced yet. One of the biggest is the removal of Connor's brother, Fane, from the story. This is partly in reaction to the content crackdown on various platforms, but also because his inclusion wasn't really necessary to the story even though it had the potential to add some fun drama.
Condensing Story Paths
One thing I get praised for a lot is the sheer amount of story paths you can go down. I love it, too, but as the sole writer, it's a huge amount of work. I think we'd all rather get content sooner than wait an extra year so I can address a combo of choices very few players will ever make.
I'm addressing that during the first part of the upcoming update. I've been finding ways to group a series of choices under one path that encompasses all of them. I still have flags to call out specific choices, because I want that reactivity, but it doesn't make sense to write unique dialogue for every last choice.
I've written hundreds of thousands of words at this point, the length of manuscripts you'd see for epic novels, but if you only follow one storyline without making any non-ideal choices, it can seem like I haven't done much. So I'm also trying something out with the start of the next update by removing a choice that would have let you bypass a lot of the work I've been doing.
Up until now I mostly made having some "solo fun" optional. This time, I'm exploring the kind of all-encompassing horniness that can suddenly take over guys Connor's age, which means he is so driven to get off that it'll always happen.
What you'll see and do still varies based on choices, but I don't need to account for what I assume would have been a rare instance of players skipping not just all I've written, but also the 100+ new CGs I made just for this small portion of the game.
One Road, Multiple Off-Ramps
Another helpful thing is that I've divided all the Getting to Know You updates so they cover a few specific characters each rather than try to touch on every single storyline in every update. It allows me to focus in on just one person at a time, keeping their portion of the story linear for me to write while still reactive to your choices.
I've done this via the Hookup Level system I devised with the Morning After Update. The details can be found in the Relationship Guide, but basically, I use a combo milestones and points for each guy to determine what content you see.
I'll use Evan's hangout from the upcoming update as a spoiler-y example. It's possible to hang out with him for the first time ever, after investing a lot of time in his storyline, or somewhere in-between. Whatever choices you made leading up to this hangout decided your Hookup Level with Evan.
I have flowcharts planning out Hookup Levels and associated scenarios for all of the guys; here's what Evan's looks like for this part of the game:
At all levels, you can go to Evan's place to make Grind'm profiles. A photoshoot takes place that starts out a little tame.
Agreeing to do this with Evan will put you at Hookup Level 1 if you're not already at that level or higher. That means he's primed to start getting a little more sexual with you if you push things in that direction.
The first off-ramp from this path comes when you decide whether or not to take some sexier photos. You jump to the end of the hangout if you opt out, otherwise you continue on with Evan now at Hookup Level 2.
The next off-ramp comes when deciding to go from risqué photos to full on naked ones. Again, you can opt out if it doesn't feel right for your playthrough while still maintaining Hookup Level 2. Keeping things steamy increases the level to 3, and the road continues to stretch before you.
At this point, the sexual scenario can proceed to jerking off. If you only just reached Hookup Level 3, it ends there. Having reached it prior to this hangout can take it even farther, including all the way to penetrative sex.
Basically, there's just the one single road, a straightforward one that I can write in full with the only alternates being those jump off points and the sexual positions you choose to do if you've earned them. It's nowhere near as mazelike as other situations could previously be.
(For the record, I still think hanging out with Evan is worth it even if you plan to just stay friendly. The way it ends will be a lot of fun!)
Outside of Matt's hangout that will end the update, this is essentially how I'll plan out your dates or hangouts with each guy as the game moves forward. There will still be some group events that are a little more involved, but after writing many, many, many different variations of every one-on-one scene in the game, this is a much more manageable workload that'll still lead to a story that reacts to your choices.
Creating a Team
Lastly, one thing I've been mulling over for a long time is how I can bring in help instead of doing all this myself. I'm currently doing everything from writing to programming to making the art to testing for bugs to doing promo, and on and on.
I've actually enjoyed digging into all of these things. Writing I knew, though I had to learn how to adapt to a branching narrative. With art, I've learned all about working in a 3D environment, which including studying photography and cinematography. Coding the game has expanded my logic skills. Creating the Relationship Guide involved learning graphic design and programs like InDesign.
But outside of writing the main game, I don't necessarily need to do all of this on my own. A shocking revelation, I know.
What I'm considering now includes finding someone (or a few someones) to help with art by doing the basic setup of a CG to my brief, which I'll then complete. The hard part here is finding folks who are able to more or less match my style. I think auditioning by having them make a Patreon gallery will be a good start (which of course they would be paid for).
Testing is another tedious task that can be outsourced. Programming help isn't super necessary since I basically just write the code into the script now, but making sure all the choice branches are working while playing the game is another matter altogether.
I also think I could get help writing a Grind'm scenario. They're rather basic compared to the story of the actual game, and it's easy enough to punch up dialogue after the fact if I need to.
To make all this a reality I first need to set up an LLC, which I'll be discussing with some folks soon, and also figure out how contracts/payment will work. I then plan to reach out to folks who already expressed interest in some of this, and maybe do an open call. We will see!
So all that to say—I'm more than aware of how glacial the pace seems when it comes to releasing new updates, and I've been focusing a lot on speeding it up. There's so much fun stuff coming up, and I want you to be able to play it!
Now, let's take a step back from all that future stuff and look at the (still solo) development of the next update.
Art
With each new update, I've created a menu screen representative of the new content in that update, and there's certainly been an evolution in how those menus look. Before I talk about the new menu, let's take a trip down memory lane (or for some of you, show you these for the first time).
The first few releases used the same menu showing Connor next to several guys with their faces partially obscured:
After that, I changed the layout to one with a giant logo in the middle and menu options at the bottom. I put Connor front and center flanked by the guys highlighted in that update:
The New You Update added a revised model for Connor, so I decided to make him the sole focal point:
When it came time for the Morning After Update, I decided that the sort of neon look with the patterned background was a little too busy. I took a shift towards something a little more minimal, something I carried on with the menu for the current release:
That brings us to the new menu. Between making the Trevor Grind'm menu and now, I created the Relationship Guide, which involved coming up with its visual design. For consistency, I wanted to keep the image framing with the angled corners, as well as have someone pop out of that frame.
I also wanted to keep the more minimal look but return back to the style of the very first menu by having the featured guys' faces cropped out to keep the focus on Connor. This proved to be really difficult using the logo and menu option placement I've done up until now.
I looked at menus for other games and realized I was taking up way more real estate with the logo and menu than I needed. Shifting things to the left and shrinking the logo a tiny bit gave me more room for the key art.
And now we have the new look. I am by no means a professional graphic designer, and there are a few tweaks I may make, but I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you like it, too.
Beyond that, I've been finishing up CGs, including a bunch of selfies from different guys. I shared this one of Leo on Bluesky, but he has a few others that I'm gonna make you wait to see while playing:
There's also been finalizing some character designs and making new sprites to go along with them. Even though I've become pickier and pickier with how I want finished images to look, I think it's all been coming together nicely
Writing
I've also been making sure I've covered my bases when it comes to addressing all the storylines before the update focuses in on Evan and Matt. I'm trying to be as thorough as I can in tying things together to set myself up for less work as the game goes on.
I'm tentatively saying I'm done with the script for the opening of the update, only because there's probably some connective tissue missing as well as some loose threads I haven't discovered yet.
This post is pretty long, so let's wrap things up with my current to-do list.
TO-DO LIST
For anyone new, I no longer guess at release dates since I'm notoriously bad at guesstimating. Rather, I share my to-do list in these posts so you can follow along with development in another way.Anything updated or added since I shared the list in Status Report #89 is denoted with an asterisk and bolded. To keep the focus on the opening scenes, I'm not listing other work I've done that'll come in the second dev build and final release. I am, however, listing general tasks like code work that I do during downtime while making CGs.
General Work
Relationship Guide (done)
Creation of the new Patreon-exclusive guide.
Written (18/18 sections)
Layout designed (18/18 completed)
Section covers (17/17 completed)
Final edit (18/18 sections completed)
Sprite Code Conversion
Coding changes to simplify how sprites are displayed.
Connor (partially done)
Main Characters (9/16 characters)
Side Characters (15/45 characters)
Revised Art
CGs and sprites updated to use the most visibly changed character models; not a top priority.
Alex CGs (3/32)
Leo CGs (5/50)
Marco CGs (1/3)
Duke sprites (5/5, completed)
Restored Content
Scenes that were missed when making the Morning After Update.
Revised Evan pondering scene
Marco pondering scene post-Julian hookup
New CGs/Writing
"Nice to have" fantasies to go along with Connor's Morning After shower; not a top priority.
* Morning After tease CGs (24/40)
Morning After tease inner monologue (1/37)
Getting to Know You Part 1, Dev Build 1
Before the final update is ready for release, I'll be sharing early, in-progress dev builds with Senior & Graduate patrons that also act as content milestones. This to-do list is for the first of these builds and doesn't contain all the work required for the final version of the update.
WRITING (done)
"Variants" are different versions of scenes to account for choices; there are many choice-reactive dialogue changes in these scenes that are not included in the count.
Opening (7/7 variants, completed)
Playtime (4/4 variants, completed)
Playtime ending (6/6 variants, completed)
Marco scenes (8/8 variants, completed)
* Afternoon convos (42/42 variants)
Matt convo (6/6 variants, completed)
* Transition scenes (7/7 variants, completed)
CODING
* Transition variables (partially done/ongoing)
Opening (7/7 variants, completed)
Playtime (4/4 variants, completed)
Playtime ending (6/6 variants, completed)
Marco scenes (8/8 variants, completed)
* Afternoon convos (40/42 variants)
Matt convo (6/6 variants, completed)
* Transition scenes (6/7 variants)
* New main menu (completed)
ART
Sprites
* Connor sprites (36/36, completed)
* Dominic sprites (7/7, completed)
* Marco sprites (26/40)
* Riley sprites (13/13, completed)
Antonio sprites (4/4, completed)
* Blaze sprites (5/5, completed)
Jordi sprites (10/10, completed)
Xavier sprites (2/2, completed)
* Storyline Character #1 sprites (5/5, completed)
CGs
Opening CGs (8/8, completed)
* Playtime CGs (82/85)
* Transition CGs (18/21)
Backgrounds (done)
Dorm room, clean (2/2, completed)
Character Models (done)
Lacy (new, done)
Storyline Character #1 (new, done)
Connor (tweaks, done)
Matt (tweaks, done)
Marco (tweaks, done)
Riley (tweaks, done)
Character Design (done)
* Blaze, week 1a outfit (done)
Dominic, week 1a outfit (done)
Jordi, week 1a outfit (done)
Jordi, underwear (done)
Lacy, week 1a outfit (done)
Marco, week 1a outfit (done)
Matt, gym (done)
Riley, week 1a outfit (done)
Xavier, week 1a outfit (done)
* Storyline Character #1, week 1a outfit (done)
Props (done)
Fleshlight (completed)
Dildos, realistic (3/3, completed)
Dildos, colorful (3/3, completed)
Anal trainers (3/3, completed)
Carrying case (5/5, completed)
Screens (done)
* New main menu (done)
* Splash screens (3/3, done)
* Side menu background (done)
Sets (done)
Dorm room, shaders & prop adjustments for days passing (completed)
I think that covers it. I'm still holding off on guessing at a release date for now, but as you can see, I'm pretty close to finishing the dev build portion of this list!