Since spooky season is my favourite season, I've decided that Halloween will be the most suitable day to make some changes to Darling Duality! This post will be split into 2 sections. Firstly, I'll discuss the upcoming changes to the game and the page. And after that, I'll link you guys to the first of 6 original tracks for the project!

The Game & Page 

I'll be uploading a mini update on the 31st (hopefully anyways - provided nothing goes wrong) that will serve as the new demo for the game :3

It's nothing too exciting, so it's not gonna have stuff in it like Cana, CGs, or any of the continuation of Castor/ia's story, but it will have all the extra choices and stuff within Castor/ia's existing content along with numerous changes to the UI and other little tweaks here and there.

Since I still don't know what's going on with the original voice actors, the new lines added to account for the new choices will sadly be unvoiced. If I don't hear anything by the end of the year, then I'll hold a poll for everyone to see what you would prefer. To keep the original voice acting for Castor/ia in the game and have all of their new lines unvoiced (while new characters have full voice acting), or to recast the roles of Castor/ia and have the new voice actors re-record all of the old lines as well as the new ones. Of course, the other option is to go forward with the project without any new VA at all until all of it has been sorted out.

It's partly because of the VA dilemma that I'll also be removing the $2 donation option on the 31st October for the foreseeable future. I'll still include the option for anyone to donate through itch if they want to, but it will be $0 or donate like the rest of my projects on here. 

The project has gone without an update for far too long. That alone concerns me, as does the fact that some new players don't realise that it's a project in development (and I certainly don't blame anyone for not reading my massive walls of rambling text on the page and on dev logs, haha.) At the end of the day, the game as it is in its current state is more like a demo than anything, and so I feel like it makes more sense to refer to this upcoming updated build in that way. This means that anyone who chooses to check the game out will clearly be able to see that it's a free demo for a project that is still in development. They will also still have the option of donating to funding the project through itch or by supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon.

Regardless of what happens with the project in the future, the version I plan to upload should serve nicely as a general demo for the project that will always be available for free so that anyone can check it out without having to worry about asking me for a key just to access a glimpse of the game. Once more character routes are added, I might add snippets and previews of other routes to the demo too. And for anyone who wishes to access the old version of the game, I'll be keeping the original versions on the page as well so they can be downloaded any time :3

As a heads up, I plan to temporarily disable downloads on DD's page sometime within the next 48 hours so that I can start changing stuff on the page and stop new players from playing the old version when the updated version is less than a week away. This is because anyone wishing to play the new demo will have to start over from scratch. Your old saves will not work, and the game should open as a brand new game separate from the old version. Don't worry, the old version of the game will be made available for download again once the new updated demo is uploaded on 31st October.

The OST

To celebrate spooky season, Halloween, and the incoming mini-update to DD, I'll be releasing 1 new original track from DD's new soundtrack each day (all 6 tracks are available to listen to now for supporters on Ko-Fi & Patreon). The first track is called Duality. It's DD's new instrumental main/title screen theme that I made. Tomorrow I'll be releasing the vocal version, so keep an eye on Twitter and YouTube if you want to catch it :3

Hope you're all having a great spooky season so far! ^-^