Alrighty, soooo, I figured it's about time I actually made a development FAQ for this project since I seem to get asked certain questions more than others :3 Hopefully, this will serve as a post that answers some of the more common questions asked.

For the latest post related to development in general, head here. It talks about some of the stuff on this FAQ in a lot more detail and generally does a better job of explaining some of the complexities and struggles of developing this particular project.

I also posted my rough schedule for 2024 if you want to have a nosy at it x3

If you're patiently waiting for more of DD because you're a fan of yandere characters and you haven't checked out some of my other projects yet, go take a peek!

Almost all of my games feature at least 1 yandere romance option because I'm mad about em :D Some are bloody, some are sweet and fluffy, some are more psychologically than physically dangerous, and some are even platonic, but they all love you more than anything else in the world <3

Current questions covered in this FAQ are:

When will the full game be released?

Why is development so slow when you've released lots of other games since the Darling Duality demo?

Can't you just release the game without voice acting first, then add it later in an update to speed up development?

It's been a long time since the game was updated. Are you abandoning the project?

Will there be more content for Castor/ia in the full game?

Are there other characters coming in the full game?

Will the game be released on Steam at some point?

Will the full game be free?

How can I support the game's development?

Where can I find updates on the game's development progress?

Can I suggest ideas for features and story branches?

Do you draw all the art yourself?

When will the full game be released?

This is a tough one to answer because, at the time of writing this, I honestly don't know >.< It's a big project that's going to take me a long time to finish every aspect of it. Right now, only a very small percentage of the writing is even complete, so there's that to finish on top of coding, editing and adding voice acting, getting artwork commissioned, creating more original music tracks for the soundtrack, and testing. 

I'm a solo dev, so I'm handling all of that on my own besides the creation of CGs, which will be drawn by the immensely talented Lazy Polar Bear :3 (And, of course, various voice actors will record lines, but I'll still have to pick out takes, edit, and implement them by myself x3)

On top of that, this project isn't yet my top priority to finish (please don't kill me T_T) I have a project that I released a concept demo for waaaay back in 2018, before DD. It's a completely different dating sim game where the player will be able to choose the protagonist's pronouns + pick between masculine & feminine versions of love interests. The overall story is a lot more serious than DD, but still contains a couple of yandere romance options x3

I fully finished the writing for that in late 2020 (roughly 120k words for the full script).  It was supposed to be my second big game after my very first release, Solipsism Reigns. A Kickstarter was supposed to happen, but it all fell apart because of my personal situation >.<

I know that DD is the game most people following me want to see finished and that hardly anyone even knows about the existence of the other big project, but I feel guilt and pain every day knowing that the finished script for the other project has been sat there for over 3 years gathering dust. I desperately want to get that one finished and released so it will stop haunting me. Then I can focus my attention on DD.

If I'm lucky, I might be able to finish that other project sometime in 2024, but it's difficult to know what will happen since my plans often end up blown to bits. I can hope though x3

I don't even have the words to describe how much your interest in and support for DD means to me. Please know that it will eventually be finished at some point. It's just a long, slow road to the end, haha. I hope that you might enjoy some of my other finished or in-progress projects in the meantime :3 (I personally think some of them are technically much better than DD x3)

Why is development so slow when you've released lots of other games since the Darling Duality demo?

For soooo many reasons, including what I mentioned above. My poor mental health and autism are also contributing factors. If you really want to know everything though, it's covered in this big post here x3

Some people wrongly assume I’m super productive because I can create a finished game from scratch within a month for a game jam, but that’s not a sustainable way of working on stuff long-term or representative of how I work for most of the year. That laser focus that I’m able to harness during jams leaves me completely drained afterwards and needing a lot of time to recover because it often involves hardly sleeping for the duration of the jam and repeatedly forgetting to eat and take care of other basic needs or irl tasks >.<

With game jams, I know I have X amount of time, usually 1 month, to create and complete a concept, and once that time is up, I can release it into the wild knowing that I did my best with the time I had and that it’s then behind me. Darling Duality was different because my aim was to release a self-contained story within the jam timeframe, with the intention of expanding on it as and when I was able to post-jam. I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford voice acting, so I’d put it to one side as something to work on in the distant future.

Sometimes, without warning, my depression will hit me so hard that it feels like it shatters me into thousands of little shards. I can't function at all and I end up having to take a month away from my  PC to just pull myself back together again.

The attention the project gained out of nowhere was largely thanks to Manly's video on YouTube, but I was totally unprepared for it. I hadn't planned to pick this project back up until a much later date >.< Friends encouraged me to immediately focus on this since it was what people seemed to want, but I couldn't just make myself switch focus like that all of a sudden when I had other plans to work on other things.

I will always be immensely grateful for the love and support the project has received! Heck, this project wouldn't even be possible without you guys because I can't imagine I would ever be able to fund all the voice acting and art that it needs on my own. That's why I put it on hold in the first place x3 But yeah, I guess probably because of my autism, I can't bring myself to fully focus on this when I know I have an older project that needs finishing first >.<

Can't you just release the game without voice acting first, then add it later in an update to speed up development?

I have no doubt that almost any other dev would definitely go that route because it would be the best compromise! Unfortunately, though, it wouldn't work for me personally for a couple of reasons >.<

The main one is, as a dev, voice acting is a huuuuuge motivator for me. If I know that a script I’m trying to write won’t have full voice acting, I essentially lose all motivation to write it at all >.< I have one project where I tried my best to finish it despite finding out I wouldn’t be able to get it voiced, and I truly believe that the game is awful for that reason (among a couple of others) x3 It’s the Love in Lockdown ones. They’re just reeeeally bad because my heart wasn’t in it in the end >.<

This will probably sound kind of crazy and somewhat pathetic, but I can’t stand my writing and my characters always feel so hollow without voices >.< For me, it’s the talent of voice actors that gives the characters a soul and allows me to actually begin to accept them along with the rest of my writing x3 Without voices in mind for the characters, I want to scrap all my writing and burn it to the ground, haha.

So even if players would rather a project had no or minimal voicing in order to get it out faster, it wouldn’t work because I wouldn’t be able to finish the project at all T_T So yeah, it’s more of a personal thing I guess. Even when I manage to finish all of the writing, I don’t think I would ever be content enough with it to actually release it without VA, regardless of what players might think >.<

It's been a long time since the game was updated. Are you abandoning the project?

Hell, no! x3 The only way I’m ever dropping this project is if I die or somehow become unable to use a computer, haha. That’s the only way I’ll ever drop any of my projects! Even if no one else cared about Darling Duality anymore and lost interest because it took me so long to work on it, I’d still finish it and release it because I can’t stand leaving things unfinished :3 If you're still here when that happens, you deserve a medal for your patience and the world's biggest hug ^-^

Will there be more content for Castor/ia in the full game?

Yup, absolutely! What's currently in the demo is more like an extended version of the standalone story I wrote for the jam. The rest of Castor/ia's route will be in the full game and will most likely have 4 distinct endings depending on the player's choices :3

Are there other characters coming in the full game?

There are indeed! One of them is already mentioned in the current demo (Cana)

There's an entire game dedicated to the backstory of 2 others that will eventually have their own route in DD (Morgenröte & Dämmerung from Dawn of the Damned)

And there are others as well which haven't been revealed at all yet.

I might have to cut back on some of the character routes that I originally planned to have, but there should be at least 6 different character routes available in the full game, with others to potentially add in the future after that :3

Will the game be released on Steam at some point?

I hope so! There just isn't much point in doing it now because it's nowhere near finished and Steam charges $100 to put a project on their platform >.< I need to make sure any donations are going towards actual development of the game before I can think about putting it on Steam.

Also, due my anxiety and aversion to social media, I am terrible at promoting my projects. I just can't handle it at all :( I like to just release stuff into the wild without any fanfare x3 This means the game would likely get buried on Steam pretty easily >.<

Still, I would like to eventually have all of my games available on Steam, and possibly even Nintendo Switch + mobile too if I can manage to figure out how to make them work on other platforms :3

Will the full game be free?

As of right now, I would say that, yes, it probably will be. My current personal situation means I'm not actually allowed to try and commercialise my games because it would mean losing the aid money I get from the government, and since I'm unemployed because of my terrible mental health and autism, I need that to survive >.<

There may end up being some kind of commercial aspect to it in the future, such as something like extra DLC episodes or characters. But that's so far off right now that there isn't much point in thinking about it.

How can I support the game's development?

Firstly, thank you for considering supporting the project :3

There are a few different ways. The project page will ask you if you'd like to make a donation when you download the game, so it can be done through itch.io. However, I don't get 100% of the donation that way, unfortunately (30% of it gets sucked up for US tax even though in the UK where I live, I'm not even liable to pay tax because I'm too poor >.<)

If you'd rather make sure that I end up with 100% of your donation, Ko-Fi is the best option :3 It allows you to send one-off donations without taking any of the cut. Aaand, any donation through Ko-Fi will also give you access via a key to the supporter page on itch that currently contains my original soundtracks for download, but will hopefully have more on there in the future!

I do also have a Patreon, but that may be more awkward if you're only interested in sending a one-off donation since it requires you to sign up for a recurring monthly tier. I also lose a small portion of donations via Patreon to US tax again. Patrons also get access to the supporter page on itch :3

Where can I find updates on the game's development progress?

In order not to end up spamming followers with notifications here on itch.io, I will probably try to refrain from posting small-scale progress reports on the project page's dev logs. I will save that for announcing actual update releases and for posting major progress reports such as the completion of a route's writing.

Smaller progress reports for my dev work, in general, will be over on Ko-Fi as public posts :3 I will try my best to write one per month to let anyone who wants to know what I've achieved across all projects as the year goes on.

Any behind-the-scenes and sneak peek kinda stuff will stay as supporter-exclusive posts on Ko-Fi & Patreon.

Can I suggest ideas for features and story branches?

You certainly can, and I will absolutely read them and try to take it on board, BUT, please understand that I won't necessarily implement them.

In all honesty, I try my best to avoid thinking too much about what players might want in general since I find that far too overwhelming x3

If people happen to like what I’m doing, then that’s incredible and I really appreciate it a lot, but at the end of the day, this is a hobby that essentially functions as a coping mechanism to combat my depression and suicidal thoughts, so the priority with my projects is generally just doing whatever I can to keep my stupid brain occupied and somewhat content so that I don’t completely fall apart, haha. I don’t really have the energy in me to think about pleasing others in the process >.< I'm sorry T_T

Do you draw all the art yourself?

I WISH x3 I can't draw to save my life T_T I do all the writing and coding along with handling all the sound design and creating a number of original music tracks, but I cannot art >.<

For backgrounds, I tend to use ones from asset packs and edit them a little. For sprites, I often use ones from asset packs and heavily edit them! For example, I recoloured everything for Castor/ia and added additional facial expressions that weren't part of the pack they came from. For CGs, I am commissioning the amazing artist, Lazy Polar Bear who I have worked with before on numerous projects :3