⛈️Our Spooktober entry is out now!!!

Hello there!

As the title suggests, our Spooktober entry Strange Tales from Longchun: Sacrifice (陇春志异：宰牲篇) is now completed and released!!!

I'm honestly a little speechless. Right now I feel relief and calm, but also excited and nervous as well. For the past month I've been telling everyone, "I can't do this or that because I'm working on our Spooktober project," all the while worrying that I wouldn't be able to finish in time. And now it's done, even a whole day early. It feels SO SURREAL.

Looking back, one month ago we were very ambitious, yet at the time we thought we were making something of a manageable scale. We were dreaming big about all kinds of features and ideas we hoped to squeeze in if time allowed. Of course, none of those extras made it in.

The game we're releasing today is very different from what we first imagined. But that doesn't make us any less proud of it. On the contrary, we're incredibly proud, both of the game and of ourselves for pulling it off in just one month.

Since the end of August, I've been making PYCSIR's dev bundle and importing translation of Taishō Romance Theater Demo 2.0 to prepare for the Fall in Love Festival. Once this project began, I worked around 10 hours every day without a single break. It was a very challenging journey and exhausting in every sense, but the fact that it was so tough makes the final result feel even more fulfilling.

Here I'd like to express my gratitude to many people. First and foremost, to my teammates, Norika and Whitefish, who have worked so hard on this project. Norika took charge of the forum part of the script this time, and, as always, created all the art and UI design. It was a massive amount of work and she drew intensively throughout the month. Towards the end, it was mainly me coding, but my teammates did their best to share the workload, and that helped a lot. We're a team, and that means we carry both the workload and the emotional pressure together, all in the same boat. I deeply appreciate how we've supported one another during this jam, and this means a lot to us.

Next I want to thank our translator/localizer and playtester, El, who took on an enormous amount of work for us. They single-handedly handled all the English translation with both efficiency and quality, filling the translations into the game files, adjusting them to fit the textboxes, and more. El also translated the game and character introductions, the main theme song lyrics, and consistently tried their best to support us and make things easier for us by doing more on their end. Honestly, this project would never have been submitted on time if El hadn't taken on that portion of the work.

Then I'd like to give a big thank-you to the guys we met through the DevTalk server: our composer rice and FN-Ferd, and our trailer editor andicalico. Everyone was incredibly nice, easy to communicate with, and patient in adjusting things according to feedback, which made the whole collaboration a real pleasure.

Rice did the main theme song (良缘 Transience) and three character theme songs, along with the vocals. All of them are stunningly beautiful, but the main theme is definitely the highlight, with their gorgeous singing.  I honestly don't think I can put into words just how beautiful the song is, so please enjoy it in the game (or wait for them to release it later)! We feel so blessed that they can perform both Chinese and English lyrics!

Ferd created the game interface BGM, forum BGM, and a specific gunshot effect. The tracks are absolutely chill and cool. Everything went smoothly, despite the time we spent fine-tuning to make the forum track loop, and I really appreciate Ferd's patience and willingness to perfect the details!

Andicalico made an amazing trailer without even knowing much about the plot. The editing not only captured the mood and atmosphere perfectly but also added a sense of tension and excitement!

Finally, I'd like to thank all the streamers who have streamed and/or uploaded playthroughs of Taishō Romance Theater. While participating in the Fall in Love Festival—sending and replying to emails, keeping track of streams, and so on—added a lot of extra work for me, I absolutely enjoyed every stream and VOD I watched. The streamers have been wonderful company, and hearing all the kind words people shared about our game truly made me so happy. We'll be releasing a more formal thank-you note later, but for now, I just want to express my gratitude for all the emotional support and positive energy I've received from the streams.

I hope you enjoy the game, and I can't wait to hear what you think!

If you like it, please leave a 5-star review or comment! Your rating really helps improve the game's visibility!

Best wishes,

Sinope

SweetSome Studio