Hello everyone, Shitsu here.

And I think it's time for the -insanely overdue- Outsiders monthly update!

So, without further ado, let's start by talking about the content we're currently working on and some changes we have planned.

Scene Four.

As many of you may know -if you read the last log- Scene Three is completely finished. From assets, to gameplay, dialogues, everything. And with this, Outsiders finally reaches the most critical point of all the development so far; and that is Scene Four.

Which, as we mentioned in the previous log, is the turning point where the game splits into the different routes. So from this point every run will be different in terms of route (Route, NOT ending. We'll talk about that later.)

In terms of progress, Scene Four is between 35-40% of being finished. I know, I know, it's not much. But trust me when I say that writing a completely different version “Scene Four” for each route is quite a complicated and time consuming task. 

However, we are working hard, and so far everything is going great. We will keep progressing little by little and we expect the whole scene to be finished by the end of October.

To give you some context, this is the order of events of scene four so far. No spoilers, obviously.

• MC arrives at the school.
• MC meets Lia, who tells her about the club registrations.
• MC goes to the clubs' booths and meets ??? 
• MC chooses a club
• ???

Assets update.

As we mentioned in the previous log, lately we have been thinking about releasing an update of the game demo once we have enough content.

This update will be totally free and we want it to have at least twice as much content as the original demo. 

(Additionally, it should be noted that the update would be published first on our Discord, exclusively for our backers and supporters. And as time goes by, we will eventually upload it to Itchio so that everyone can play it.)

We believe that this demo update is the perfect time and opportunity to update some of the main assets of the game, such as the retouching of all the character sprites, add a new pose and expressions for each of the main characters, as well as the completion of some backgrounds and the retouching of others. 

These visual changes are something that we had planned since the beginning, given that some, if not all of the visual assets are still a "preliminary version" or "prototype" of what they should be, and many of these will receive changes until we reach a final version that meets the expectations of the full game.

Currently, we haven’t started working on this update, but as soon as we have progress we will be informing you about it.

(Sorry, the illustrator is a perfectionist maniac)

MC Rework.

And last but not least, we have something we've been wanting to tell you about for a while now.

And that is the rework of the main character of Outsiders.

It is easy to realize as soon as the game starts that the protagonist is a complicated person, not only for the story, but also in terms of writing him. 

When we started the development of the game, we wanted the protagonist to have a specific personality. He should not be a self-immersive protagonist so that everyone could easily identify. However, this intention of making a unique personality for the protagonist ended up representing a plot gap in the narrative of the story.

As many will remember, MC is a person who is afraid to move forward, to make new friends, form bonds, and even more so to start a relationship. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the problem is that this doesn't really have a reason to be.

Yes, okay, he's a depressed guy who feels tied to his home country and is afraid to move on, but... why?

This is the main problem of MC, and it is from this that a variety of narrative problems related to him, his thoughts and dialogues are derived.

And this is why we have decided to give MC a deeper background. An interesting past/event that justifies his way of being, but at the same time feels natural and can be seen coming.

It's definitely going to be complicated. And even taking away the thinking and defining of the idea, we would still have to replace quite a lot of dialogues and thoughts. Still, it's something we'll do whatever it takes, and it will definitely make the whole Outsiders experience even better.

Thank you very much for your support, we will be informing you about any situation that comes up or important information, otherwise, catch you guys next month with another log.

Besos y abrazos,

            -Midwest Games