I am working on a full story!

I do put it aside to work on something else like Cinderella and Villainess, and there's more to come, but if I try to stay on one project I grow bored of it. Cinderella allowed me to test layered image mechanics, Villainess was a fun exercise in spritework, testing things out elsewhere will help me make Emerald better in the long run. How long? Can't tell at present. This devlog is mostly for future progress-check purposes.

Emerald is currently at around 30k words, and I'd call it written about halfway through:

• The introduction heists are 100% finished and uploaded
• The heist right after Diamond's introduction is around 80% finished
• Amusement park is at 40%, theatre at 30% and the fancy ballroom party is at 40%
• The last two heists are at 70%, and the endings are at 99% (one scene still eludes me)

With Amare Festival I finally had enough motivation to put in Louis/whatever you call him/Diamond's introduction! Because why choose between a detective love interest or rival phantom thief love interest when you can have both?

Jules/the detective doesn't emote much in this version because I want to change his sprite a little but can't quite nail it yet. No major design alterations, just a pose adjustment to get him to look consistent with Louis, but it's tricky still.

There's also some minor line rewrites for better characterization, some text removed as it would serve no purpose in the future, and the Mysterious Individual scene now plays regardless of your previous choices.

The game should run fine, but if you encounter any bugs, please comment here!