Ahoy there, mateys! How was everyone’s summer? Maybe you’d like to cool off from the summer heat in a lovely mermaid marketplace!

This colorful underwater bazaar is full of merchants selling everything from seafood and souvenirs to…uh, shell lingerie? And who’s that mysterious character running the satay stand? Hmm, do they look kind of familiar, or is it just me?

As you may have guessed, this is a preview of some new background art for “The Pirate Mermaid”! The final version will be larger and hopefully also have some small animations. We hope you will enjoy visiting this location in the game!

Writing on Malik’s route is still going as well. I’m really sorry it’s taking so long! I think I spent too much time developing some parts that didn’t end up feeling right. So, in the end, I decided to cut and rewrite a lot. It’s been disheartening because it feels like negative progress that is just slowing things down. But at the same time, I understand that sometimes you have to “kill your darlings,” and I think (or at least hope!) that these changes will make the story better overall.

Thanks again for everyone’s patience and support as we continue to learn and work on our game!

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it and download our demo here.

Ahoy there, mateys! Oops, looks like Jack forgot to update the blog again. Don’t worry, Malik will make sure to punish him for the delay. W-Wait, Malik, you’re going too far! We still need Jack back in one piece, you know! Uh oh…maybe putting Malik in charge of punishment wasn’t such a good idea after all…

All jokes aside, we hope everyone had a good start to the new year! Just wanted to give a quick update and say that we’re doing okay and are still working bit by bit on Pirate Mermaid stuff. The current focus is still on Malik’s path, which is turning out to be longer than expected. Some stuff will probably need to be trimmed out later, but we’ll see how it ends up. I’m currently writing one of Malik’s bad ends, which is, er…kind of messed up. But, well, what else can we expect from someone who is so, uhh… (points up).

Thanks for your much appreciated patience and support as we continue working at our own pace. Until next time, me hearties! (runs off to save Jack from Malik)

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it and download our demo here.

Hey everyone, we hope you are all keeping safe and healthy! Apologies for not updating the blog in a while. We got pretty busy again with IRL stuff, especially dealing with all the crazy things going on these last few months. I think my (Aro’s) schedule is slowly starting to settle down though, so I am planning for more time to work on Pirate Mermaid – in particular, Malik’s scripts. I feel like Malik’s route has been the most difficult one for some reason, because I keep going back and rewriting stuff (Malik is a troublesome guy both inside and outside the game, haha). But I recently got a new idea that I think will be interesting to try. Here’s hoping it goes well!

In other game dev news, we just updated our first game, a2 ~a due~, to add a brand new Brazilian Portuguese translation (screenshots shown above)! Thank you so much to the awesome team at Zero Force Translations for volunteering to work with us and their amazing job on this translation! We’re so excited for this opportunity to bring our game to more players!

In addition to Brazilian Portuguese, a2 is also available in English, German, and Russian. You can pick your language at the start (screenshot below) and switch it whenever you want in the Settings menu.

Please check it out (it’s 100% free) or share with anyone who might be interested. We hope you give it a try! :)

Merry Christmas, mateys! We hope you’re all having a happy holiday season! To celebrate, here’s an image of “The Pirate Mermaid” cast in festive attire. Hope Mimi got enough presents for everybody!

Huh, it looks like Malik brought two mysterious strangers with him to the party. Who could those two newcomers could be, and what role could they play in the game? This is actually the first time we’re revealing their character designs, as they are still in the development stage. Let us know what you think of them. ;)

In general, thank you all for your feedback, encouragement, and well wishes over the past year! We really appreciate your support and patience through all our tough and busy times. We’ll continue working on the Pirate Mermaid in 2020 and wish everyone an awk-some new year!

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it and download our demo here.

Who’s the cutest boy in our game? Obviously the one right up there. ;)

Ahoy there, mateys! Hope you’re all having a great weekend. We’re doing well, though busy as usual. A few people have asked us for updates on “The Pirate Mermaid,” so just dropping by to let you know that we’re still working on Malik’s route! 

Based on the routes that have already been finished, I’d estimate that the script for Malik’s route is about one-third of the way done. The end of the route will branch a lot though, because good MC and evil MC go down pretty different paths. So we’ll see what the final length ends up as. The current word count for the game so far is already over 400k words, which is much longer than we originally expected. I guess this is what happens when you try to add karma (good/evil) branching. ^^; 

In the meantime, I’m slowly working my way through our mailbox. My apologies if it takes a while to get to your asks. We really appreciate everyone who takes the time to write in, even if we can’t respond right away. Thanks for your support and patience as always, and we’ll do our best to continue making progress on the game!

The Pirate Mermaid is our upcoming otome game. Learn more about it and download our demo here.

Thanks for playing, and I’m glad you liked that scene! I think I rewrote it at least three times, haha. :‘D 

I worry that Malik will come off as too cruel and pushy (which is the image he wants, but still). So the MC’s reaction to him is important. If she were very submissive and easily intimidated, the way Malik treats her would be bullying. We want to create a dynamic between the MC and Malik where they are on more equal footing (finning?) and can ultimately have fun pushing each other.

Yes, every route will have endings with both good and evil karma. We wouldn’t want to lock anyone out of a character’s route just because they don’t have a certain karma level. The content of the endings (and much of the routes) will differ depending on whether your karma is good or evil though.

I’m glad you enjoyed our demo! And yes, if we add any R18 content, we would definitely include a way to skip it. I’m thinking we could add a preference in the Options menu that would filter those parts out or replace them.

Aw thanks, glad you thought so! I’d say making a visual novel often tends to cost more than people might think. Another dev has put together a video here that breaks down the common costs in more detail. As explained in the video, the budget may go up to thousands of dollars - or even tens of thousands of dollars! - depending on the types of assets you need.

If you have the right skill set, you can reduce the budget by doing some work yourself, rather than hiring other people to do it. But even if this doesn’t cost you actual money, it does cost you your own time, which you shouldn’t undervalue. Even if you love working on your game, you probably only have so much free time outside of your job, school, etc. So you might not be able to finish as much work or work as quickly when you don’t have other people to help you. You could even get burned out over time if you don’t take any breaks.

So, in the end, nothing can truly come for free, because you either pay in money or time. I hope that doesn’t sound discouraging though! I think game dev is a super fun hobby, and the costs are worthwhile when you enjoy it. ;)   

Of course! :3 Certain MC names give you bonuses with certain characters. To find them, think about what kinds of names we (the creators) would favor, haha. 

Certain other MC names will not be accepted and instead receive one of two different reactions from the game. To find them, think about what kinds of names might be banned or off-limits.

Hope that helps without giving too much away!