HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is so good to round out the end of 2023 by looking back on the overwhelming amount of progress that has been made. I've been gathering up devlogs and progress reports over the last week and am sincerely shocked by (and very emotional about) just how much was accomplished!

Thank you all so much for joining me on this insane journey. I have so many plans for 2024 and could not be more motivated to press on with the development of Catalyst: Blind Faith! I'd love to recap all of this progress with you today. I'm going to break this into categories to help with navigation.

Without further ado!

JUST WRITE STUDIOS 2023 RECAP

ART - BACKGROUNDS

Pictured: The second background for Catalyst: Blind Faith.

• Pontos: A ramshackle fishing village, and the first location in the game.
• Enchanted Stairs: A mysterious and unlockable location in the demo.

ART - CHARACTERS

Pictured: An early concept for Celegwen, a main character/party member/potential love interest for the full game of Catalyst: Blind Faith.

• Father Richard Anscham: A polytheistic human priest—our young, troubled, and compassionate antihero.
• Malimos: An easily-amused, spider-like mass murderer, and the first demon seen in the game.
• Offala: A treacherously beautiful and unbearably violent monstrosity; the second demon encountered in the game's demo.
• Orgoth: A gregarious orc warchief, one of the main characters in the demo.
• The Goddess of Time: All of space and reality.
• Celegwen: A venerable elvish sorceress, who loves knowledge and anarchy almost as much as her immense Magical power.

ART - GRAPHIC DESIGN

Pictured: An audition lines card I made for our upcoming, live performance of Catalyst: Blind Faith.

• Logo for Just Write Studios created!
• Logo for Catalyst: Blind Faith created!
• Made the audition line cards for a vtuber live performance casting event! If you are interested in keeping up to date with this event, check out our Catalyst Discord or MiMoMedia's official server!
• Placeholder, animated credits screen!
• Redesigned all 8 holy symbols for the Gods and Goddesses in the pantheon!
• Concepts done for all 32 achievements!!
• Revamped all of my social media!!

COMMUNITY

Pictured: Sweet mousepads!!

• Hosted the 4 Year anniversary stream in the Catalyst Discord server in September!
• Featured in the PARANOIA festival in October!
• Partnered with mimomedia for a live vtuber performance of Catalyst: Blind Faith (this will take place on January 20th)!
• Selected as a speaker for the upcoming VN Conf on January 27th, you can get tickets and more info here!
• Monthly updates for our incredible Patrons.
• Over a dozen Tumblr posts.
• 120+ new Twitter followers!
• 50+ new Discord members!!
• 8000+ new views on Catalyst: Blind Faiths' game page on itch.io!
• 800+ new downloads!!!
• 7 new glowing reviews on the game's page! (This is a great way to support the game, feel free to leave us a nice review if you have played the demo!)
• Got the opportunity to make some merch from Vograce, a lucky Patron and we now have matching mousepads featuring Richard and Orgoth!!

DIRECTING

Pictured: The logo for Just Write Studios!

• Founded Just Write Studios. <3
• Brought together 7 of my strongest warriors (our art director, background artist, lead editor, quality assurance team, and composer)!
• Created a studio compendium for Catalyst: Blind Faith!
• Managed our 4 year community anniversary event!
• Coordinated streams for PARANOIA and throughout the year!!
• Partnered with mimomedia!!
• Oversaw and picked from auditions from 146 vtubers for the live performance!!!
• Participated in a research discussion regarding choices in interactive fiction!!

PROGRAMMING

Pictured: Our robust save and load system!

• Timelapse animation with a pause and play button!
• Scrolling credits screen
• Toggle for any SFX
• Toggle for quick menu
• Slider for textbox opacity
• Revamped inventory system!
• Unlockable save system
• Robust save and load screen
• All splash screens and ending screens for the demo
• Pimped out History menu
• Sleek functionality for the entire players Journal
• Functional gallery (will be finished in 2024)
• Learned how to use the action editor in Ren'Py and incorporated tons of camera movement into the demo!!
• TIME TRAVEL

SOUND

Pictured: A short sample of the MANY sound effects used in Catalyst: Blind Faith!

• Harvested over 160GB of SFX and music.
• Laboriously picked out placeholder music for the entire demo
• Mixed many sound effects, including custom noises for gore
• Unique SFX provided by Amidst None and Addigale Stewart for the JWS logo, choice menus, and more!!
• Balanced EVERYTHING

WRITING

Pictured: The completed flowchart for the demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith. The full game's flowchart is way too long for here lol

• Beat NaNo twice
• Outlined, wrote and edited 545k+ words
• Which completed almost three full passes through the script of Catalyst: Blind Faith (70 chapters, 66 chapters, and 49 chapters respectively)!
• Mapped every single choice and variable across the script so far in a flowchart in Twine
• Finalized choices for two more routes (the remainder of the script will be written in 2024)
• Finished the 45k word script for the demo
• Brought onboard 16 beta readers, editors, quality assurance leads, and reviewed a cumulative 185 chapters together.
• Began a critique group and have reviewed 27 chapters together.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Pictured: Our new logo.

• Made it through an awful health scare that had me in and out of the hospital (as a result of medication and many misdiagnoses). Luckily I am totally recovered!
• Also made it through COVID for the first time (due to aforementioned health issues this was particularly difficult)
• Got outstanding support for my long-term sleep issues
• Fully upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and graphics card!
• Lined up for a nice raise at my day job (I'm working 45-50 hours a week at a day job, on top of all of this, to fund the demo).
• Celebrated my nine year anniversary with my partner. Without her support I could not have done any of this. 

We made it! That's the entire recap. I can hardly believe that this year was so remarkably productive, despite everything.

Thank you so much for reading this far and joining me in 2023! This coming year I have BIG plans for development. All of us at Just Write Studios are working incredibly hard to complete the demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith. My goal is to complete the script for the full game, and to get as many art assets commissioned as possible. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am more motivated and determined than ever to get it all done!

Patrons will be getting sneak previews at art assets as they are made, script excerpts, and a whole lot more. Keep an eye out on our socials for updates! You can find us on Discord, Twitter, Tumblr, Itch.io, Ko-Fi, and on Patreon.

I hope you have a fantastic new year. Here's to a bright and productive 2024! See you soon!