​Hello, everyone! Today marks the first release since Inciting Incident, and I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect a little on our experiences during the past year.

I’ll be frank: they weren't great. Development throughout 2019 was plagued with setbacks that we couldn’t predict and that we still haven’t fully resolved. A lot of them were development setbacks, but several other involved some real life issues that unfortunately took a toll on our staff members. As a result, we couldn’t get much progress done, at least not as much as we were expecting. These are the obvious problems that come with a volunteer project such as ours. But knowing they are obvious doesn’t make the past year any less disheartening.

Which is why this release is so important. In the process of writing, or of creating any sort of art really, it’s always refreshing to finally put something out there, anything at all. It allows other people to appreciate what we’re doing, to give us the drive to keep working despite the odds. In the process of preparing these Heroine Prologues, us members who weren’t present for Inciting Incident’s release got a chance to get more used to Lucid9’s engine and programming quirks, something that will prove to be a big help for the game’s development process later down the line. But above all, the sole thought of letting you people read even just a fragment of what we’ve been preparing for the past few years is uplifting, and will surely give us the strength to keep on working towards a full release.

For now, we simply hope this release, which tells the beginning of our characters’ new journey, is enjoyable to you all. And if it can also get you more excited for the remainder of the game, then we couldn’t be happier. 

- Daniel “Via” Cuturrufo, Fallen Snow Studios

​Last week, we briefly pushed this update, only to find out that people were having trouble loading their old saves since an error would pop up before returning them to the beginning of the game. Sadly, we couldn't find an easy fix to this problem without undoing months of work in the game's code.

Which is why we eventually came up with an alternative solution: older saves made in Lucid9: Inciting Incident prior to this update will automatically go through a "compatibility fix". If you load one of these saves, you won't be loaded into the exact spot as you were before, but rather the beginning of the Day / Chapter in which the save was made. This will only happen once, after which you'll be able to save and load normally. We apologize for the inconvenience. 

After a long wait, the heroine prologues release is now finished and ready to be released on Steam this very December 15th!

As we previously described, the Heroine Prologues contain the first chapter for each of the four heroine routes in Lucid9, plus a little bit of additional content written solely for this release! Be advised that these chapters serve only as introductory pieces to the remainder of our game, narrated from the POV of each one of the heroines. Rest assured, however, that Yama will return as the overall protagonist and narrator in future releases.

We're extremely excited to finally share a portion of the content we'd been working on. It's certainly a milestone for us, and we hope that it sparks interest for the heroine routes that is still yet to come.

To give you some insight of what to expect from the prologues, here's a quick list:

- Dope, new music tracks.
- Bad writing from a prominent political figure. 
- (ง •̀_•́)ง ​
- Lemonade drink drunk by a lemonade boy. 
- Good Dads & Shady Moms. 
- A crotch rocket.

In order to access this new content, you need to first have reached the ending of Lucid9: Inciting Incident. Once you do, you will notice that the main menu theme has changed, along with something else. Simply find this new option to see what we have in store!

It's been about three years since Inciting Incident was released, and we're more than aware of the growing anticipation for the second part. When we first started this project, we never imagined we would spend such a considerable amount of time on it. Still, we trudged on, and we're now seeing the results of all our years of blood, sweat, and tears. We're finally nearing the homestretch. 

Prologue Scenes
In October, we mentioned that we would release the prologues for the heroine routes. Currently, they are all scripted and just need a bit of editing and small revisions. We're already implementing some of the assets into the engine, and will release them on Steam this month or in July. We'll ask some of our regulars in our Discord server to beta test them when the time comes. 

Heroine Routes
Since the writing for Airi's and Elizabeth’s routes are nearly finished, we've come to a  decision to release them first, with Akira's and Misaki’s coming at a later date. While some of you may have been looking forward to the latter routes, we've felt it was necessary given the amount of time this project has been in development. For those who were excited about Airi and Elizabeth, we are hoping to release their routes this year if all goes well.

To summarize: things are going to be released very soon. And we'll continue to work hard to finish the entirety of Lucid9 until the very end. Again, thank you all for your patience. 

If you're ever wondering about our progress but the blog hasn't been updated in a while, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You can also join our Discord server and speak with us directly. There, you can also get early access to some of the stuff we've been working on. 

- David A. "CardioPen" 

~ Via

I was going to write this post yesterday but remembered that it was Father's Day. I hope you guys had the chance to spend some quality time with your old man/father figure!

Writing progress has been consistent, and we haven't had many issues in the writing department as of late. But given how some of our writers have been around longer than others, those that joined us just recently not only had to focus on catching up on their route, they also had to read the other writers' work and provide feedback. Naturally, this became increasingly difficult, and a lot of our writing meetings ended up being one-on-one sessions with Dia rather than an open discussion. Dia suggested the writers spend two weeks reading, commenting, and leaving suggestions on what was currently written without having to worry about writing their own routes. We'll be scheduling another meeting next Monday now that everyone is caught up with each other's work.

The writers are also planning to experiment with the phone system that was present in Inciting Incident. Our hope is to include phone applications—such as Patter—where the reader can learn more about the world of Lucid9 and its characters. It's still in the developmental phase at the moment, so we'll share mock-ups once we make more progress.

Concerning art, all of the main characters in Lucid9 (with the exception of Shigure) have completed sprites. Of course, there are still varying poses/clothing that need to be done, but those will be finished in due time. Dizzy, Elphaze, and Eufonie have been fairly active, and we're always excited to share some of their work with you guys. Below is a mock-up of the heroines and background art!

 
Ziassan, one of our composers, had also uploaded a few drafts for the sequel's soundtrack. This one will be played during the darker segments of the story, and will have a two other variations of intensity—a bit similar to the Melancholy tracks in Inciting Incident. We'll be working to harmonize the tracks so they don't transition too abruptly, which was an issue in our first release.

That's about all the news for now! While these past few months weren't easy, we've made quite a lot of headway despite the changing of so many writers, so a big thank you to DJ Horn, ReddlyB, and Via for helping us out in that department.

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to write us here. You can also reach us on our discord channel. A lot of our members are very active there. discordapp.com/invite/q3fyjT2

Until next time!

~ David A. "CardioPen"