Hello everyone, 

As you may recall from our previous blog post, we were planning to launch the pre-launch page soon. However, we learned that we couldn’t edit anything on the Kickstarter page once it went live. So we decided to take some more time to polish everything and make sure it’s accurate before doing so. This includes adding the two new trailers that we’ve been working hard on: the new Lucid9 story trailer and the voice acting teaser video.

Lucid9 Story Trailer
The story trailer is one of the most important elements of our campaign. It’s the first thing that potential backers will see, and it needs to hook them with the premise, characters, and atmosphere of Lucid9. That’s why we’ve been collaborating with Vicky, our talented trailer editor, to create a video that showcases the best of our visual novel. Vicky has made amazing progress and shared a draft with us recently. We’re very happy with how it’s looking so far, and we can’t wait to share it with you soon!

Voice Acting Teaser Update
Another thing that we wanted to include in our campaign page was the voice acting teaser video that we released a while ago. As you may know, Lucid9 will feature full voice acting for all the main characters and some side characters. However, due to some recasting, we had to ask some of our voice actors to rerecord their lines. It might take some time to finish, but we’re confident that it will be worth showcasing some of the talents if we’d like to reach our voice acting stretch goal. 

Campaign Duration & Stream Schedule
One of the biggest decisions that we had to make was how long to run the campaign for. After some deliberation, we decided to go for 60 days instead of 30. Lucid9 has been in development for a few years, and we want to give ourselves enough time to reconnect with our established audience as well as branch out to new readers. Secondly, we want to make the campaign as engaging and interactive as possible, and that means having a lot of content and events planned.

Speaking of which, we have a very exciting schedule for the 60 day campaign. Each week will have a different theme and focus on a different aspect of Lucid9's development. We'll also be hosting live streams where we'll chat with you guys and invite some special guests from our creative team or other related projects. Here's a breakdown of what each week will look like:

- Week 1: Meet the Creative Team
- Week 2: Art and Visuals Revealed
- Week 3: The Music of Lucid9
- Week 4: Crafting the Story
- Week 5: Voice Acting Magic
- Week 6: Sound Design and Immersion
- Week 7: Building Lucid9's World
- Week 8: Countdown to Campaign End

We'll be posting more details about each week as they come along, so stay tuned for that!

Press Kit and Promotion
Of course, we also need to spread the word about Lucid9 and reach as many people as possible. That's why we've prepared a press kit that contains all the essential information and assets about the project. We'll be sending this press kit to various youtubers, influencers, and journalists who might be interested in covering Lucid9. We hope that this will help us generate some buzz and exposure for the campaign. If you or someone you know may be interested in covering Lucid9, please feel free to contact us!

Social Media Activity
Finally, we want to let you know that we'll be more active on our social media accounts once the Kickstarter is launched. We know that it's been quiet lately, and that's because we've been focusing a lot of our resources on creating the campaign. There's also the issue of us not wanting to reveal too much prior to the launch. Still, I hope everyone's looking forward to some of the content we have in store. 

Preview of Kickstarter Exclusive Print
As a bonus for reading this post, here's an early preview of one of the prints that will be available for Kickstarter backers only! This gorgeous artwork was made by Elphaze, one of our amazing artists. It features Yama, Masato, Yahiko, Katsu, Izumi and Hisao! 

Hello everyone,

In the last blog post, I briefly discussed the potential fate of Lucid9 post-Kickstarter. Today, I want to give a few updates about the campaign itself.

Backup and Account Security
These past couple of months have been quite busy. I've spent some time ensuring that all of our materials are backed up, and our accounts are secure. Unexpectedly, Trello, in particular, made this difficult for some reason, which got me considering whether it's worth finding an alternative down the road. I've also taken the time to update some information on Lucid9's Steam page, our website, and social media accounts. I make sure to keep our FAQ up to date, so if you have any questions about the project, you can find answers there (otherwise you can always contact us). Somewhat related, but I recently found out that SSL was never enabled on this site...

Dealing with Taxes and Banking
Next week, I plan to sort out some banking and tax information. The latter has been a bit of a headache since I'm not too familiar with how taxes work for this type of crowdfunding, and it's been a challenge finding a tax advisor who is, surprisingly. I looked into Backerkit earlier this week and linked some campaign information. It seems like it will be really useful when we begin to collect information from backers.

New trailer, promotion, & pre-launch
Vicky, the editor who is assisting us with the new trailer, will be sharing a draft with us sometime this weekend. While I don't want to spoil too much of the trailer, I think it would be okay to share a preview of the music that we'll be using. You can listen to it here: 

There are still a couple of other things I need to do for the Kickstarter, such as preparing a press kit and creating a list of people to reach out to for promotion. I can't give a specific estimate for when the campaign will launch since I always seem to discover something new that needs to be done, but at the very least, we should have a pre-launch page up soon. It'll be especially helpful to gauge how many potential backers we might receive. When we announce it, please do share it wherever you can!

One last note: I've fixed our newsletter, so you should be able to subscribe by entering your email on the side bar if you'd like to receive notifications for when we post. 

As always, thanks for your support!
- David (FSS Creative Director)

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to give a quick update on Lucid9 before the holidays. It's been a tough year and I know you're probably wondering why it's taking so long to finish. There are a few reasons, but mainly it's because the project is huge, we're offering it for free, and it requires a lot of time and effort. We've tried to aim for a full release, but we've recently decided to go with a periodic release instead. However, whether we actually release Lucid9 this decade depends on the success of our upcoming Kickstarter.

We've made a lot of progress so far, and I'm confident we can finish the continuation within a year if the campaign is successful. Although money brings its own set of issues, it also helps solve our main problem by giving team members a financial incentive to complete the project. It's also a big part of why I'm continuing as creative director.

I've spent almost a quarter of my life working on Lucid9 and it means a lot to me. But I also have to be realistic about whether I can handle such a demanding role. I've also talked to the other FSS members about this. If the Kickstarter isn't successful, unfortunately I can't promise I'll be able to stay on and see it through to the end. The pandemic made it tough to find stability after graduation, and I'm sure many of you can relate.

If that happens, it's uncertain who, if anyone, will assume the role of director due to the significant time commitment involved. We've also talked about adapting Lucid9 into a different medium, shortening the story, and cutting back on assets, but all of these options would still require some additional work. Ultimately, what I really want is to offer closure. Not just because I want to get it over with or for my own pride, but because I want to give back to the community and team members who've supported and encouraged Lucid9 all these years despite the setbacks.

I want to especially thank the members who've been helping me with the Kickstarter. It's been a bit of a challenge for me since I'm not super familiar with crafting one, but I'll do my best to keep you all informed about its progress. I'm really excited to share the new Lucid9 trailer when it's done. We've finished the art assets and are now working on the audio and music before sending it to a video editor. I hope you look forward to watching it before we launch the campaign at the start of next year!

Happy holidays!
David (Creative Director)

Hello everyone, today I wanted to make an important announcement regarding our relationship with Sekai Project and how it affects the planned Lucid9 Kickstarter.

Unfortunately, last month, Sekai came to the decision to no longer serve as our publisher. Given their reach in audience, this makes hitting our current funding goal much more difficult, especially for a final product that's intended to be free. It's a significant setback, but after some consideration, we felt the best course of action was to further lower our goal by limiting assets, and to include additional physical merch to incentivize backers. 

We've also changed how we'll go about development going forward, now that more time will be needed to manage promotion and fulfillment. The heroine routes will be released incrementally—one at a time—with every member contributing to its completion. Regardless of the Kickstarter's success, we'll adopt this new strategy in an attempt to hasten progress.  

Here's a timeline of when the remaining tasks for the campaign should be complete:

October: Finalized list of physical and digital merch.
December: Brand new Lucid9 trailer. Contracts sent and signed.
January: Estimated release dates set for routes. Kickstarter goes live. 

You can find a draft of the Kickstarter page here. Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions. The pre-launch page should be available in December. 

Thank you for your patience,
David