Hello everyone!
First of all, happy new year! How is it going?
I'm really sorry for the lack of news here, but I can ensure you this game isn't dead, quite the countrary. Personally, 2023 was quite a wild ride for various reasons, and with me being a pretty anxious person... well, it was really tiring and difficult. For now things are a liiittle bit better, so I hope 2024 will be a great year for everyone.
So, what's going on exactly...
I worked on The ash black cat and the happy ogre continuously until the end of the third floor/level (3 of 5, and the 5° was more like an epilogue, so a lot of work done). And then... I realized I wasn't fully satisfied. I wanted to add a lot of things (like a custom menu, actual lights/shadows on the first two floors, more CGs), the characters and the story were evolving, becoming more deep and meaningful... and the game didn't really reflect my vision.
Also, a couple of characters (namely, Abele and Gioele) became pretty different from my first idea. Like, Abele was pretty annoying, almost antagonistic; ATM, is one of my favourite characters from this world, has a weird subplot about angels and crazy sorcerers, and he and Felix have a funny rivalship going on. So, we were in need of a serious rewrite.
This how my other game, Every Thought Flies, was born. It's a semi-short game, and it works as a prologue for this. I put in it a lot of extra things I wouldn't be able to insert in The ash black cat, so if you want to have a look... (it's complete).
In the end, I chose to love the game (and also myself) more, and take my time. So, forgive me if I wasn't able to publish for Halloween, but I really hope the final product will be worth the wait. I'll publish the game in chapters this time, so this won't take me a million years to update. My goal for this year it's to publish at least 3 chapters!
So, what I'm doing exactly?
Well, the story will be faster, better and richer. During the first chapter you'll move Felix and Noelia as usual, but there are also scenes with Abele and Gioele (they will become playable in the second chapter!) aaand also a couple of new characters.
Major updates for the gameplay too: I removed all the insta-deaths (I mean, there weren't a lot to begin with, still I removed them), opting for a nicer life meter. So you can take a couple of hits before the game over. The gameplay will be overall better, with way more puzzles (almost one for each room) and things to do (I tried to think school-related puzzles. It was pretty fun).
I implemented some QoL changes, like skipping cutscenes and the option to save during dialogues (useful for those pesky choice times). The custom menu is already evented and working, but I won't spoil for now, I need to color the background! (Let's say it's autumn-themed).
And now, time to show you something!
Like, the graphical improvements.



The school entrance...



The hallways.... (uh, is that a door for a new room? Maybe!)



I'm revamping the old art...

I'm still debating about little things (like, is it really necessary to use a custom font? Would you like it?).

One last thing: I removed the demo download because, as you can imagine from this post, it's pretty outdated right now. Between here and Itch.io we reached almost 200 dl! I'm really grateful. If you liked the demo, I really hope you'll enjoy the first chapter! (And if you didn't like the demo, well, maybe this time will be better-).
Still there? Well, thank you! This was a pretty long post!
And thanks to everyone who's following this project (or the others!).
Maybe 2024 will really be a good year, after all.
Bye!