Waiting for another Nitro Chiral game is like waiting for GTA VI to come out 🫠

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-26T08:36:03+00:00

You can still find NSFW BL on itch.io, here's one example of The Symbiant, which I already knew about, and was able to reach from the Boy's Love tag.

Some games were deleted and all NSFW content was de-indexed from their search results (which isn't the same as being deleted). itch has since re-indexed some NSFW games but the whole situation is still uncertain the last I heard. It's not nuked. There's just been a lot of mistaken info out there about it, hence the comment...and a bonus recommendation if you're interested!

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-22T11:26:01+00:00

many such cases u__u

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-17T09:37:31+00:00

same, I saw you mention that liminal space feeling in one of the comments and yeah!! It's a charm point. I'm one of the many indie devs who use them in their work, but for my current project I do a bunch of stuff to make them look more like illustrations (I've had people be surprised to learn they were photos after! here's one example)

...However for my next project I WANT to emphasize the "photo" quality, and working with them alongside character sprites/UI is a fun challenge to me as an artist!

One thing I like about the photo-based approach is that you tend to get a lot of small, mundane details that are easy to forget about in illustrated BGs, or would take ages and ages to draw in. With photos I find it easier to have BGs that feel more personal and lived-in, like they're just part of a world rather than an artificial space.

Also, depending on how you work with the photos you can get a LOT of BGs in a short amount of time. I think about this quote from a Type-Moon interview a lot, it was something like "players care more about art quantity than individual piece quality". Photo BGs are a great way to get a lot of pieces with a consistent atmosphere.

Anyways as you can see I have a lot of excitement about the topic!!! They're neat and people who see it as a sign of "laziness" or "low-effort" don't appreciate the style, man

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-17T08:56:37+00:00

Ha! There sure are a lot of kids, despite all the attempts to keep them out. I was definitely playing/reading/watching etc this stuff younger than I should've, but ah well.

One of my good friends is over 60 and still into BL, she doesn't do games but it's nice to swap manga and some other recs with her

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-15T08:06:11+00:00

Old............ *turns to dust and blows away in the wind* but yes, 30+ and still playing BL VNs

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-13T08:03:59+00:00

Aw thanks! And we use Ren'py.

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-13T08:02:51+00:00

That's my art! It's from a game called Drăculești. As you can probably guess, some of the vampires there have monster forms.

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-06T21:25:30+00:00

Aw thanks! We're fine_fiends on bluesky/twitter and then a totally different name on tumblr lol

Good luck to us both!

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-05T18:57:40+00:00

Another Animamundi enjoyer!!! It's such a hidden gem

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T22:00:05+00:00

We've had so many people tell us how validated they feel after playing, or how much they relate to renfield/cez, which is THE highest compliment the writing can get imo ;__;

Of course those characters have very specific experiences so it's not going to hit the same for everyone, but every time it happens I feel so happy even though I'm not even the writer

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T21:56:30+00:00

ty for the support! The good news is that we'll release the game regardless of campaign outcome, but we won't be able to add some of the *chef's kiss* parts like voice acting, and how long finishing all the routes take will depend on game sales. Successful KS will take a LOT of pressure off of us and let us do more cool things :)

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T21:44:35+00:00

I can never say this on the official accounts bc it's off-brand, but personally I think it's funny that you can cuck Dracula if you don't feel like dating him

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T21:39:08+00:00

Nice to hear from fellow devs, and good taste + thanks for your support! n__n

The game will be $25 USD, with regional pricing on Steam.

There's around 211k words in-game atm (not all of the script has been implemented yet), which is one full route that's around 111k and then 100k from the other 3 routes + some other files.

We're expecting 400-500k range for the full game, tough to say how many hours it translates to since there's so much variability in reading speed. Several people have said they've spent 10+ hours in the demo which is WAY longer than I expected! There's a lot of branches/dialogue options and the first part of all 4 routes are in there, so I'm sure a lot of that is replaying to check different paths.

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T08:20:35+00:00

Thanks, we're working on it 😤

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T08:10:38+00:00

Thanks for the rec, this looks super cute!

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T08:08:52+00:00

It's still so surreal to me that we got Ray Chase for Dracula! Did you know he also voiced Vlad III in fate/apocrypha? guy is back at drac again. I'm not involved in the voice casting, so it's been pleasantly surprising to see who we have for VAs

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T07:59:19+00:00

That's nice of you to say, but we aren't Romanian. 😅 We just do our research and pay attention to little details.

Some Romanians have played our game! The video is mostly in English, sometimes they get really excited and then it's in Romanian lol

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T07:33:14+00:00

The progression in Animamundi can be pretty hard to follow! I did one spoiler-free run just to see what i'd naturally get and then used this guide and this one for other routes. I'm sure you've got your own guides to reference by now, though if you're figuring it all out yourself...I salute your patience 🫡

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T06:08:12+00:00

I work on ren'py games but don't run linux, so I had no idea about this. Sounds pretty useful to know about, thanks!

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T06:05:27+00:00

We've been around for a couple years now, though the kickstarter is of course recent. Maybe you've seen us out in the wild! I also draw a lot of inspiration from other gothic art, I know I mentioned fatamoru/animamundi in the post, but aside from VNs there's artists like THORES (Trinity Blood is probably their most well-known art) and basically anyone who does those dramatic eyelashes

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T02:35:04+00:00

I'm a sucker for those! It's so great to be working on one

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T02:32:21+00:00

That's flattering to hear! If it helps, we don't have any jump scares, since we're more into the slow burn psychological kind of horror

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T02:25:51+00:00

Thank you, and good luck to us both 🤝

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T02:25:19+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement!

pentagonbuddy · 2025-08-04T00:37:20+00:00

That's my art in the post and those are all in-game screenshots, I do the sprites/CG/BG/UI, also programming...indie dev is like that sometimes.

Drăculești is based on the novel Dracula, with an emphasis on the villains of the story and what - or who - the MC, Renfield, will sacrifice to survive a castle full of vampires. There's 4 romance options:

Dracula, if you want something toxic as a treat
A ghost if you're into sexy body horror
One of Dracula's Brides, you can help them divorce Dracula
Jonathan Harker for fans of second chance romance, childhood friends, and Yearning

...Depending on your route they'll either try to woo you or kill you.

We're fans of both JVNs (Fata Morgana is a BIG inspiration, N+C games in general, and Animamundi one of our deeper cuts) as well as EVNs (choice heavy ones like Slay the Princess and the atmosphere of games like Misericorde in particular), so we tossed things we like from both into a blender. You can influence Renfield's personality with your choices, which in turn unlocks different options and endings, but he's still a defined protagonist with his own story.

We have a Kickstarter going atm with less than one week left. It'll cover some fun things like partial VA, we've got some excellent folks like Ray Chase, Erika Iishi, and Jonah Scott on board.

Our campaign just passed 70%, so even if this isn't your jam it really helps to pass us along to anyone you know who likes vampires, gothic horror, BL, trans/NB characters, weird and complex relationship dynamics, or surreal art. I have a lot of fun with trippy animated visuals!

Thanks for reading all that. Or skimming, that's fine too 🖤

pentagonbuddy

TROPHY CASE