Hello Light My Way fans!

First off, thank you so much for the support! It has definitely been a new experience for me to see so many of you download the game and leave such wonderful comments as well. As of this writing, there are 651 downloads completed! That's wild! Thank you so much for the support! It's only been a week since the launch. 

So what's next? 

It's all nice and fun that you all enjoy the novel up to now, but it's barely a snippet of what's to come! I would be lying if I said that this amount of support hasn't emboldened me to a renewed sense of confidence. Because of that, I feel a need to deliver more to you, the readers. Our current sprite set is getting revamped so that it will be more in line with the illustrations. The transitions between sprites and illustrations should feel smoother. These changes will roll out slower though, so I can't definitively say when exactly everything will be done. However, Chapter 2 will be launched as planned on the 1st of August for patreons. If we don't have the newly revamped sprites ready, we will use our existing ones for now as temporary placeholders. We will try to keep up with a once-per-month update containing a new chapter as much as possible.

Incoming translations

We already have the full Spanish translation for the Prologue and Chapter 1. We will try to upload that as soon as possible once we're sure there aren't any bugs that may come up. The German translation is in progress and will be implemented once it's fully done and we've got some experience with how to handle translations in the Renpy script. We are actively looking for a Mandarin-Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese, French, and Japanese translator. If you know someone who would be willing to translate the story so far in one of the languages mentioned above, feel free to reach out to me on our discord server (https://discord.gg/CV8UEWj4).

Upcoming project

The current team is more than busy with what needs to be done for Light My Way. So I am putting it out there that I have another project I would like to start developing in parallel called The Swimmer. I won't get into the details of the story, but I can say that the script is fully written. It still needs editing to tie up possible plot holes and inconsistencies that may be there, but the brunt of the work has already been done. I would like to get some of the art assets together already since that's the process that takes the longest. If you are a sprite and illustration artist and are interested in working together you can find me in the Bat Studios discord server where you can send me links to your work. 

Closing thoughts

I am very happy with how people have responded to my story so far. There is a lot more to come and things will only get more intense and interesting! I appreciate everyone who purchased the game here on itch.io and the early patreons who believe in this project enough to put their financial support behind it! I can't promise the story will be to everyone's liking, because it's impossible to please everyone, but I can assure you that it will be interesting enough to check out our Chapter Updates each month. I truly hope that by the end of the entire novel, you would have experienced everything I have felt while writing it. Don't worry, that's a good thing (or is it :D).

Thank you for your kind words and friendly support. They all mean a lot to me. 

See you in Stradia!

- Hadrian Maximus