Thank you for all the downloads so far!!

This update is very lowkey, so not much changed. Just some grammar mistakes and typos were finally fixed!

Now the game won't start with... showshoe... hare......

Thanks to my friend Miko for streaming the game and reading stuff out loud to help check for typos and other bugs!

Another thing that was fixed was the music! I didn't realize that some of the looping tracks that I was given actually had an intro that was supposed to play before the looped part started! I went ahead and added that in, so the music should finally be as it is intended to be! :)

I've actually never written a DevLog before, so I wonder if it's okay I'm pushing all this info into an update post? Eh, I mean. What is itch gonna do?? Ban me?? Pssshhh 

So here are some of the sketches of how I wanted the game to look before I actually got to making assets.

A lot of the rough stuff stayed the same in the final cause... I was running out of time :D ! A better developer would have probably created 2 or 3 options to chose the best from, but sometimes your head only comes up with one.

This is Anna's page.

By the way, it's never explained explicitly in the game, but Anna's parents are divorced. Anna has always been close to her dad though, so it really sucked for her.

Her dad is a great guy, just has a gambling problem. Anna's mom couldn't bear to risk his addiction getting in the way of their family's livelihood so she broke it off. He's doing better now.

I wanted her colors to be kinda dull and purple-y. She's also ace. She has the flag in her room LMAO.

Here's a rough of her side sprite and her full body and PJS. It's very simple, I was on a deadline SLKFJGS:

Anna has the most roughs, and I don't know why. Especially cause we don't see her legs, ever.

Or maybe... that's exactly the reason!!

Another thing about the game that was SUPPOSED to be included, was a section where Anna could become depressed if you kept looping over and over again without much progress.

I had Ivna also create a gloomy version of the everyday music to go on in the background. There would be less thoughts and Anna would get some sadder options. (Sorry for not using it in the end.)

Honestly would have probably added this variable into the game if I still had time to do so... but as the deadline was approaching and walking through the game finding bugs and stuff, I realized that my initial plan for that gloomy loop... kinda sucked. Not that it wouldn't be interesting or that it was be hard to code, but that it would just make you feel like a dick? Both you and Anna. And if Dolce is supposed to be a sweet story about friends making up, it kinda puts a damper on the whole thing.

Cause even though Anna can recover from being in the gloomy loop, it would be weird to just finish the game and pretend that whole section didn't happen? Even though it would be very unlikely for anyone to get it if they weren't going looking for it.

Basically, it just didn't fit well with the narrative, so. Yup.

Anna was also going to have more special options other than staying up all night or writing about the loop ending, stuff you would expect someone to do when they realize they're stuck in a time loop. (Commit crimes... like skipping school!!) But I didn't have enough backgrounds to do that, HAHA.

Next is Katie!!

I originally drew her in a skirt cause, it cute. But then I remembered... oh right. This is a winter game, and then came up with some warmer clothes for her.

I was always worried that her pigtails would make her too child-ish looking. And that maybe her hairstyle was too much but, now I really like it. It makes her stand out.

Also, she has a pen pal friend I wanted to mention in game but couldn't find a proper time to do so. Why? Cause... :)

Maybe I'll sneakily add it later, ohohoho!

Not much else to say about Katie, if you wanna know more, go play Dolce!!

Next is Anna's mom and Austin!

Yes, Anna's mom was supposed to have a sprite. But then I didn't have enough time to get a kitchen/living room background of Anna's house, and I figured since she only appears a little at the start and end, let's just leave her sprite-less. Sorry, mom.

Originally I wanted to talk a little about Anna's relationship with her mom, cause it's going through that weird teenager stage, but I thought that would be too much of a derail from the Katie problem and pushed it aside.

Austin has his own little story, but he's just a side character here. The friend he talked about that moved away might?? show up?? some other game?? if I decide to make it. But if that's ever gonna happen, it'll be WAYYY later. There's a couple more games I wanna get through before I talk about Austin's friend.

Next is Katie's friends!!

Now these, unlike everyone else, are totally new OCs. Made specifically for this game LMAO. The other characters have been roaming around in my brain and my school sketches for forever now so they're all kinda connected to this universe I've put together. These three are brand new, and I'm not sure if they'll ever appear outside of Dolce.

Layla and Winnie stayed pretty much the same. I didn't like the initial colors I chose for Pat, so those ended up changing in the final sprite. (Along with her pose, of course. Cause this one is just awkward.)

Layla, I wanted to depicted a quiet but not necessarily shy girl. She loves drawing but has no confidence. And she lets her imagination run wild. For better or for worse.

Winnie, I wanted another writer besides Anna in the story. Cause Anna is kinda... really serious about writing? She finds it stress relieving and uses it as a way to process her thoughts. Winnie is the other kind of writer, writes cause it's fun and doesn't care what you think. They're blunt and honest. They were originally gonna be one of those always ANGRY characters, but in the end I didn't like that. I wanted Katie's friends to be more likeable as far as first impressions. Also Winnie uses she/they pronouns.

Pat was originally gonna be a mega mean girl. Like textbook mean girl. Dolce was originally gonna be a story about Anna being bullied by Pat. And then Katie, who was in Pat's clique, was the only person who was nice to reach out to Anna. But that changed as the story became more about Katie and Anna resolving a fight, rather than them getting together. Now Pat is just an overprotective friend. :)

Next is Chip and Viv-- I mean Mr. Redd and Mr. Artisan!!

So the funny thing is, I always call these two Chip and Viv, their first names, but halfway through writing the script I realized that Anna would not be doing the same as I do. So they are addressed as Mr. Artisan and Mr.Redd. I'll always know them as Chip and Viv though, so that's what I'll be calling them.

Viv always tries to call Chip Mr. Artisan when school is in session. But outside of class he does call Chip by his first name. Sometimes it slips out if he's particularly angry or startled, (clearly). Chip just tries to make sure to call Viv Mr. Redd in front of other students. Otherwise, it's always Viv to him.

Are they dating? In Dolce, yes. They're dating. They don't tell other staff or students of course. But they slip up sometimes and students, like Anna, see some things and it's very obvious.

They have a whole ass love story that was SUPPOSED to come before Dolce. But it kept getting longer and longer, and I want to turn it into a webcomic, not a game. But wow, gee... who has time for all of that! Amiright, gamers?

So maybe Chip and Viv's story will be a visual novel too. It's a great medium, after all. But that won't be until a while. That while being... my internal debate on whether to make it a comic with weekly(?) updates or a visual novel.

Here are the ending credit pictures. I was pretty rushed so it's not super great. But it gets the job done :)

SO WOW, THAT'S IT!!

Here's an image (made in procreate, so not in game lmao) of all the sprites standing next to each other. I used this to make sure heights were okay, and it's kinda funny to look at everyone just staring at you.

Thanks for playing Dolce! This was my first time writing an original story, and I'm glad that it's at least coherent LMAO

See you next game,

Xiruo.