Hey there! Auden here. I hope you’re doing well.

This is a text version of my first Vlog – if you’d prefer to listen, please check it out!

Like the title of this blog post says, I’m rebuilding Find Love or Die Trying from scratch! I thought I’d write a post to describe what this rebuild entails in detail, and why I’m doing it. I hope you find it interesting!

Why I’m rebuilding Find Love or Die Trying:

1. To make it so anyone can play Find Love or Die Trying, regardless of platform or language
2. To make it so anyone can create mods for Find Love or Die Trying, regardless of technical ability
3. Because I care a lot about the quality of my games and the people who play them

Limitations of the Rebuild

Given that I am rebuilding the project completely from scratch, existing save files will no longer work with the new improved version of FLODT. Given the relatively short length of the game, and from the poll I ran on Twitter, I believe this shouldn’t be a significant issue, but please do feel free to reach out if you have concerns.

1. So Anyone can play FLODT

Current State of Find Love or Die Trying

Desired Future State of Find Love or Die Trying

Due to Find Love or Die Trying being my first solo game, I made several mistakes in development that resulted in the game being very difficult to port to other platforms. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the game only playable on PC and Mac, with significant limitations on the Mac version. This also created issues with running the game in Windows 11 and other versions of the Windows OS past 10.

With this rebuild, I am aiming to make it so that Find Love or Die Trying can run seamlessly on consoles like Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, XBox, etc., as well as on Mac and Linux, to make sure anyone who wants to play, can, regardless of which platform they prefer to play on!

It’s been a dream of mine to port my game to consoles for a long time, and after months of hard work rebuilding the project, I think it will be possible soon. That said, I’ve still some things to figure out – I am looking for a publisher to help me out with porting, and I haven’t been able to find one just yet. I’ll update more on this front soon.

That said, if you’re wanting to play or replay Find Love or Die Trying on a console, I’ll have good news for you soon : )

I also made several mistakes in development in regards to how to handle translations – this is a big reason why only the PC version of FLODT has translations supported, while the Mac version only has English. These mistakes are also why separate languages for the game are completely different downloads, rather than toggles in the same game, and why it’s been very difficult to fix. Steam having issues where players sometime get the wrong version downloaded definitely didn’t help either…!

With my rebuilding of FLODT in the Ren’py engine, you’ll be able to switch between the same supported languages within the game, regardless of the platform you’re playing on! You’ll also be able to create your own translations quite easily as well, for languages that aren’t currently supported. If you do, please let me know – I’d love to hear about efforts to bring FLODT into a new language, and help spread the word!

2. So Anyone can mod FLODT

My first introduction to mods was close to when I was first introduced to visual novels, with a lovely game called Katawa Shoujo. The idea that someone could create their own stories in a world they loved and share it with others was amazing to me. Looking back, it was likely also a gateway for me to becoming a creator in my own right.

With the Ren’py engine, I believe it should be much easier for even non-technical fans to create their mods! It should be much easier than the previous Unity 2019 build, which even I have a hard time understanding.

I wanted to enable this, for no reason other than to ‘complete the circle’ – it feels right, somehow. Like I’m giving back to a community that helped me get to where I am today.

I hope you enjoy creating or playing some mods 🙂

3. Because I care about quality and people who play my game

Improved Quality Adjustments:

• More of every artwork is shown, as shown above!
• Long passages of text will no longer shrink
• Fixed Typos
• Player Name has a fixed length to avoid issues with text length
• Text box and Characters no longer ‘bounce’ when scrolling back
• Significantly reduced performance requirements

At the end of the day, making games full-time is my goal – it’s what would give me the most time to make my games the best they can be! And it’s something that I can’t do alone – it’s the players that makes the dreams of game creators possible.

Due to my recent changes in living circumstances (from my first blog post), it’s unlikely I’ll be able to ever realize this dream without more financial support from people who want to play my games. This is a big reason why I’m experimenting with using Kickstarter for my next game, and also why I’m looking into platforms like Patreon to help give me more time and funding to make my games.

That said, to be completely candid – I’m not a fan of how many game developers use both Kickstarter and Patreon. I feel that so many of them use them to make a quick buck, or ‘milk’ the success of a game for years at the expense of the players’ hopes and trust without ever making progress.

The fourth reason I wanted to do this rebuild was to prove that I can do what I say – because trust and quality is everything to a real game creator. I wanted to prove that I’m what I say I am, and that I won’t ever make light of the trust you put in me. I want you to know that I always give it my all to give you a great experience, and that I’ll put in all the work required to achieve it if it’s not there already.

Conclusion

There’s still a lot of work left for me to do before the first rebuild of Find Love or Die Trying is ready to launch. That said, I’ll keep working hard to get the first version of it ready to release by early-mid January 2023. It will include English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Coincidentally, January is when I expect to launch my Kickstarter for my next game, so please do stay tuned! If you haven’t already, you can join my mailing list to get a heads up for when my next game launches on Kickstarter!

你可以加入我的邮件列表，以便在我的下一个游戏在Kickstarter上推出时得到提示!

Thanks again for your support, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post. I hope you’re as excited as I am for Find Love or Die Trying REBUILT, and for my next game!

Until next time,

Auden Cho-Wong