Hey, everyone! Scott Rusk here with a devlog on The Recounted Life of Bailey Barksby. I want to share a few updates about the game's development.

The first update is the addition of images to the game. The team has had the wonderfully talented efforts of Amanda Rivera Stahlschmidt (Air.Artist (Amanda) on Itch) in making all of the game's 2D art assets, including the backgrounds you see attached. She applied an amazing watercolor style both to the backgrounds and the separate art assets, like the items on each page. It's really impressive! The implementation of these images and backgrounds has also gone pretty smoothly. Amanda is hard at work on the next couple of backgrounds for the game.

I also want to talk a bit about the game's music. We've planned to have one track in the game, and our composer, Michael Shaten (michael_shaten on Itch), is still hard at work on this song. I wanted to bring this up because his name is in the credits, but there's currently no audio in the game because his music isn't quite finished yet. He is a very talented composer, and I look forward to implementing his track into the game. Please stay tuned.

This next point isn't really about assets, but I did want to mention that the game's text has been edited to reflect recommendations from our copy and story editor, Alyssa Wejebe (alyssumplays on Itch). She has done proofreading, copyediting, and even prompted a change in the game's story at the early stage of the writing process. Without spoiling anything, I can say she helped ensure the game didn't end too abruptly while maintaining tonal balance between wholesomeness and sadness. She's been extremely helpful to me personally, as I'm the only writer on the team.

Moving on from assets, I want to make a note on mobile compatibility. For the time being, I've enabled mobile support for the game in Landscape mode, but mainly so I can test how it looks. I may not keep this support depending on how the game's art adapts to a screen in its current state. However, there's a chance I'll return to it post-release, after PIGSquad's narrative slow jam concludes. While I like to support as many play and view styles as possible, I don't plan on making the game mobile-viewable for the submission date. I hope you understand.

Lastly, the PIGSquad narrative summer slow jam is almost over! The deadline for submission is tomorrow, and we're doing everything we can to ensure the game has all its necessary assets implemented by the submission date. We're aiming to release the game in a "complete" state by then, but Amanda and I have talked about continuing development on the game afterwards. Please stay tuned for future updates.

Well, that's all from me! This was my first time writing a devlog for anything, so I hope all of that was informative. I look forward to the game's release on July 24th. The slow jam has really been a fulfilling experience for me, so I'm excited to see peoples' reactions to the game on the PIGSquad stream. Thanks for reading!