there’s never a bad time to add a dog!
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For Patreon subscribers at £6+, I’ve put up Chapter 5! This update adds 50,000 words to the demo. Things that may be encountered in that chapter:
- drama among students, town, and families
- locking gazes over a desk
- holding someone’s hand very intensely
- kisses, if you want them
- a road trip
- some really nice food
- a breakup, if you play your cards right (or wrong)
For the public demo I have made minor tweaks to earlier chapters, the most exciting of which is adding a couple of dogs to the school. Here is my face cast for Bramble and here is the one for Lulu. They are beautiful.
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O hello, what’s this…?
I had a little sneak peek at Adrien Valdes’ beautiful cover art last week and it’s incredible to see it all finished! Please wishlist - it really helps!
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Love their work, and that’s a very cool looking thumbnail, I’m 
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I’ve now had all the art sent to me, and the full cover is just extraordinarily gorgeous - I definitely need to get it printed and framed:
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Thank you for the update Hannah! With the exception of one bit, things are quite balanced. The little things like the dogs are a nice treat! Looking forward to that one major plot element you mentioned elsewhere!
Also, the cover art for Honor Bound looks fantastic!
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Thank you! Let me know if you can remember which bit was unbalanced - I can have a look 
I really love the art, I can’t stop looking at it!
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Does Savarel have face claims?
In the cover art Savarel’s fifth from the left; as for my internal images of them, there are a few pictures/people that make me think of them:
- The actor doesn’t match, but the hair length and clothing here are very much what I associate with Savarel; Savarel’s favourite outfits are loosely-fitting ones with muted colours that wrap with fabric ties, without lots of buttons or buckles.
- This one of Winter Jones. This was the first person I found that felt right for Savarel.)
- These photos of Manal Issa
- This one of Paul Elia, though male Savarel doesn’t have a beard (nor does the nonbinary version; a couple of the other nonbinary characters do, but Savarel doesn’t)
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Always imagined her to be dressed somewhat like this but without the necklaces.
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Yes, that makes a lot of sense!
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Oh god, Korzha, Korzha, Korzha… never could turn down a well-written man in uniform.
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Hehe, I’m so glad you like them!
I get that it’s almost impossible to never have it happen when you have as many stats as this game, but I really dislike when I’m given a testing choice that none of the choices are things I can succeed in.
In this playthrough I was humane, decisive, objective and dutiful, which means I am going to fail no matter what I chose. I’ll be honest, I sat there looking at that screen quite disheartened for longer than I care to admit.
I get that, and like I said I get that it would be difficult to make sure there is never any instance of it ever. Having reflected a little bit on why it frustrated me so much, I think it was the fact you were testing every single separate opposing pair stats and none of them were ones I’d chosen. I think it’s the unlikeliness of it that annoyed me the most.
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I’ll see about adding one or two - thank you! (There is a bit of a balancing act where I don’t want to overly test one stat over another as it then becomes very powerful compared to others, but I’m sure there’s some flexibility there)
Fortnightly progress update:
I finished drafting Chapter 8 and submitted it to my editor, and also did some playtesting of Chapters 7 and 8 (what a relief to think “oh these are actually hanging together pretty well!”). A lot of the fortnight was spent combing over the game to find incompatible romances and coding conversations with characters who would prefer not to date the PC alongside certain other characters.
I don’t mind PCs harmlessly flirting with or trying out going on dates with multiple characters, or deliberately cheating on love interests, but I was really trying to make sure it felt realistic that characters would notice or be told what was going on if it mattered to them - especially if they’re friends with each other. Quite an endeavour!
With that all done, I’ve just finished coding Chapter 9, so I’ll be starting to write that next week. It’s a school holiday next week so I don’t expect to get a huge amount done, but I’m pleased with the foundation I’ve got right now.
Honor Bound current wordcount: 338596 words
Honor Bound fortnight wordcount: 17648 words
Honor Bound average playthrough: 76869 words
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well done you!
honestly when I started reading some of your commentary on the potential tangles and triangles it was a real eye-opener into how complicated that must be, so good on you for progressing to sorting it out.
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Thank you!! It’s been complicated. I’m sure there are easier ways of doing it - what I did find were that the points where both characters involved came to the PC to discuss it at the same time were the easiest, but in some cases for various reasons that didn’t quite work for some combinations. But I’m very glad that it seems to be in place now.
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Hi @HarrisPS ! I hope you are doing well. I decided to replay the demo today, from the very start. And I got the following error on Fiore’s route in her house (chapter 4?). My MC is callous, dutiful, objective and decisive if you are interested. Here’s the screenshot:
Thank you!
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That’s really helpful, thank you! I had a similar error come up on the Patreon version in a different place and it doesn’t happen on my local version or when I do RandomTest, but does on Dashingdon. I’m not sure if it might be an issue with Dashingdon itself? Anyway, I’ll have it fixed later today - thank you again for letting me know!
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