Hello everyone! Welcome to our very first devlog! 😁🥳
Words cannot express how happy I am for the release of the demo of Dragon's Heart. As the author, I am sooo thrilled seeing these characters fully drawn.
I'd like to share that most characters have undergone a design change. Please see the first concept art drawn for one of the romance interests, the Emperor of Kyeongjang, Chung-hee:

Vs his actual in-game sprite

As you can see, there is a lot of changes that have been made. We gave it a little more anime-feel to match the setting of the visual novel. 😁 Our artist really wanted to make sure that the original design for Chung-hee needed to be honored, but at the same time, making sure that certain changes be made in order to be presentable in the visual novel. It isn't Chung-hee without his levitating cape, right crystal eye and right crystal hand. 💎
Chung-hee comes from the land of Kyeongjang, a secretive and powerful empire advanced in technology. So I thought, hey, maybe instead of wearing a traditional emperor robe, he can don modern style clothes.

Same can be said for Dorian, Niko, Svante, Yuxuan, Magnus and all the other characters when it comes to their original designs. 🥰

Please see the first concept art for Elias:



Versus her final in-game sprite look:

(Minor spoilers for supporting characters up ahead)

Elias' design needed a little rehaul since her (yes, she is trans) original design made it a little on-the-nose that she was trans with her haircut and boyish features. Our artist wanted to make sure that her design honors her being trans. We included the flower crown, and also don't forget her cutie stuffed toy, Tedda! 🧸

(Minor spoilers end here)

With the exception of Roboto, who pretty much stayed the same, everyone's design changed differently. I would love to show you each character's glow up but I might run out of space here. Haha 🥹

We are so happy that all of the characters are already shown in their full in-game sprites. 🥰

Also, if you love Dragon's heart, please consider supporting the funding for the entire visual novel. 🙏🙏 We so badly (VERY BADLY) need funds to continue our project and any amount would be very much appreciated. Here is a link to it: https://ko-fi.com/temersstudio

WHY KOFI?

All of the contents of this demo – the sprites, the art, the OST, the voice acting, and more have been funded out-of-pocket by ourselves. We would have loved to extend the demo. Sadly, we really don't have that much money, hence the demo is only 14k words. We want to deliver the BEST POSSIBLE game that we can make – fully voiced, with better art, 250k words, and with some more features not included in the demo. We really can’t do this without your help.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading this! I really appreciate it. Please expect more Devlogs to come! We'll talk about our future plans for the project, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, how the love mechanics work in Dragon's Heart, and more! 🐉❤️‍🔥

Have a prosperous weekend! 🥳