Devlog

Hi again, thank you to everyone who played Homekeeping! The deadline's a bit dire because of real life circumstances and me getting constantly distracted by my IDV E-sports. BUT! I did finish the game and that's an accomplishment enough because there are several points in production where I was worried I won't get it done. 😭😭

The cover had to come late too! For those that played the game, This cover is meant to portray Rutile from Alle's POV...so through biased lenses, her expression is a lot softer and sweeter than how Rutile actually looks like in game. Oh man. This Devlog is going to be pretty long because there's a lot of things I kept vague/don't convey properly. 

ABOUT RUTILE

As she mentioned in game, Rutile is an orphan without even a family name. She's been struggling to make ends meet and because of her social anxiety, she has been jumping from job to job. Due to Alle's lack of interest in talking to her at first, she finds comfort in the lack of socializing she has to do but eventually it does become too quiet for her....because deep down, Rutile does resents this part of herself and wants to be "normal'" and be able to connect with other people. 

I don't know how obvious it is but Rutile never actually liked Alle all that much. Yes, she is the best employer that she had so far but most of the nice things that she did for Alle is out of obligation. And the more Rutile learns about Alle, the more she actually disliked her. She was originally a lot more decisive in the ending and killed Alle out of an active desire to take her place...but in the end, I decided that this doesn't actually fit Rutile's character. Due to her desire to fit in society, she needs the push to actually be led to such extremes.  

Another small detail that I forgot to mention is Rutile is 24 while Alle is only 21...so she's actually the older one! But she hardly looks the part. 

ABOUT ALLE

Did you notice that Alle has two stepsisters? And a dead mother? And Alle is the inverse of Ella? 
Yes, Alle is essentially a reverse Cinderella who didn't go to the ball and instead took matter to her own hands. 

Because she's Cinderella,  she was actually treated as a maid. Rutile's current room is Alle's old room, so is her uniform. That's why Rutile said that the dresses in the cupboard is far too big for her because it all belonged to Alle. (Alle is 186cm and Rutile is 162cm for comparison.) In the living room, the chair that was abandoned on the side was also Alle's. 

In contrast to Rutile, Alle already liked Rutile the moment she meets her. Otherwise, she wouldn't have taken the risk to hire her because well...Rutile doesn't have any letter of recommendations. No experience. No clear background. And even if you fail all the cooking minigames,  she would never let Rutile go. 

She saw Rutile as someone who's as alone as her and the only person who can understand what she's going through. Unfortunately, she misread Rutile's dedication to her work as affection towards her. 

ABOUT GABRIEL 



Gabriel is a butch and Rutile/Gabriel is also yuri okay...? This is important for the next part because he is supposed to be a romantic candidate too. Gabriel is also my friend Crow's character and he helped with some writings in the game.

So, Gabriel's main motivation is only to help the queen because he is a loyal knight that is fully dedicated to her.. All his flirtatious comment directed at Rutile is merely flattery to get her to the ball. His role is also to be the one that made Rutile realize that...ah, people could actually mistook her as Alle Fletcher....which leads to the ending. 

He's supposed to have a bigger role where after Rutile killed Alle, with panic and nobody to call to....She called Gabriel to help her hide the body. And Gabriel's supposed to help her with this conspiracy where she took Alle's identity. But he does it while terrorizing her like it's permanent! What did she ever do to you?  Before laughing and end up helping her anyway. Because the mine will help the queen. The two actually have a relationship where Rutile feels kinship with him as they are both liars later on...

ABOUT THE UNDERTAKER 

WHERE DID THIS PERSON GO...? Well, just like Gabriel, Dona is my friend's OC. Unfortunately due to poor planning in my part, the script only had days to finish and we didn't finish to fit him in. Tragic. DONA IS ALSO A BUTCH. 

Dona is actually Rutile's childhood friend because they used to be in the same church. Before Rutile moved away from work and they lost contact...He's supposed to be the visitor in Fall! That I replaced last minute with a random milkman...so, their conversation WAS supposed to be really friendly. Alle was supposed to get angry because this is the moment she noticed that Rutile actually has a friend and she wasn't as alone as she wants Rutile to be....but because I replaced it with a milkman, Alle just looks like a crazy yandere. Sorry, that's my bad. 

His role in the story is to warn Rutile that something about the Fletcher's family deaths....were off. Because he was the one who  was in charge of their funerals. He met Alle a few times and noticed her reaction to her family's death isn't normal, I suppose. 

In the ending where Alle kills Rutile, Dona will actually be the one that buries her and the only one that visits her empty grave. Alle doesn't visit because. Well. Rutile ends up being a disappointment to her. 

A 5th mysterious NPC..? 
Well. There was supposed to be a visitor in winter too but the details of this is even more vague at this point. But it was a friend's OC too. 

I did work with a few people this gamejam as my friends gave me some writing help! My other friend also helped with the background and another one was doing this gamejam at the same time (Check out through death's door! The MC is another blonde maid.)  so working on this game had been a lot of fun! I'm also usually a bit embarrassed at saying my game is yuri......when well. It is. But people seem to react to it well so I guess I should make it more obvious next time (?) 

With that said, you see how much content got cut and I honestly can't promise when can I add it to the game. If ever. I feel like I often made promises to update a game to end up never doing so....it's better to consider Homekeeping done for now. I also have silver thread episode 3 to work on right now (I'm still trying to release it on the first half of the year) so that's part of why I listed all the plans I had in this devlog. 

Thanks again for playing! And I'm impressed if you read through all of this, I didn't expect to type so much!