Hey hey gamers!

I wanted to make a little rambling post just about making Sweet Blend and how things went with it.

So, first off, I wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for 200+ downloads in the first WEEK!!! That's still so insane to me. I'm so grateful for every one of you and I'm so happy that my team and I got to share these characters and story with you all. Avery loves all of u :)

Second off, thank you so much to the team that helped make this happen. To the sound team + promo artists, I love all of you guys so so much and thank you for being there to help Avery and Sunny come to life. I'm so grateful for you all.

A little bit of background for me, I've been lurking around the indie VN community for around 4 years now- I've dipped my toes in renpy during that time frame, so luckily I wasn't going into coding Sweet Blend completely blind, LOL. For years though, I've been trying to make my very own game. I used to not think I'd be able to do it, since I'd always just lose motivation completely and give up on the project.

I don't know whether it was me becoming a part of the VN community more, being able to work with other people better, or what, but I got the push I needed to finally make a game, and thus Sweet Blend was born.

The original beta build for the game was made in the span of about 4 days, including sprites, most backgrounds, coding, and most writing. I enrolled in a summer class for renpy at a local uni- since I was the only one with actual renpy experience, I decided to go a little ham with it, LOL. It was mostly finished, and so I was like, hey, why the hell not I'll just release it LMAO.

I reached out to both Soda and Woode, the vas for Sunny/Avery, over discord about a month after Sweet Blend was originally created in order to get some voice acting for the game. Rice later asked to join as the composer, which, given their SICK BEATS, I could not say no to. We chipped away at polishing up the game over the span of a few weeks. I also sent out a little promo artist application to get some AMAZING people to write/draw things for the upcoming release. Truly, I could not have asked for a better team when making this game. I know I already said it, but I'm so grateful for all of you.

I learned a lot of things while making Sweet Blend. A lot about managing time and not overworking yourself, mostly. I'm typing this as I still have a hand brace on because I pushed myself too much leading up to release. Lesson learned, definitely.

But I think the most important and worthwhile takeaway I got from making this game would be the fact that while directing is stressful, it is so much fun to see everything come together right in front of you. I actually cried tears of joy when I hit the "publish" button on itch, knowing the game was fully up. Just having your work out there for people to see is an amazing experience and it makes me so confident that this is something I want to continue doing. So, sorry to the indie VN community, but y'all can't get rid of me that easily.

I guess the real Sweet Blend is the friends we made along the way, LOL.

To wrap this up, though, I just wanna give this as a message to anyone who is also aspiring to make any sort of media: DO IT. At least try it. I promise you it is so, so, so worth it and even if it fails, it's a huge learning experience. I don't regret any of the failed projects forever sitting in the depths of my files and I never will. They all brought me here, to share Sweet Blend with you all, and I'm so proud of myself for that.

I could write a lot more sappy stuff abt my learning experiences but my wrist HURTS so.

Eat ass

Smoke grass

Sled fast

And I love u all

-Andi :)