It's June!

I took a new position with my day job. I now work 10 hour days 4 days a week! So far I'm enjoying my full 3 days off, and the position has gotten me away from the major stressor that came with doing the work I did, which was an incentive program that was causing me to suffer rather than excel. So I'm pretty mellow right about now.

1. June begins with me continuing work on backgrounds!
2. Around the beginning of the  month I severely injured my right hand. Doctor said it was a classic case of trigger finger. The weird part is that I don't know how. Luckily it isn't my dominant hand, but it really hindered my ability to do much of anything... hand related.
3. I did redo a few already completed backgrounds to be more consistent with how I'm proceeding with the last of the backgrounds I'm finishing. The art for the lake, mailbox, parking lot, and 2 new backgrounds for the mechanic shop and the university had touch ups done to remain consistent. 
4. I also redid 4 character designs to make them a little more diverse. I didn't add much, just a few blemishes here and there to add some flare. The characters redone were Tallie, who was given freckles, Michael, who I gave vitiligo, I gave Khloe some moles, and I gave Weston a visible birthmark. Very visible.
5. At the point of writing this line, it's June 7, and I've completed at least half of the backgrounds left. If the backgrounds are simple, like a personal space background (a house/room), I can get up to 2 done a day, which means if time permits, I could have these backgrounds by the end of June. Cool! But not all of the backgrounds are simple. For instance, the background for Sawyers Gifts, a gag gift shop, took 3 days to complete in my spare time. At this point I'm just binging old Markiplier videos and trying to rocket through the last of them.
6. June 11! I have only a handful of backgrounds left to complete. 15 more! That seems like a lot but less than 6 require seasonal changes for times of year and holiday times, which definitely means they'll be done before the end of the month, or at least, right at the beginning of July! I just finished the background for Wyatt's house, which is my favorite so far. Let's just say he's not into politics, but really enjoys funny gag items. You might find a few around his house...
7. I was interested in joining another game jam this year. Another visual novel style, since it's the easiest to produce at this stage of development with Rainbow Heartbeats. I came up with a wonderfully grotesque idea that I thought would be amazing and hilarious in light of recent point and click games and VHS horror being super popular right now. The jam I wanted to join however won't allow anything gory, so I'll be developing it solo and watching to see if there's any horror jams around Halloween I can submit it for that is a little less strict with their submission guidelines.
8. I'm on the last photoshop file for the final 9 backgrounds, and to be honest, I'm getting pretty tired of drawing. I did take a couple days off from it around June 21, because I didn't want to burn out. It felt pretty awful, honestly. I'm so used to doing so much for my projects that taking a break is hard. I really want to start on the side idea I have, but I know if I start it, it'll consume me until it's done, since it's such a small idea.
9. June 25! Only 6 left now. Might run into July with the complexity of 3 of them, but getting close. The haunted house is my new favorite background, next is the bakery. After that is the flower shop!
10. In an effort to not be working on the game for another full year, I've decided to cut a few more things from the finished game. There will no longer be friendship/romance graphics when you fully befriend or romance any of the characters. I've also cut 2 backgrounds I planned, which were for an option to choose your own house style at the beginning of the game. I may revisit the house choice later down the line, but for now the decision for the graphics is final unless I can scrounge up the funds to have the art done by another artist. I just can't keep going with the amount of art that would be left. There would be 49 additional graphics to draw for the graphic you'd receive when you fully max the friendship/romance for that character. I'm starting to burn out a bit with the art, which is unfortunate, as I haven't really ever had much burnout when it comes to my passions. As of June 26, there are 4 backgrounds left to complete before the rest of the development can commence.
11. I added this to the main page, but if anyone reads these - if you did find problems with the demo of the game, EI it didn't launch, doesn't work, didn't load, or has other significant problems, would it be too much to ask if you could let me know before just writing it off? I'm not just making un-launchable .exe files, the goal is that they actually work and function as games. Rainbow Heartbeats runs on my system, on my fiance's system, and on my playtesters' systems. If it doesn't work for you, I need to know so I can try to fix it. As a reminder, the game only works for Windows at this time, not Mac, or Linux, and may freeze upon initial launch/after you make it through the menu, and clicking a thousand times and getting upset doesn't make it go faster. Optimization may be poor for systems with lower RAM, or older graphics cards, so please be patient and let it load. Once I've moved past a bulk of the rest of development, I'll try and switch my focus to eliminate any delays on the game starting, or startup freezing and optimize it as best as I can for all systems I can.
12. It doesn't look like I'll be able to finish the last of the backgrounds before the end of June due the day job! So I'm releasing this devlog for now!