Hello everyone! HalOPE turns one year old today. Normally I wouldn’t make an itch.io post for such a minor occasion, but this game has gone much farther than I expected it to, so it only seems right. I don't announce anything substantial here but just go over some future plans, so read on if that interests you.

Shortly after releasing the game, burnout kind of consumed me.. admittedly, I pushed myself a little too hard when making it. I’m still really proud of it though, and I’m glad it brought joy to so many people thus far. This combined with a lot of major life changes in 2024 has made this game feel like a “checkpoint” in my life of sorts… it symbolizes a large shift for me. Kind of funny considering the actual themes of the work..

I haven’t been updating the game in a while due to the aforementioned factors, but I do have some things I’d still like to do with it. Some stuff in the game still doesn’t feel “complete” to me, and the fact that it caught on with a larger audience only made me more self conscious of this fact. I also still wanted to release some supplementary materials because I’ve always wanted to do that. 

That all out of the way, here are some of my plans for 2025:

The 1.6 Update

I do have a new version of the game in the works! It won’t be “major” but it is an update that’s more substantial than the previous ones— including new CGs, some edits to the options menu, and of course some bug fixes. There are just some things not included in the game that really annoy me. They're small things that probably no one else will care about but me. But I'm going to patch them in at some point anyway. Look forward to it.

The HalOPE Artbook

The artbook has also been in development for a while. At this point, it’s about 50 pages long, but this is mostly pictures. I imagine I will release it sometime after 1.6 since that update includes some new art. That said, I want this artbook to be really substantial, and to have as much fun as I can while making it. I feel like I don't actually talk about the contents of the game enough publicly, because I really want people's playthroughs to be filled with untainted discovery... for the artbook I want to throw all that out the window and get out every little thought I have about this game.

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Thank you everyone for your support over this last year. To this day I am rereading comments and looking at the stash of fanart I have saved on my computer. It's one of those things that I never really thought would happen to me, and this game isn't even that popular in the grand scheme of things. Having eyes on my work is pretty anxiety inducing but also really awesome. Thank you again! I hope you all have a wonderful new year.

...oh, and a bonus doodle to go with the banner at the top: