Hello! Happy New Year to you all! 
I thought to share this sort of new year resolution and some news in this occasion! 
Most are about this game and if you're reading this please comment, I need some advice! 

1. Resources: Steam or New CGs?

This is pretty self explanatory. I'm slowly saving money for Emerald Wasp, up to now I have a sum that would grant me to submit the game on Steam or alternatively invest in a couple of CGs from the artist I mentioned some blogs ago. I need your opinion on this. Having the game on steam would greatly benefit its visibility and it will stay free as it is on Itch, so it won't be a resource of income for me but it might be easier to find for players. On the other side Steam might reject the game and Deep Inside would be the safer option. If I invest the money in the new CGs instead I won't be implementing them immediatly in game, I'll do it once I have the whole set to replace my cluncky art. What do you think? I set some services on Ko-Fi to work and gather money, but I'll be opening officially after Jan 6th. 

2. The Other Route

A clever Youtuber discovered this, so it's not a secret anymore. They digged in the game files and found the  sprites for dead Archie and strings of code for the route you're supposed to do all alone, without lockpiching and help. I kind of wish to bring it back but if I do this I'll probably halt the graphic revamp and\or steam port of the game, because it's lots of work (and the other reason you'll see in point 3) and it might break the code. I was also thinking of adding content like little side games about the lore during gamejams and if you like the idea this route might be one of these stuff. I wanted to keep this secret too, but the beta testers told me it will probably go unnoticed so: keep an eye on these devlogs and my posts on Bsky\Twitter, I might make some riddles for you to find the extra content. Cause I won't publish it normally.

3. I'm developing a New Game!

The title is Rule of Salt and the theme will be thalassophobia related. I like to put my experiences in games and this time I'll be using what I learnt while I was training as a seafarer. I know way too many scary things about the sea and after hearing a friend saying that she was scared of the water at night the idea clicked. I'm figuring out the best way to implement the submechanophobia element in 2D, but I hope you won't be disappointed! I started sharing some snippets on Twitter and Bluesky, no need to follow me or sign up, the pages are public for everyone to see. And yes, it'll be a RPG horror game! This doesn't mean I'll abandon updating or expanding Emerald Wasp, don't worry.

4. ASK the Emerald Wasp characters

This is more of a flavor add-on, but I hope you find it nice. Since the last devlog more c-ais have been surfacing and, while I think they're pretty harmless, I asked on here and twitter about offering an alternative. It's not a full on RP of course, but since I'm the one running it I can give IC accurate replies. You can find the link here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ask-emerald-wasp-rpg
Please, read the masterpost instructions, it's just three points and it's very simple. I've never used tumblr before, so if you need to notify me of bugs or have general questions about the games please keep using Itchio or Twitter\Bsky as I'm more familiar with them. 

That's all for now with the news, but before you go thank you for reading so far... 
And thank you for making my 2023 a little more special! 
Tanti auguri di buon anno!