While writing the afterstories for Blooming Nightshade, I realized I wasn't quite ready to let go of the characters of that game. I wanted to see more of what these characters would do after high school; how they would change and grow thanks to their experiences in Blooming Nightshade. So while I finished up version 9 of Blooming Nightshade, I started outlining a sequel with the working title "Flowering Nightshade".

With Flowering Nightshade, I wanted to do a few things differently from Blooming Nightshade:

• The route storylines in Blooming Nightshade felt a bit short in retrospect, with some characterization waiting until the endings/afterstories. To fix this in Flowering Nightshade, the story takes place over a full year (11-12 events per route, instead of 6-7).
• It seems like Blooming Nightshade wasn't as clear as it could be that you could be friends with other characters without cheating on your current love interest. To fix this, Flowering Nightshade gives the player three decision points per month and locks route advancement to one event per month.
• Due to some of the characters being underage in Blooming Nightshade, sexuality felt like an issue I had to avoid addressing too directly. In Flowering Nightshade, all of the characters are adults, allowing certain character traits and storylines to be more openly examined.

There are a few other considerations I had in mind when outlining the game, but those may be a topic for a later time. For now, here's what we have in Demo v1:

• First draft of the prologue, Izumi's route, Nanami's route, and about 2/3rds of Kiyomi's route
• Some events have blank text or placeholder text, as well as missing/incorrect backgrounds
• Scene gallery is locked for now

Due to this being an early draft/build, some aspects of the story and gameplay are still a bit malleable. Let me know what you think of the game so far!