(Album art by NekoNADO on Twitter - be as so kind as to support her & check out her other art! It's amazing...)

Yeah, honestly, maybe I should've seen this coming.

Hi, I'm Corthon, director & creator of VS Koylee. As of today, the upcoming expansion to this mod has been CANCELLED - as in, dead. It died. It's gone now.

In this post I'm going to be going over why I did this as well as showcase some of the things that I had planned for the expansion. Let's get into it, shall we?

Why?

You know, at first, cancelling this thing was something that I didn't want to do at all at first; I had made a promise to myself that whatever I would finish whatever projects I started, no matter the cost. And so I kept on working - each project I made would only add onto the pile of things I had promised myself to work on, and I was perfectly fine with it...or so I thought.

Then, well, my coder kinda dropped out.

I won't go into the nitty-gritty of it since it's not important, but basically things between us were kind of strained & we eventually agreed that it was best that we didn't try to work together moving forward. He left VS Koylee, which meant that I was now without a coder. And of course, you can't make a mod if there's nobody to code it in.

While I was looking around for someone to fill in that role, I began thinking to myself: Did FNF modding really make me happy? I've been working my ass off, week after week, as I constantly push myself to get shit done for the plethora of projects that I have of my disposal - why? Was it because I genuinely wanted to see my ideas come to fruition, or was it just my hard-coded promise to finish what I started pushing me forward against my will?

It took a while, but I eventually came to terms with the truth: Working on FNF mods is draining me of my essence. It's not as fun to do anymore; I've come to a point in my life where all I want to do now is just move on to something else. So it's time that I start cutting corners and get out of here as soon as possible - unfortunately, the first step here is to can this mod.

I won't leave you guys fully in the dark, though! I may not be able to set up a "cancelled build" given the lack of a coder, but I can still show you what exactly I had planned for the expansion update! Follow me...

(Note that most of the mockups that will be shown in the article are unfinished and are either missing assets or contain placeholders. These are NOT fully accurate visual representations of what would have ended up in the actual mod; they are only estimates.)

So, what was in the fridge?

Bonus Week 1 (Koylee 2021)

While the songs wouldn't've have been updated (I personally think malgo did a very good job on them & that they should be getting a LOT more attention for their musical talents!!!) the art would've gotten a few touch ups in art & animation, changes including updating the BG cast & fixing their animations, plus adding more posters to the walls of the nightclub & tweaking Koylee's symbols. Nothing much going on here.

The stage would've had their lights off for Applause, Koylee's third song. It turned out that the lights being on during that time didn't look very good in-game.

Bonus Week 2 - Retro Koylee

Retro Koylee was the first version of Koylee that went under her current name, opposed to the simple "Ko" that she was called before. She would have been in the game under a second "Bonus Week" in which BF & Koylee have a friendly duel inside her apartment. (I was planning to have the background remade at one point due to how simplistic & boring it looked, however I never really had the chance to get to that prior cancellation. I was trying to replicate the BG from the original Week 2, with the Spookidz n' whatnot.)

Her three songs would've been named Tits, Tidbits & Tulpa. (My sense of humor is impeccable and you should all be laughing with me right now.) While Bonus Week 1's songs were inspired by lo-fi music, Bonus Week 2's songs were derivative of the synthwave genre.

I had a VERY special plan for the third song - remember the times in FNF modding where the opponent usually got increasingly more angry/aggressive as they kept losing against the player character? ("The Whitty Format", I called it at the time.) I wanted to bring the format back for Bonus Week 2, although with a liiiiiittle bit of a twist...

This is Tulpa. (She was originally going to be tied to strings hanging from the ceiling in her design, however they were hard to animate so now she's just floating there.) How exactly do I explain her, hmmm...basically Tulpa is Koylee being controlled by outside forces in order to "force" the Whitty Format. The idea wasn't mine, but one of my friends suggested it & I felt "inspired" enough to "borrow" the idea for Bonus Week 2. (It fit in with the mod's theme of nostalgia, okay? Don't attack me.)

With Tulpa would've comer a special mechanic of her own - if you had Ghost Tapping on, it would be quickly disabled after the beginning of the song. Tough luck to the newbies, hahaha!

Senpai VS Mono

(pixel art by @The3rdComic - check out more of their stuff on Newgrounds!)

Originally a full week that got cut down to a singular bonus song, Koylee's sister Mono would have originally gone face-to-face with Week 6's Senpai in a duel of slam poetry. The idea was inspired by one of my earlier FNF works in which I attempted to draw Mono in the Hating Simulator style...it's alright, I suppose, but I'm glad Comic was there to make it look much better.

While the specifics for Mono VS Senpai changed a lot over time, the overall plan never wavered from what it originally was: Mono ends up in Hating Simulator only to run into Senpai & proceeds to annoy the shit out of him via rap battle (their song would've been called Lovebug). In fact, she manages to get him so pissed that it actually ends up crashing the game (not the actual game, I mean Hating Simulator) at the end of it all. Funny, eh?

In an older draft of Mono VS Senpai (back when it was a full week) a future version of Mono would have been involved in the third song, however that idea never got fully fleshed out & it was kind of stupid anyways so I left that part outside to dry.

Koyleefriend/koyler

Look at the little patootie! The diddly scrunkum! The, uh, um...I ran out of nonsense words to say.

Koyleefriend (known as "koyler" in the dev team as an inside joke) was based off another old piece I made when I was getting into the FNF fandom, some time after the original FNF Koylee sprite concept was posted.

Yeah, uh...this art's seen better days. After another friend of mine suggested a better palette for her, though, she's now good as new & ready to kick ass!

Koyleefriend was mainly going to be involved in a special mode called "K-Mix" that would've been a counterpart to the original base game weeks from 1 to 5. With Koylee now put in Boyfriend's role, she would have to face what were originally BF's opponents through a series of remixes.

I even gave her a custom Christmas outfit for Week 5!!! Isn't she just the cutest? :)

I worked hard on Koyleefriend & I'd argue that she's my favorite part of the expansion, which is why I decided to dig her back up & release her separately as a skinmod (https://gamejolt.com/games/koyler/822305). Check it out when you can! I'd love to see her get some love after everything that's happened :)

K-Mix isn't the only thing Koyleefriend was going to star in! She was going to get a custom song in which she would get to face a very specific someone...

(Oh, god, it's this fucking guy.)

Portel is one of my previous monikers from back in the past - some people may remember him, some people might not (and that's probably for the best). He was going to be put in VS Koylee as a secret song hidden in the credits.

The background is a bar known as "The Yes", a Grillby's knockoff that me & several other people made up as the setting for a "collaboration" (RP) all of us were contributing to. The people surrounding Portel & Koyleefriend are a mix of both characters that were part of the collaboration as well as characters that just I liked & felt like putting in there.

The song that was intended to be made for him, "Annoyance", would have had Portel & Koylee verbally going against each other as they try to constantly 1-up each other. Koylee wins, of course, and Portel throws a tantrum about it.

Stirrings & Ego

(BG by @The3rdComic , with assistance from me)

Stirrings is the magenta one, Ego is the idiot holding the comically large trophy. The former character was part of a now scrapped story concept which I dub the "Parts of Me" - inspired by The Giver & Celeste. I thought the concept was still cool on its own and wanted to pay justice to it, so I gave BF his own Stirrings, along with a special counterpart: Ego! The reason why BF is so fearless (or stupid) in the first place.

This song would have taken place inside the depths of Boyfriend's mind. While the swanky dude is fast asleep, the last two remaining brain cells in his head musically duke it out over...uh. I'm not sure. You'd have to ask them. (Girlfriend, maybe?)

Check out this alternate design for Ego! I think I forgot about this drawing when I made the current design for him (the one with the orange hair) and looking back at it i'm kinda mad that I didn't use this version instead...oh well. >:T

Pedro Peters

"Who is Pedro Peters?", you might ask? Nobody important! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Nil's Fine Game is a now discontinued indie game detailing the story of Pedro Peters as he struggles to find meaning in his life (or something like that). @SteelmaticDragon (the creator of the game) & I know each other rather well and have experimented with crossover elements between NFG & Monoprism (my own project) a couple of times - did you know that Mono 2021 & Pedro were briefly dating at one point? Wow!

Pedro was added to the mod not long before VS Koylee's cancellation as I wanted to pay homage to one of the projects that I wanted to see get continued, as well as make something cool for my friend as a "thank you for the support". His song would've been called Nilch, and Mono 2021 would have been the player character (not unlike in Mono VS Senpai). The idle animation you see above was the only asset that was able to be made before the project got dumped in the trash.

Play the demo for Nil's Fine Game, and be sure to give Steel all of your support - whatever he has planned in the future, it's bound to be good, and I want to see him get the attention that he rightfully deserves! //^v^//

Icons, Scrapped Characters & Our Really Really Cool Logo

A lot of characters were considered for the expansion - at one point I was thinking about just dumping everything on the table & finalizing it all, but eventually I realized that would tire me out immediately and cut out most of the planned content. Here's some of the concepts that were made for this mod! You might recognize some of these characters...

Some of said characters made it far enough into the process to get their own icons! How cool is that?

Of course, some of them ended up getting revamped to look better...

A custom logo was made as well! I had an idea for a custom main menu that would bear resemblance to the very old Ludum Dare prototype for Friday Night Funkin', so of course I based the custom logo off of the prototype logo.

Other Projects

Alright, I'd argue that this is the MOST IMPORTANT section of the article, because this goes over my inclusion with FNF modding in general rather than just this one.

Many people will know that I direct several other FNF mods apart from this one, some of which are more popular and mainstream (if you know, you know). With this epiphany of sudden realization & demotivation now hitting my psyche with the force of an elephant being thrown at an unstable car, the fate of those mods do not seem to bode well...

However, worry not! I do NOT plan to have cancelling them be my first option. VS Koylee was easy to cancel because it was under the radar and no one cared for it - these other mods, however, have been placed under much more complicated circumstances. Some of these mods have been largely anticipated by either fans or team members who arguably care about the project more than I do, and other mods have a sentimental layer of value to them that would make me feel bad about simply dropping them without any proper closure. Simply put, I will have to think of more creative ways if I want the best ending for both these projects & my mental health.

So be on the lookout, be cautious, but also have hope - it's not the end of it all just yet! There's still a chance that the others might survive...

Conclusion

"Am I sad about this?" you may ask. "Do you feel regret in having to cancel your project?"

The answer, is, uh...well, it's mixed. On one hand, I do want to finish my projects; I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that didn't want to go back and try and pick up this mod one more time. (There's a lot of other things for this mod that I haven't shown, and while I do want to show everything that managed to get made, I don't want to make this article even longer than it already is, haha! Some of that would depend on the other team members, anyways.) But on the other hand, well...while I may not want this, I kind of need this. FNF modding, at least for me, has become boring over the last year or so, and while I haven't been able to get anything big out, I suppose it's okay if I don't. I can only move onto better things from here.

The journey isn't over just yet: I still have my other FNF mods, and after that, I'll probably be working on other things (Monoprism included, unless THAT gets cancelled too, hahaha! It's a bit of a habit.) - I think it's time I start to branch out a little bit more.

Play the already existing VS Koylee build available on our GameJolt page! Just because the expansion was cancelled doesn't mean that this isn't a completed project; VS Koylee was always meant to be one week & the expansion was only made in the hopes that it would help the mod get attention. I now see that it's better not to focus on getting attention when working on projects like these, it's better just to make sure thart you enjoy the process. You can't make a passion project if there's no passion to back it up.

Long story short, sometimes it's okay to give up.

Have a nice day!