Warning:

(The following "TL;DR:" is AI generated because I didn't have a lot of time to make this post. Sorry to the people who don't like AI, but I wanted to get this out quickly...

The actual post after it IS completely human-written, though it's a bit long...)

TL;DR:
I underestimated how challenging game development is—there’s so much to handle (writing, music, sprites, coding), and time is my biggest obstacle. My progress has been slower than I hoped, and burnout hit me recently. While First Impressions isn’t cancelled, I’ll need a few extra months beyond my original summer break deadline, especially with school coming up. I aim to finish the day 1 demo soon and maybe up to day 3 by the end of summer. The extra time will let me add more features (unique battle controls, more endings, and possibly a “not-so-nice” route). Thanks for your patience!

Starting this out by being completely frank:

I seriously underestimated how hard Game Dev is

I knew there's a LOT of stuff to it. In my own experience so far there's been writing, music, sprites and then coding it all into one tangible project.

I'd like to say I'm good enough at sprites along with my music and coding skills being decent enough, and my writing is functional as well (despite hating what I've written whenever I it back).

But my main problem is -- Time --

If you look at the bottom of description on the game page I have the days remaining until my summer break ends - the deadline I had hoped to reach. But at the rate I'm going at, I don't really think it's feasible.

I'm not able to do stuff as fast as I hoped even when taking hours out of my day, and this past week I've been a bit burnt out as well which I assume will happen again at some point.

It's WAY easier imagining a game in my head than actually making it real...

Now this doesn't mean First Impressions is cancelled. Not by a long shot.

This just means one big upside, and one small downside:

The game is going to take a while

I don't expect the development to take over a year at this moment, but I do think it'll take at least a few extra months, especially when I'll have to focus more on my studies upon summer vacation ending (it's my final year).

What I also expect is to have the day 1 demo done sooner or later at the very least, so you can look forward to that . And I (roughly) expect to have up to day 3 done by the time summer ends (but don't hold me to that).

The good news is that knowing all that I can take things a bit slower and implement everything I want to. For example, every route having unique way to control yourself in battle and more endings (being variations of other ones with differences based on time spent with people)

I've also been experimenting with the idea of a not-so-nice route with everything I've come up with thus far feeling forced and/or not interesting enough. But now that this game will have more time in the oven I can explore the concept more and see if I still want to pursue it.

I might also pursue side-projects like maybe a shorter game either original or based on First Impressions, just for when I need to take breaks from making the game like I did this week.

That's all I have to say, really. Sorry there's so much text above. You really deserve something for reading all this...

Hmm...

Oh, I got it! Everybody likes teasers, right?

Here you go!

Paper Hunt!

A Baldi's Basics and LCD inspired minigame