Hello hello everyone!

First of all, thank you for downloading this little project of mine!

 I've had the rough idea since like 2018 but it was a looot different than now lol. I just let it rot on my OneNote Folder until early 2023 where I picked it up again and redid the plot, and I liked it so much that I wanted to elaborate it. At first, Hell Trap was supposed to be a manga but after drawing 30 pages and having like 60 more planned I decided to fuck the comic format and do something else instead.  I stumbled upon the Ren'Py engine by accident tbh but I'm glad I did. The visual novel format fits this story a lot better than a manga, and it's better for my hand too :,D

Speaking of my hand, even though illustrating the CGs wasn't as bad as drawing a page by page manga, I still cursed myself multiple times throughout drawing Chapter 0 (my hand nearly fell off lol). I deliberately decided against the use of sprites since I felt it wouldn't fit the vibe of this story but gawddayum sprites would have made my life a lot easier. I swear I would have finished this first chapter in 1 month max. instead of 3 lol

By the way, when I started writing Hell Trap it was supposed to be on the shorter side... but then I added some things here... and some things there... and whoops the first chapter is 10k words long. After this monstrocity of an introduction to the story I told myself I'd tone it down the following chapters because my goal was to actually finish the game this year :,) I really struggle with keeping projects short, I always end up investing so much heart and soul into them that they end up being way longer than I anticipated. 

As I mentioned before, this is my first game using Ren'Py and I decided I wouldn't implement detailed routes/endings since I felt like it would easily overwhelm me and just drag this project out way longer than I'm intending to.  See this game more like an atmospheric story experience rather than an interactive visual novel! So I really hope you like reading lol

(Now that I'm on the topic of Ren'Py and coding: How tf do ppl program for a living? Trying o figure out how to do the whole UI nearly made me want to jump off a bridge AND rip out my hair multiple times. I think I cried once or twice. The things I sacrifice for art...)

I'm trying to finish up the next batch of chapters as soon as possible but pls understand that I'm just a normal adult that works/goes to school full time and tries to (sometimes) have a life beside game dev.

Fun fact: I usually like to put on  music while I draw my artworks and for some reason I leaned towards listening to a lot of ayesha erotica in the later parts of the chapter. It's kinda funny imagining Yul absolutely crumbling and going down his downward spiral while "DAMN SORRY I BLEW YOU OFF, I WAS DOING LUNCH WITH MICROSOFT I'M S#CKING OFF A CEO IF HE'S NOT A MILLIONARE THEN I'VE GOTTA GO" plays on speaker (here's the link to the exact remix I'm talking about: 【和訳】ayesha erotica - hands up! (remix)【lyrics】)

Stay tuned!

- marikatti