JPDE REFRAIN – Sonata of Fire [v4.6]

(2024-12-07) REFRAIN DEMO

The wait is finally over…! And I hope it was worth it.

It was certainly a good thing for me that the fact that not one but two of the SFX groups I had been buying packs from were revealed as thieves reselling stolen assetsWAIT LET MEEXPLAIN! I mean that the extra time was good to have!

Why? Because on top of having to rebuy sound effects from other sources, it granted me enough leeway to finish Yakuza 0 in my spare time and… I’m so glad.

Not just because it’s a great game, incredibly fun, my first Yakuza game, but also because the game design of it gave me SO many ideas for REFRAIN and other games going forward! JPDE1REFRAIN was always going to be a better looking and expanded version of the original, but playing Yakuza 0 showed me how I could do that in ways I had never thought of.

You’re going to see, in this GAMEPLAY DEMO, how that looks like. You’ll see how the writing has improved and the beginning of the game has been expanded. You’ll see how talking and exploring has been revamped. You’ll see how I took to heart the lessons learned while developing JPDE2 and BABELOMANIA but, most importantly, you’ll see how we’re going to make the City of Vale a character in itself.

I’m extremely proud of the work the team has done for REFRAIN and I can’t wait to see you play it and react to it! Also, BIG shoutout and thanks to our supporters on Patreon and KoFi. Without our supporters, we wouldn’t be able to make the games we make. So, without further ado, get ready to dive back in the world of JPDE! ENJOY!

(2024-01-31) v4.6

Hello thar, Meinos Kaen here… And the Road to Emerald begins.

What that means? It means that this is the first of the updates which will bring us to JPDE 5.0, which will include Emerald’s Custom Ending and bring Sonata of Fire ever so close to its FINAL FORM.

This is a first step! This update, 4.6, contains a LOT of bug fixes -thank you, Renpy god, for the constant updates that make life so much easier!- and a much requested feature: YOU CAN NOW SKIP ALL THE BATTLE CONTENT IN THE GAME WITHOUT COMPROMISING THE STORY!

That’s right! While we are reworking and updating the battle system to something more humane, helped by the experience we’ve gained in developing JPDE2 [which is A DIRECT SEQUEL TO JPDE1, it seems that a lot of people were confused about that!] you will now be able to skip everything, making repeated plays much quicker! Right now, you can only choose to battle or not battle at the beginning of the game but that will also disappear once the new battle system is in place.

More features are coming! A fully functional gallery, music player, and MORE! JPDE2 may be the future, but JPDE1 is not done just yet!

– Meinos Kaen

(2023-09-09) v4.5

– Extra Art for Blake’s Ending!

– Extra, ahem, night-time activities for Blake

– A 2nd Date for Kali Belladonna!

– The prototype for the new Battle System, contained in the Blake VS Evelyn Battle!

– More Voice acting!

Thanks for your support and love so far! See you on the 5th of October with GalaxiA’s pilot episode!

(2023-02-11) v4.3

Hello thar, Meinos Kaen here… And 2023 is our year!

So many updates are coming for JPDE – Sonata of Fire and all the other concepts. Sonata of Fire, in particular, is approaching what we could call its final form. It’s shedding a lot of old trappings and stuff that has remained in there for too long, or been broken for too long. That is on top of all the new content you’ll keep on getting, of course.

And to start it off with a bang…!

WHAT’S NEW IN SONATA OF FIRE 4.3?

Neon Katt (2nd Event) – The faunus from Atlas is back, baby! And she’s introducing David to a brand new world… And a lot of lore. I did not expect to write this much stuff lore-wise in this date but I think the writing I’m doing for JPDE2 seeped in…

Kali Belladonna’s Lewd 01 – The first lewd of 2023! Not much else I can say about this it’s… one of the lewds I have planned for Mrs Belladonna. It’s a bit weird that she got a lewd before her daughter but… Hope you enjoy Kali’s first variant! Remember that I want to make her route a different kind, with stuff happening in a different way depending on certain decisions… Provided we get enough support to make the lewd stuff happen, of course.

Temporary Assets Substitution – GOODBYE, TEMPORARIES! And not only them. On top of replacing the old placeholder assets that plagued the game, especially in the opening hours of the game, we’re also updating some CGs which have not aged as well as others. No reason like the other to replay the game again, especially since…

New Functionality (GALLERY) – JPDE Sonata of Fire now has a working Gallery! It will be updated regularly with access to new images and new characters, and the way it works is that: once you see an image in-game, you will be able to access and see it from the gallery at any time!

(2022-12-11) v4.20.1

Professor Peach (2nd Event) – Rasnec has worked on this from beginning to end, with only minimal editing from me and Beard… So hope you’re ready to lay into him as you would me ;D

Penny’s Cheongsang Outfit, Evelyn’s Maid Costume – As it says on the tin… Remember that once you finish the game for the first time, you’re able to activate costume changes even from the beginning of the game 

New and Updated Voice Lines – Magnificent Beard keeps on delivering, and so do our voice actors 

Amber Dreamscape – Ciel Soleil Episode – This should have come out before Halloween… It didn’t. But I hope that even if it’s out of season, you’ll like it all the same. You may notice that the lewd doesn’t have super-smooth animations this time but… Something else. 

 Hope you enjoy anyway~

That’s it for this release, everyone! I will see you in the next one in 2023… With Blake’s dance event and custom ending. 

4.20.1 – Bugfixes for the new costumes for the girls

(2022-09-25) v4.17

Ruby&Yang (1st Event) – This is not the first date Rasnec works on, but it’s the first ‘high-profile’ one, so to speak. Ruby and Yang will have a day out and who knows how it will go… 

New and Updated Voice Lines – With the addition of Magnificent Beard to the team, not only are we still adding new voice lines to the game but from now on we’ll be able to fill the game with Emotive Sound Lines and re-work the audio of older voice lines. Playing JPDE – Sonata of Fire will become a completely new experience!

Amber Dreamscape – Neopolitan Episode – And, uhm, for those of you who enjoy… Spicy situations, there’s a new addition, featuring everyone’s favorite double-haired sociopath… Wearing a traditional Ukrainian dress (because of a bet, anyway… SLAVA!)

(2022-07-31) v4.16

Gwen Darcy (1st Date) – There’s more Team NDGO love coming your way! You may remember Gwen and Octavia being involved in Evelyn’s 2nd date, and now Gwen gets her own character-specific event!

Cinder Fall (Epilogue Add On) – So, you may know that there are certain dates that are called Complementary, aka: they affect and change the ending of the main story even if the character involved isn’t brought to the date… Cinder Fall is one of these. I’d suggest running the epilogue again…

New Outfits – As you can see from the above picture, this update includes a new casual outfit for Blake and the Beacon Uniform outfit for Weiss! Which means that now, there’s only one member of team RWBY without her uniform…!

New Voice Lines – Evelyn and Penny get more voice-acted lines added to the game in this update! Thanks to the efforts of Magnificent Beard, a new member of the JPDE team who will be dealing exclusively with the voice-acting!