Okay, you know how this works -- Papa Gabe comes along and offers a rich bounty of discounts for all his Steam kiddies. Same deal, everything goes down a little, wishlists fire off, everybody wins.

But this time around we have a little something new for you...

Introducing Henchmen For HIre, a bundle of two great games -- Penny Larceny and Henchman Story! If you like your social satire with a splash of crime and comic book shenanigans, your ship has officially arrived. Get both games at a discount!

We've also got plenty of Arcade Spirits and The New Challengers love too, so if you've played the first Arcade Spirits but didn't know about the sequel... your OTHER ship has arrived! Look, you've got a lot of ships in this hypothetical scenario, okay?

Roll out the red carpet, fire up the spotlights, strike up the band -- it's awards season! Get hounded by paparazzi! Wear a dress made of meat! Have your darkest secrets exposed by TMZ! It's all part of the magic of show business.

For this year's Steam Awards, we'd very much like to submit for your consideration: Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain. You can tell we're serious because we have two colons in a row, which is a style guide no-no.

If you could toss us a nomination for Outstanding Story-Rich Game, well, it'd show the world we do in fact stand outside of a thing and we are wealthy with story (even if we are far, far from rich).

And let your friends know, too! We've got a lovely little one-caper demo they can try if they're all like "Eeeeeh, I dunnoooo, visual novels, not my thing." Trust us -- that demo's gold and will win them over.

Thanks for your consideration. Hope we can walk the aisle and do a really long-winded and kind of uncomfortable acceptance speech in the future!

Welcome to the Steam Visual Novel Fest, and welcome to the gigaverse of crime and consequences known as Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain!

To celebrate launch week, we're offering a 10% release discount!

This is the first fully independent release from Fiction Factory Games, and we're SO thankful for your support. This wouldn't have been possible without the ongoing efforts of our fans. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, wishlist it, leave a review, help is defeat the algorithm!

Some handy links to get you prepped:

• Our Socials and More (Including Discord)[www.fictionfactorygames.com]
  
• Content Warning[www.fictionfactorygames.com]
  
• Streamer Guide[www.fictionfactorygames.com]

Now let's get stealin'!

I have good-bad news! We're moving from a July 25th release to August 7th.

Delays may suck, but we have good reason -- and Fiction Factory Games believes in being open and transparent.

Steam has a Visual Novel Fest sales event coming up on August 7th. We're moving to better align with it, and give Penny Larceny the best possible chance of launching with eyes on it from media, press, influencers, and fans who love visual novels. Unfortunately, due to the way sale cooldown timers work on Steam (because Steam is a giant algorithmic driven MMO with its own metagame, much like capitalism itself) we can't launch on our planned date of July 25th and still have a discount during Visual Novel Fest. The only way to fully participate and get the best visibility during the event is to move.

Penny Larceny is an indie project through and through. No publisher, no outside funding. Just one small team trying to breathe life into this gonzo gaming experiment. We need every advantage we can get to help this thing have an outside shot at breaking even on budget. A delay will position us to have a better chance at doing just that.

There will be no further delays, no black text on a yellow JPG or anything along those lines. The game's done, it's tested, it's ready to rock. This is just a matter of timing and marketing. You'll get a solid experience day one.

Lastly, some content creators will get an early look at the game, so if you're eager and don't wanna sit around an extra two weeks without indulging in some CRIIIIIMES, be on the lookout for streams!

We appreciate your patience and understanding about this delay. If you like, you can help us take advantage of the extra time by talking the game up to friends -- extra wishlists feed the algo, which feeds our visibility, which will eventually feed our stomachs.

Thanks so much. We'll crime it up in due time.

It's time! Load your grappling gun and give your hacker cat some treats, because we're stealing a national monument!

Play the one-caper demo of Penny Larceny today -- and don't forget to wishlist the game, to help us fight THE ALGORITHM(tm)! Our visibly during Next Fest can be improved by you clicking one little button!

(Also technically the event officially starts in a few hours, but we wanted to get the demo up early to make sure everything was A-OK and nothing was on fire.)

And throughout Next Fest, we'll have a looping video playing through the demo with the lead developer and content creator JellyCrowned! You could just watch that instead of playing yourself, but maybe do both? I mean, it's just a suggestion. Whatever, I'm not your dad.

See you on Crimr!

It's almost time! Get your grappling hooks swinging and your masks on straight, because Penny Larceny dives into the action on July 25, 2023!

I know, right? So soon?! But we're ready. Crimr's online, the bosses have missions for you, and summer is going to heat up with all the illegal stuff you'll be doing!

(Please do not commit crimes. I mean, like, in real life. Or do, whatever, I'm not your dad.)

Want a taste of the action? The playable demo releases June 19 at Steam Next Fest! Dang, that's not far away at all, is it? The demo includes a shortened version of the "Meet Your Bosses" scene, and the "Monumental Proportions" caper (one of fifteen playable capers in the game). A nice snack that'll give you a taste of what's to come! ... wait, I already used a "taste" metaphor earlier in this paragraph I can't repeat it that's just weird abort ABORT

--hope to see you at Steam Next Fest, and beyond!

Okay, so we've profiled our character art team and our music team... what's left? The writer? Hooboy. This is gonna be awkward, since (to step outside of the Corporate Royal We for a moment) I'm basically interviewing myself. But I am trying to be better at taking pride in my own work after years and years of worry at looking self-centered. Soooo... why not?

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now.

My name is Stefan Gagne. I'm asexual and physically disabled and live in a generic middle class suburban hell. You might also know me as Twoflower; I started using the moniker back in my teenage years to mask the fact that I was piggybacking off my sister's university Internet account. (This is back in the days of dial-up modems, before commercial ISPs. Yes, I am that old. I am so old.)

I've been writing stories since I was a little kid, going through an obligatory run with anime fanfic in the 90s (mostly Ranma and Slayers), then moving on self-published YA novels (Sailor Nothing, Unreal Estate, City of Angles, Anachronauts, Floating Point). I also had a stint as an author for Neverwinter Nights modules (Penultima, elegia eternum, HeX coda). I've been pretty much perpetually writing one thing or another for damn near 30 years. Did I mention I am old? God, I am staggeringly old.

Currently I'm the lead developer for tiny indies under the label of Fiction Factory Games, notably Arcade Spirits, Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers, and now Penny Larceny. Same idea -- write stories. Just a different medium.

How would you describe your writing style? What do you enjoy most about it?

I wear my influences on my sleeve -- there's Terry Pratchett, who I got the Twoflower nickname from. Douglas Adams, Robert Asprin, Gordon Korman, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson. I gravitate towards comedy but usually thoughtful comedy, which can step back and examine the situation they're in during the quiet moments.

I'm in danger of essentially becoming ChatGPT with my influences as my learning model but I try to fuse it all into my own approach, focused on character-based storytelling and satire to dig into very human situations. I'm happiest when I'm really sinking my teeth into character motivations and trying to understand them with both empathy and criticism.

You're writing the story for Penny Larceny! What was your approach to that?

Back when I wrote Arcade Spirits, I thought: Stefan, you just wrote a soul-crushing trilogy of sci-fi novels that were a parable for G*merG*te. Your brain is now fried tofu and you hate the world. Please for the love of God make your next project something simple and fluffy and pleasant and fun. ...and so, Arcade Spirits was born, a slice-of-life rom-com.

But even trying to deliver something really safe and straightforward, I had some people hounding me over its "leftist propaganda" for daring to suggest that maybe capitalism causes problems actually? and whining about pronouns and diversity so on. So I thought: Screw it, if I'm gonna get haters anyway, I'm back on my satire kick again. A lot of that worked its way into New Challengers but it's really coming to the forefront with Penny Larceny.

What drives me is a desire to examine our world; where it's been, what's happening, where it's going. How unchecked ambition got us into the messes we're in, and how we can get out. Through this distorted comic book gigaverse I want to both and explain and mock the perpetual dumpster fire we've made of our own world. It's hard to say I "enjoy" that as I would very much like my friends and family to not be under constant attack by opportunistic politicians using us as a punching bag, but hey.

What are some of your favorite games which have writing you particularly love?

Too damn many to list so I'll throw a spotlight on two of them. So first of all: Batman: The Telltale Series. Specifically the second season with the Joker, for doing something I had never seen before in a Batman story: it flipped the Harley/Joker dynamic. Now Joker was the sympathetic sycophant making puppy-dog eyes at Harley -- and amazingly enough also telling a surprisingly empathetic story of how Bruce Wayne forms (or doesn't form) an emotional connection to Joker and can change his life path through sympathy and understanding. Blew my freaking mind that they were willing to go there instead of leaning on Crazy Murder Clown What Gets Punched A Lot.

Second, I want to highlight Psychonauts 2. If you're looking for empathetic storytelling this one really, really sings. Nobody is pure evil in this game; everyone can be reached if you're willing to help them sort through their emotional issues, and it does a great job depicting the struggles we all face with kindness and understanding. As much as I tire of the "kindly meta" in games where the safest response is always the best response, Psy2 crafts the entire narrative around it in a way that works.

Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work?

You can wishlist Penny Larceny! Right here. Right now. Go ahead and do it. It seriously, seriously helps us like you wouldn't believe. Ask your friends to do the same. We are self-published this time around and that means a much smaller megaphone.

More info on all our games -- including links to our Twitter, Discord, Mastodon, and Tumblr so you can follow us anywhere you wanna follow us -- can be found at https://www.FictionFactoryGames.com. And if you want to read my self-published YA novels (and my embarrassing old anime fanfic) it's all at https://www.StefanGagne.com.

This week we've got a delightful pair of interviews for your reading enjoyment -- we're talking with the music team behind Penny Larceny! Star, who created the original electro-jazz soundtrack, and Keiko, who created the theme song "Back of the House."

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now.

My name is Star Victoria Power and I write music under the name Slide20XX - I decided I wanted to write music for video games when I was around 13 years old and have been at it ever since.

How would you describe your musical style? What do you enjoy most about it?

The genre I identify most with is the “Digital Fusion” style - which for me, if I’m being totally honest, is just a really clever way of saying “video game music” ha - but in all seriousness, my music is inspired by elements of classical music, jazz, and especially combinations of those two styles that incorporate ideas from electronic music or old-school video game soundtracks. I like any opportunity to be melodic, but I’m also inspired by any intersections with hip-hop and sampling (so the Jet Set Radio soundtracks are a personal favorite).

I’ve always loved music in a very general sense, so I love any opportunities to bring together different worlds of sound.

You're working on music for Penny Larceny! What was your approach to that?

Panic ! LOL - so a big challenge for the Penny Larceny soundtrack was finding a way of capturing an authentically “Swing” sound. We were pretty clear that we wanted to take inspiration from electroswing and that sounded easy enough on the surface - I have experience with jazz and “organic” sounds, I have experience with EDM, and I have experience combining things together in general - but I came to find out that some of the most famous examples of the genre use samples that aren’t strictly speaking… legally sourced. I found some - though not many - good legal samples and used the heck out of them.

What are some of your favorite games which have music you particularly love?

Chrono Trigger, Jet Set Radio, Madworld, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - because:

Chrono Trigger is great, can’t go wrong with Chrono Trigger; Hideki Naganuma is a genius; Madworld is one of the most creative rap albums I’ve ever heard in general; Muramasa is beyond beautiful; Sonic cannot be denied

Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work?

Everywhere! I’m Slide20XX on Twitter and Instagram (though I’m less active on Insta) and you can stream my soundtracks on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube Music, Amazon, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, etc etc.

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now.

I cut my teeth as a virtual performing artist in Second Life around 2005-2006. I was a proto-livestreamer before they had a name for that. Then around 2012, I got into the chiptune/chipmusic/VGM scene which combines my love of music and gaming. I joined an industrial/synth-rock chip band called Crashfaster. In 2018, I successfully funded my first ever Kickstarter and launched my current solo project, Alice Knows Karate.

How would you describe your musical style? What do you enjoy most about it?

You could say I mostly make synth-pop, but it's a pop variety pack, honestly. I try to write for the emotion or the vibe. I can't stay inside a single genre to save my life.

I enjoy the freedom to explore and play with styles and genres. Especially since music can be used to evoke so much emotion, it's Super Effective™ at telling or enhancing a story.

You created "Back of the House," the theme song for Penny Larceny! What can you tell us about it?

I wrote "Back of the House" while I was in a bit of a rut, trying to figure out how to make my music more widely known or successful, I guess. I would watch hours of music business YouTubers spout this and that. "You have to do all these things, chase the attention, post every hour on the hour, play a show every day, maybe two, shake hands, kiss babies." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist. And I just sort of sat there and seethed. Every video caused psychic damage. It was like they were saying, "You're not ____ enough! You're too _____! Why aren't you doing more to fix yourself to our tastes?" I felt like, if this is their game, I'd rather not play.

So I wrote a song from the perspective of some kind of lounge singer who gets fed up with being increasingly sexualized and quits to become a line cook. "Last Night in Soho" pacifist run.

What are some of your favorite games which have music you particularly love?

PaRappa the Rapper was the first, so I always gotta shout out my boy, PaRappa.

Katamari Damacy. Jazzy, wacky, delightful, harmonious and melodic.

Kingdom Hearts. This is a game my whole family would come watch me play. I was considering walking down the aisle to "Dearly Beloved" at one point.

Undertale. It's almost cliché to say now, but I'd be lying if I said otherwise. Everything hits you in the feels and fills you with determination.

Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work?

My website: https://www.aliceknowskarate.com

For the last few weeks of the dev blog (because we're coming up on release sooner than you think...) I'd like to put a spotlight on some of the people who helped make Penny Larceny happen! This week, it's all about the art.

After initial character designs for the main cast were done by Molly Nemecek, we brought on board a two-member art crew -- Crowbar and Solient. Lines and color, respectively. An unbeatable tag team!

First, let's learn about...

Heya, I’m Crowbar, a non-binary artist from Canada who has worked in TTRPGs, board games, and comics! I’m a full time freelance artist and when I’m not bringing others’ characters to life, I’m drawing my own, playing D&D, or riding my motorcycle.

Comics have always been the biggest influence in my art, from the likes of Trigun, to the reboot of Prophet, to all the webcomic labours of love out there. The need to get the characters in my head onto paper drives me to draw my own comics, and the labour pays off just for being able to share those stories. The skills I’ve gained from comics easily translated to Penny Larceny, not only for its obvious comic book influence but for being able to give an individual sense to each character’s expressions. I really enjoyed taking the character briefs, finding the characters’ key emotions, and letting that influence all their expressions and emoting. It’s been amazing seeing my art in action alongside the writing and how it lives up to the little scenarios and characterizations I imagined.

You can find a list of my socials at: https://mrcrowb.art/
And my webcomic at: https://unboundcomic.com/

For this one, we'll go with an interview style to mix things up...

Tell me a bit about yourself -- your background, how you got where you are now.

I did video and multimedia work for a museum exhibits division for awhile, eventually realized I'm allergic to capitalism, and have roamed about in search of ethically harmonious work ever since. I found the pitch for Penny Larceny agreeable and very relatable!

How would you describe your art style? What do you enjoy most about it?

I'd call it "minimalist second generation westernized anime," as my formative influences were American comic artists that were in turn heavily influenced by Japanese media of the 1980s. I feel one of my bigger strengths, and one of the things I enjoy the most, is creating a sense of pacing in comics.

You're working on art for Penny Larceny! What was your approach to that?

I'm flatting and shading some of the art assets, so my goal is to make the work that I do match Crowbar's as closely as I possibly can.

What are some of your favorite games which have art you particularly love?

Griftlands, Slime Rancher, and the Monster Prom series all have character art and sound design that I adore. Guild Wars 2 has gorgeous 3d environments and loading screens, and the art direction for character conversations in core content is beautiful.

Where can folks find you online if they want to enjoy more of your creative work?

My personal website is https://deadcityradio.org/; folks can find just about everywhere else I'm at from there.

This week I'd like to talk about something a bit less flashy and cool and marketing friendly, but still very important to us -- accessibility.

No matter your means or ability, we want you to be able to enjoy Penny Larceny. The lead developer at Fiction Factory Games is physically disabled himself and has struggled with playing major tentpole AAA games which lack accessibility options -- so when the time came to make our own games, we resolved to develop features that will allow anyone to play.

We're carrying forward all the features we rolled into the Arcade Spirits games, but have a few new ones to show you. (Unfortunately Steam doesn't allow alt text on images, so we'll caption these with text right below them. The irony is... unpleasant.)

The major new feature is the ability to change the character dialogue you'll be reading in the game. You can change how it uses color, and change what fonts are used...

Penny says: "Normally, text appears in a comic book font, and is colored to match the character. I talk in green! Like money!"

We dig the "dark mode comic book app" aesthetic, the dark gray halftone dots and the stylized text. It makes the whole game feel like some modern hybrid of comic book and visual novel. But aesthetics be damned -- if you have difficulty reading this, we still want you to be able to play, so we've provided some options...

Dr. Mayhem says: "But if you prefer, you can swap to monochrome or use a more basic font. If you have color blindness, this can help."

In this example we've turned on monochrome text (white on black) and switched to a very ordinary sans serif font. These options are available right from the main menu and you can switch them out at any time, to get the best possible experience.

For players with dyslexia or other difficulty parsing these fonts, we have you covered as well...

The Overmistress says: "You can also swap to OpenDyslexia, if that works better for you -- and you can invert the text box to black on white."

The classic OpenDyslexia font is available, as is a "light mode" box which uses black text on white. Personally I prefer dark mode, but I'm not here to tell you how to play your game -- if this is what works for you, hey, that's great!

Finally, as with the Arcade Spirits games, we have a special visual impairment support mode on offer...

HATE-4000 says: "If you tap the V key, it activates text-to-speech visual impairment mode. This replaces user interface elements with simple to navigate menus and adds alt text."

This does more than turn on your system's text-to-speech to read dialogue out loud. Any complicated interfaces like free roaming area maps, character creation, or other interactive elements are replaced by simple linear selections -- up and down arrows and enter are all you'll need (or a game pad!) In addition, extra narration is worked into the game's script, so Penny will describe what you're looking at in her own words whenever possible. You won't miss out on anything.

Because the game is entirely focused on text, hearing impaired players should be good to go as well; any critical sound effects come with visual alerts or description in the narration ("The alarms went off! Crap!") and you won't be missing out on anything, either.

Now, these features won't cover every possible disability out there -- and we're a tiny indie with a budget we may never earn back, so there's only so much we can do. But we're willing to hear your needs and if there's a way we can support you with our tools, we'll do it. So your feedback is welcome and we're hopeful we can provide you a great game experience.