(Yuki from Yuki's Tale)
Kasaix: Allow me to introduce Azurezero, a prolific and truly talented game designer. His games showcase great artistic work as well as fun gameplay. They're also quite cute and lewd, which appeals to us at Doujins. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Azure. How are you doing today?
Azurezero: I'm doing rather well. I woke up to receive feedback for a demo i sent out to my patrons yesterday, and it's all positive so far.
Kasaix: That's great to hear. What game are you working on now, and how is it going so far?
Azurezero: I work on multiple projects at a time. I'm currently working on 2 projects, a lewd Metroidvania called Yuki's Tale, and a simple RPG Maker adventure game called Kate's Test. I've been working on Yuki's Tale longer though.
Kasaix: Multitasking games can't be easy. What made you decide to work on multiple projects at once?
Azurezero: It's difficult to be work on the same project all the time. If i get stuck on one thing I like to have a backup project I can work on. If you're working with something like RPG Maker, the bulk of the work is drawing which can get exhausting. I enjoy working with game maker more, as coding feels like solving puzzles.
Kasaix: Ah, that's quite interesting! Burgeoning game developers might want to make a note of this.
How did you get started as a game developer?
Azurezero: Years ago people like Kyrieru were releasing their first games, and I thought "I could do that too." I built my first game, Princess Escape, in 5 weeks during a summer holiday, and it was terrible. It had all sorts of signposting issues with the player not really understanding what they had to do to move the story forward. Games design was more difficult than I had imagined, but it was also more fulfilling than anything I'd tried, so I stuck with it.
The art was also inconsistent. But that's an issue i still face today. Even stuff I draw in the same week can have characters looking like they were drawn by different people.
Kasaix: Did you have any formal training in game development and art before your first attempt with Princess Escape?
Azurezero: None whatsoever, most of my high school life was dedicated to drawing, but my grades were terrible. I just hit the ground running with Princess Escape, and started to work on it, with no real plan as i got to know RPG Maker. I never really thought of myself as a tinkerer but it was fun figuring out what each thing did and what i could mix them together to do.
I didn't use the battle system at all until my first RPG Majo.
Kasaix: Ah, so you ran at it and learned along the way! That's really quite impressive.
Azurezero: Thank you.
Kasaix: Could you tell us more about the games you're working on now?
Azurezero: Both games reflect lessons I've learned over the years. Kate's Test embraces the bits of RPG Maker I have fun with. I deliberately chose a cuter thick lined style because it’s more in line with what I’m good at. I also focused on funny writing and puzzle design, which greatly improves my enjoyment of a project.
For Yuki's Tale the challenges are mostly coding based. I've had to come up with new methods of saving. My first Metroidvania needed a 
custom duplicate of each upgrade you could find in the game. But now I only need one, the only limitation is i cant have more of the same upgrade in a room. Did you want to know more about the story?
Kasaix: Yes please!
Azurezero: Yuki is a foxgirl demon living with her kind in their apparently peaceful village atop a mountain, but she yearns to travel the world. What she doesn't know, is this kind of thinking can get her in trouble with those in charge. They rigidly control the population by not allowing people to leave and incarcerating those that want to. I was inspired by a doujin I read where ninja girls were sent to a dungeon bellow their village to mate with demons to provide strong offspring.
Her mother sends her down there a different route, as through the dungeon is the only way down to the rest of the world. She still has to deal with the guards and monsters down there, but at least she wasn't sent down in chains. so her odds are better.
The dungeon wasn't always used as a sex dungeon though, so Yuki can find new powers lying about to help her chances. I'm undecided on the lore about that. But it would be nice if Yuki was being helped along by the souls of girls who didn't make it.
Kasaix: That's quite interesting! I can't wait to see where it goes.
How is work on the game progressing? Have you run into any snags?
Azurezero: A lot of snags actually. My skills at making pixel animation seem to come and go, Yuki's been delayed to the point where I've had to hire help this month so i can keep moving forward. The sprites they sent so far are rather exciting too, I’m just waiting on the finishing animation for the sex grab now. A thing i forgot to mention was that the demons are ferrying drugs through the dungeon to the world below, but a fault in the pipeline has unleashed it into the air, so a lot of the enemies are crazed or mutated.
This enemy will be the first one unaffected by the drug because they're wearing a facial covering
I was stuck on level design for a while, but after a surge of inspiration I deliberately ended the last demo i released with 2 areas flooded with aphrodisiac gas too big for Yuki to make it through without running out of hp, so she drops to the floor and masturbates.
The demo has a dummy for the item that lets you get through those areas, so when the full game is released they’ll already have it.
I just haven't coded the damage reduction yet, though its a simple task.
Another snag I had was I couldn't sprite Yuki's dodge roll for the longest time. for the first months of development she instead had a dash attack, which moved her just horizontally negating gravity. it had the same purpose for the most part. but it was a lot less fun to use.
Ah, I'm waffling. Is there anything specific you want to ask?
Kasaix: Do you have an ending in mind, or are you going to let the game progress to where the game tells you what the ending is?
Azurezero: I have an ending in mind, But I'm not sure how to go about getting to it yet.
The middle is the tricky part.
Kasaix: As a writer, I can confirm this.
Azurezero: Yuki's Tale is intended to be a story of growth, and has a fairly cliche aesop about not giving up on the things you desire. But whether the message gets across will be left to the animation. as most of the game doesn't use text to show the narrative.
In a way my ending is a resurrection of an old idea that never got finished.
The 2nd game I tried to work on was a fully fledged platformer before i had any real spriting skills, to the point that my sprites were just frame by frame doodles scaled down.
Only the true ending was a good one, as the player would have rescued two character who working together, can rescue you at the end.
The game itself was far beyond my skills back then.
Kasaix: There's a lesson there: you left in defeat before, but return stronger and more capable.
Azurezero: I'd still probably give up if I tried to recreate that game. Too much in the spriting department.
I'd like to reuse the character at some point but i have so many half baked ideas as it is
Kasaix: Your itch.io page currently has 14 amazing games on it. If someone were to only play one game to get an impression of your work, which one would it be and why?
Azurezero: They'd have to play at least 2 of them.
Damsel Quest 3 is my largest project to date, and it took a year to make.
It's a culmination of all the lewd RPGs I've made over the years.
And drew inspiration from one of my favourite games: Ahriman's The Moral Sword of Asagi
They'd also have to play one of my platformers to get the full idea.
The demo for Yuki's Tale is available on itch.io as well so I recommend they try that one.
Milk Megami Marielle is another good one. It was on sale until yesterday. It contains my most psychotically hilarious game over to date.
Kasaix: Do you have any final thoughts or messages to the people?
Azurezero: I'd like to thank the people who were there for me at the beginning. the people who helped me learn and the people who bought my games. I also thank my patrons for supporting me and hope everyone continues to do so as I improve.
Any developer is nothing without support.
If i had to name people specifically I'd thank Lustfire for being nice enough to do the art for one of my games for free, and Barreytor for putting up with me when I didn't really deserve it.
Kasaix: It's been a pleasure to talk to you, thank you for taking the time to do so.
Azurezero: Thanks for having me. It's my first time doing an interview.
Kasaix: You did really well.
I would like to thank Azurezero once again for sitting down with me for this interview. If you would like to follow his work, he is on the following sites:
