NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT IN THIS RELEASE:

☆ Shinto Shrine location

A new Shinto shrine map is added to the game. It can be used for dating activities, buying Shinto amulets, and catching bamboo squirrels (they can be exchanged for money at higher rates than regular park squirrels).

The map contains the main shrine buildings (haiden & honden), water purification pavilion (temizuya), auxiliary shrines and buildings, wooden and stone lanterns, a sacred rock, an amulet shop. All models and designs in this location are accurate recreations of contemporary Japanese Shinto architecture.

You can also obtain pine cones in this map (occasionally drop from pine trees) and put them on display in your apartment.

☆ Omamori, omikuji, and new “luck” feature

In the Shinto shrine location you can buy two types of amulets: omikuji and omamori. They both affect your luck, but work differently:

• Omikuji are fortune-telling paper strips granting you one of possible luck or curse effects for one day. You cannot know what effect you’ll get until omikuji is opened. If you open a sealed omikuji, it takes effect immediately and goes into your “amulet” equipment slot, overriding all omamori effects (if you had any). Activated omikuji will disappear automatically next day.
• Omamori are amulets granting you a certain kind of luck. They cost a lot more than omikuji, but you can choose what luck effect you want and can equip or remove them from equipment slot as you wish. Omamori are depleted every time their luck is used, and lose their effect after reaching 0%.

Omamori/omikuji effects:

1. romantic luck: all your romantic interactions will give you increased double scores (up to 50 points per interaction); romantic curse: all romantic relationships will give -1 score.
2. shopping luck: all prices in shops are decreased by 25%; shopping curse: all prices are increased by 50%. These amulets are useful for buying expensive items.
3. cooking luck: quality of all cooked food will always be 100% (this doesn’t affect burned food); cooking curse: all recipes will result in burned food. By using these amulets you can easily unlock full recipes instead of trying to figure out all optional ingredients on your own. But if you get cooking curse it’s better to go to a cafe that day.

☆ Beauty Salon

A new beauty salon is open next to the Taiyaki Shop. You can change hairstyle and hair color for your character using the chair closer to the entrance, and change your girlfriend’s hairstyle using the second chair. In total there are 7 different hairstyles (#7 with two small tails on sides of the head is new, added in this update). More hairstyles will be added in future updates.

☆ New accessories

• Glasses (3 colors) – in the Fashion Store.

☆ New food and recipes

• Curry recipes: pork curry, chicken curry, katsu curry, chicken katsu curry, vegetable curry, and seafood curry.
• Tonkatsu and chicken katsu recipes.
• Chocolate baum and matcha baum (convenience store).
• Mikan ( convenience store).
• Panko and curry mix (convenience store, used for cooking).

☆ Faster UI

• Sprites for item previews are now loaded asynchronously, and all lists for item names and descriptions are cached in memory. Thanks to this, inventory, shops, gachapons, recipe book, cafe menus, messages now open significantly faster (in most cases instantly).

☆ Other additions and improvements

• Several equipment slots in your girlfriend’s inventory are now locked until you reach a certain relationship level – you can check required level by clicking on locked slots.
• Locked equipment slots are now explicitly marked by “lock” icons.
• Serving and removing food from table in your apartment is now done through inventory (you still can put food on table directly from hands if you put it in your hands slot previously).
• Improved shader for glass windows – now it lets light to go through glass.
• Improved textures for all umbrellas.
• Fixed the bug that occasionally disabled AI of your girlfriend if you used computer desk chair.
• Fixed the bug with incorrect hands animation that happened if you used smartphone while holding leek.

☆ Translations and dating dialogues

• All translations are updated according to their current status in the wiki.
• Additional dating dialogues.
• Additional translations for UI texts.

I have created a new site widget showing statistics for all translations of Shoujo City 3D from http://wiki.shoujocity.com. You can see it in the sidebar menu on the right.

• Translations above 99% are shown in green.
• Translations below 50% are shown in red.

All statistics are gathered from the Wiki in realtime, so now everybody can see how translations made by wiki editors progress. All those translations are done by fans of the game – if you want to help development of Shoujo City by translating it into one of languages you know, please send me an email.

Update (Dec 21): widget is updated to load faster and to prevent browser caching.

Update (Dec 31): Slovenian is added to the list of game languages.

Note: this update is really small and doesn’t have a lot of new content apart from Christmas decorations. All big updates are coming in Alpha 0.5 release on Steam Early Access in January 2018.

☆ Christmas Updates

• Christmas trees, wreaths, and window paper decorations in shops and in the apartment room.
• Falling snow.
• Giftboxes – you can obtain free gifts by picking boxes under Christmas trees in the school map. Gifts: winter caps (4 designs) and winter earmuffs.
• Mistletoes in shops. If your girlfriend walks under mistletoe, she will always get into kissing mood and stand there waiting for a kiss.
• Updated clothes for NPCs.

☆ Other additions and improvements

• New option in the in-game smartphone showing controls.
• New green mini-skirt and blue tennis shoes in the Fashion Store.
• Redesign of the “Credits” screen in the title menu.
• New food: yakisoba (available in Neko Cafe or by cooking), yakitori (in the Taiyaki Shop). Takoyaki is now classified as snack and available in the Taiyaki Shop.
• If you win a toy in one of UFO catchers, your girlfriend will now say some comment about it (if she is nearby).
• During “next day” transition camera now shows actual apartment building instead of a screenshot.
• More interior details in the Neko Cafe.
• Language selection menu now opens instantly (in the past there was 1-2 second delay) by implementing more advanced loading system.
• Various small fixes for textures and item previews.
• Fixed a camera transition issue in the title menu.
• Fixed a camera positioning issue that happened if you were arrested while sitting.
• Fixed an issue with NPC bone animations during kissing mini-game.

☆ Translations

Thanks to contributors, Polish, Serbian and Dutch languages are added to the game.

All translations are done by volunteers, and since the game develops and grows every day, it needs an active community of contributors to keep all translations at 100% complete status. If you want to help translating the game into one of languages you know, please send me an email (check “contact/about” page for email address).

Preview of the Shinto shrine map (work in progress). This new location will be finished and included as one of new features in Steam Early Access release in January 2018.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/764230/Shoujo_City/

1. Main building for ceremonies (haiden);
2. Entrance gates (torii);
3. Water purification pavilion (temizuya);
4. Ema plaques;
5. Auxiliary shrines (massha);
6. Pavilion;
7. Office and shop for selling Shinto amulets and souvenirs;
8. Sacred rock (iwakura);
9. Auxiliary buildings for personnel;
10. Wooden lanterns.

All buildings and designs are accurate recreations of real Shinto shrine architecture. The map is not final and likely will change in the future (by adding more details and gameplay mechanics).

Shoujo City 3D is coming to Steam Early Access in January 2018!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/764230/Shoujo_City/

My original plan was to keep development and distribution of Shoujo City 3D as a free project. Well, by now it’s clear this plan didn’t really work out. After a whole year of work and numerous alpha releases, the game was played by over 20,000 people. Out of those 20,000+ people only two persons actually decided to support it, donating $20 to Shoujo City Patreon (out of $500 goal). That’s all people who liked the idea of free distribution of the game, and that’s the only money I ever got. While I kept hoping for a long time that things might improve in the future, there is no point to wait any longer and it’s about time to make some decisions, if I want to continue development of the game. And I do want. That’s why:

• Current alpha 0.4 will always be available for download as a free demo, but will not be updated with any major features or new locations (it still will be updated with all translations from the wiki on a regular basis).
• All future development of game features is moving to Steam Early Access, with the first release (Alpha 0.5) planned for the beginning of January 2018.

Everybody who wants to keep following development of Shoujo City 3D, please follow it (or add to your wishlist) on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/764230/Shoujo_City/

A new video by Bijuu Mike.

Check this new video by PaderGamez (German language) about the new dakimakura dating feature.

Shoujo City 3D is distributed for free, so we can’t afford to hire any paid translators. All translations depend on volunteers. Thus far the following languages have been added to the game:

• Japanese
• Vietnamese
• Thai
• Indonesian
• Chinese
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• German
• Czech
• Russian

There also are some translations in the wiki for the following languages (which aren’t added to the game as yet due to small amount of translated texts):

• Polish
• Dutch
• French
• Turkish

As of November 15, only two languages have 100% complete status: Indonesian and Vietnamese (with Russian being actively translated right now, so it will be 100% complete soon, too). For all other languages, we don’t have any active translators, so their completeness status is decreasing due to new texts beings added to the game every day, but without anybody translating these new additions.

If you know any of the above listed languages and want to help translating the game, please send an email to laika16 [at] yandex.ru (replace [at] with @)

All people helping with translations will be credited in the game.

Alpha 0.4 update comes with a new unique feature that I have been planning since long ago!

☆ Dakimakura dating

This feature was inspired by the famous Japanese gamer and artist known online under nickname Nii-san (兄さん) and his dakimakura girlfriend Nemu-tan (a hugging pillow with Nemu Asakura from Da Capo series). For many years he used to run (and still does) a blog posting photos and stories about him traveling and visiting cafes, amusement parks, shrines, and many other places, taking his Nemu-tan dakimakura with him everywhere.

You can check Nii-san’s blog here (Japanese language): http://love-nemu.seesaa.net

Now, after starting a new game, you can choose to get a real anime girl, or a dakimakura girlfriend.

Advantages of dakimakura girlfriend:

• she doesn’t require food, so you don’t have to feed her every day (you still can have a dinner with her in your apartment or in cafe and get bonus relationship points);
• she won’t follow you everywhere you go – you can leave her on a bench or just on the ground while you go shopping, and pick later;

Disadvantages of dakimakura girlfriend:

• you’ll have to carry her in hands to transport, since she can’t walk on her own;
• due to being a pillow she won’t show any emotions or kiss you back.

Thus far there is only one pillow case with an anime girl, but I hope to add more later (these require a lot of time to draw). As far as I know, this is the first time dakimakuras are used in a video game as a gameplay element, so it is a completely unique and original feature.

EDIT (Nov 19): it came to my attention after publishing this update that there are at least a few other video games out there with dakimakuras appearing in them, so my statement from above about “first time… used in a video game” is incorrect.

☆ Neko Cafe (WIP)

The cafe is open and now you can visit it with your girlfriend. This is an alternative to cooking food in your apartment. Some interior details in the cafe are still missing and will be added in future updates.

☆ New clothes & accessories

• Thigh-highs (4 colors);
• Daisy hairpins (can be bought in the fashion store, alongside with headphones (3 colors) and android girl ears);
• White cat ears and white cat tail for cosplay (in the gachapon machine near convenience store);
• Red mini-skirt (can be bought in the fashion store, alongside with shorts);

☆ Miscellaneous additions and improvements

• All Halloween decorations from previous update are removed.
• New NPC promoting Shoujo City on Patreon;
• Better collisions for squirrels;
• Optimization of shadows in all scenes (increased FPS);
• New (much better) water with refraction effect in the pool;
• Improved animation for short hair;
• New animation for standing up from crouching pose (during hide and seek mini-game);

☆ Fixed bugs

• Minor clipping issues for hands during kissing scene;
• Issue that was preventing girlfriend from eating served food if she was holding some object;
• A minor error with displaying “Arrested!” message for translated languages.

☆ Translations

All translations are updated according to their current status in the game wiki.

As of today I have spent over a year developing Shoujo City 3D, releasing the first alpha build previews to everybody for free. Continuous development of the game and implementation of all planned features and content requires years of daily full time work. Which means only one thing: either I find a way for this project to earn money so I can work on it full-time, or it begins to die. If it doesn’t get any money, then I can work on it only a few odd hours a week as a hobby – and then it forever will stay in the current small demo stage without any major locations and features ever implemented.

If you like how this project develops thus far and want to see it growing to its full potential in the future, please consider donating to this game through Patreon.

If you want to know what exactly you will be paying for, please check the development roadmap for planned game features and content below.

Development Roadmap

2018

• Shinto Complex location – third game location. Will contain new dating spots, food and souvenir stalls, as well as several area-specific activities, like drawing omikuji, getting Shinto miko clothes, and feeding carps in a pond. Also it will be a central spot for Hatsumode (celebrating New Year) dating event.
• Ocean Beach – fourth game location. In the beach area you will be able to buy swimsuits and swimming accessories, swim in the ocean, collect seashells, eat special summer snacks in the sea cafe.
• Tanabata Event – planned for July 2018. The event will include special clothes, fireworks, firefly catching event.
• Girlfriend’s personality – current implementation of “girlfriend” in the game lacks any distinct personality, which is to be fully designed and developed as yet. Personalities will be implemented through a set of various parameters ranging on a scale from 0% to 100% (e.g., calm-energetic), which will allow all girls to react differently on various events and interactions.
• New interactions with girlfriend (including holding hands).

2019 and beyond

• Akihabara area – this will be the largest game locaiton with accurate recreation of the central part of Akihabara, containing game and cosplay shops, arcades.
• Zoo location – for visiting with your girlfriend, taking photos of animals, dating, and participating in several area-specific events.
• Park location (including playground activities).
• School clubs and activities, including cosplay club, sports club, musical club, literature club. By joining various clubs, you and your girlfriend can participate in various events and activities, which will be unique for every club.
• NPCs with different behaviors to populate all game locations.
• Cosplay outfits.
• Story Mode – will contain specific relationship goals to achieve and game events different for every day.

This list is by no means complete, and contains only outlines of the main goals. If you want to see all of that being implemented in the game, and a lot more, please support Shoujo City on Patreon.

Update (January 8, 2018): the Patreon campaign wasn’t successful and was cancelled in December 2017. The development roadmap in this post, which was an integral part of the Patreon campaign, is outdated and no longer relevant.

To continue development and get funds for implementing planned features, in January 2018 the game was released on Steam Early Access.