Thought I'd drop a quick update here on development progress for the next Steam DLC release. It is going to be packed with new content, and it will probably be another case of this next DLC being as large as everything that came before it. We are getting into the thick of it with alliances, war preparations, and lots of political intrigue.

I've been very hard at work on all sorts of things, including improving my animation skills so that I'm able to include those in the next DLC. It has been quite the chore to ensure that I'm keeping track of everything properly with all the various branches, but I feel like I have a very good handle on that now. Other than that work, I've been improving my workflow and fixing a lot of little issues remaining from the render engine switch. Speaking of that switch, boy is it paying dividends. Not only are animations easier, but render setup times and render times overall are greatly improved. There is no way I'd be able to include everything I plan to over the remainder of the game without those.

As far as release dates for the next DLC and beyond, I am not even going to get into promising anything. Not only do I fail miserably every time I estimate, but there are some big things that need to get done that will be a test of my skills. My focus right now is on delivering an excellent story that you enjoy finishing until the end. There is a lot of content left to produce and refine, especially with all the various branches that are in the game now. I still have a few remaining love interests to finish introducing or wrapping up their initial story, and that doesn't get into all the things I have planned for the existing ladies. There will be four chapters in the Volume 2 - Part 2 DLC release, and I'm estimating several thousand static renders and many dozens of animations for it.

I'll be posting periodically here (every few months or so) to keep you all updated so you know I didn't get hit by a bus or anything. You can follow me on Twitter for regular renders, previews, and other news. Thank you all so much for being fans, and I'll leave you with a few recent special renders.

Greetings! To say I'm humbled by the response to Volume 2 - Part 1's release on Steam is an understatement. Thank you to everyone who purchased this next installment of To Be A King, and I love all the enthusiasm for the continuation of the story. I am as eager to get it into your hands as you are to get it and play. Sadly development isn't as easy as waving your hand and having more content appear. Maybe one day?

Since the Steam DLC launch I've been focused on the content for Part 2. It is going to be bigger than Part 1, as all these branches necessitate a lot of content. Much like Part 1 was nearly bigger than Volume 1, despite having fewer chapters, the second part of Volume 2 is going to be bigger still. You may not notice it in a playthrough with a small harem, but the variety in a single scene now is incredible. My storyboard looks like some overworked detective trying to piece together clues for a notorious serial killer. Thankfully my storyboard is filled with sexiness and intrigue, not dead bodies.

With a full outline and all our main and secondary branches mapped out right up until the end of To Be A King's main story, my focus has been on doing some boring and tedious work to speed up my development process. Some of those improvements came with the render engine change I introduced in the latter half of Volume 2 - Part 1, but there are more things I've found since then. Nothing close to the scope of the render engine change (thank god), but I am taking a few extra weeks with this development cycle to get these other things done or close to it. It is not fun work, but it is necessary work. The good news is that I am already seeing the payoff in that scenes are quicker for me to setup and render out. What this means is that you'll see more variations in dialogue and renders going forward, as it is now much quicker for me to add that type of content.

Other than all that work, I have taken a short breather after the latest release to recharge a bit. In February, I had a close family member hospitalized, and we didn't think they would come home from ICU. The good news is that they did come home in April and are doing very well, all things considered. With that behind me, I've been taking a bit more time to do something I haven't had time for in months: play games other than my own. I've been enjoying Manor Lords quite a bit, and it seems about half the planet has also joined me in playing it. And I am slowly working my way through Alan Wake 2.

In the past here, I've posted development updates that I've put on other platforms. Going forward, you all will get special development updates when I've got something important to share or when it has been a bit too long since I've updated you all on progress. As far as release dates for future content, I've learned I am abysmal at predicting those. Between life getting in the way, development issues, and releases growing with even more content, I am bound to miss any sort of target. What I will be doing is getting Steam store pages up for new DLCs at least a few months ahead of time, and putting a release date on those store pages once I have enough developed to be fully confident in meeting a target.

Back to the grind for me. Have a great rest of your week, and be thinking about who you'll name as your queen in Part 2.

Volume 2 - Part 1, the next installment in our story, is now available for purchase. Four new chapters, nearly the size of Volume 1, and some big decisions. After the big ending of Volume 1, our hero faces some difficult challenges, and he discovers much more about how this kingdom really operates.

There is an accompanying official guide available also.

• Nearly 5000 new static renders
  
• 27 new achievements
  
• 23 new adult scenes
  
• 219 new special renders added to the image gallery
  
• 4 new chapters with several more hours of play time

• Adjust points system (automatically converts old saves when you load them)
  
• Points balancing adjustments
  
• SFX and music volume normalization
  
• Added button to open the Volume 2 Guide, if you have purchased it as DLC
  
• Corrected character romance display options in codex for Alessia, Tullia, and Juliana

• Optional recap between Volume 1 and Volume 2
  
• Added code to support future releases

A very large update for Volume 1 is here. You can read the details in the changelog below. Myself and my beta testing team have put a lot of hours into checking for problems, but no software is ever bug free. If you have any trouble or think you've found a bug or dreaded typo, please come over to my Discord[discord.gg] and post a message.

A few of the biggest changes are finally getting consistent unlock of achievements on Macs, a big UI overhaul to make things easier to find and read through, notification banners to let you know about key events or results from your choices, a complete reworking of the music and sound effects to be better balanced, consistent, and unique to each of our lovely ladies, and you can adjust the font size for dialogue now in settings.

Fixes

• Adjust points system (automatically converts old saves when you load them)
  
• Points balancing adjustments
  
• Various UI fixes and improvements
  
• SFX and music volume normalization
  
• Achievements now unlock properly on Mac and Steam Deck
  
• Corrected character romance display options in codex for Alessia, Tullia, and Juliana

Improvements

• Added optional introduction tutorial
  
• Added optional tutorials for areas of the codex
  
• Revamped codex with improved sections and consistency
  
• Notification system implemented for key events
  
• Alliance and diplomacy features added
  
• Adjustable dialogue font size added to settings
  
• Updated music
  
• New sound effects
  
• Sound effects customized for each character
  
• Adjusted Aelinia & Kaylan bedroom scene to be optional
  
• Adjusted Aelinia & Lydia pool scene to be optional
  
• Added loading screen
  
• Added code to support future releases
  
• Updated replay gallery

Old saves should still work fine, by the way, so no need to start over with a fresh playthrough. All these changes were made not only to fix issues and make some improvements, but also to get things ready for the next release of content. Four large chapters are coming on March 29. The store page for Volume 2 - Part 1 DLC is live, so go ahead and wishlist to be notified when it is available for purchase.

It will be a very busy March. As previously announced, I'm bringing the first four chapters of To Be A King Volume 2 to Steam as Volume 2 - Part 1. I'm pleased to announce a March 29 release date for this, as well as a walkthrough for the first part of Volume 2 launching at the same time. I need the extra time to add achievements, finish the walkthrough, and complete testing.

In the first part of Volume 2 you're going to find quite a bit of new content. In fact, while your playtime will vary based on your harem size and other choices, Volume 2 - Part 1 is close to the size of all of Volume 1:

• Nearly 5000 new static renders
  
• 23 lewd scenes
  
• Improved music, sound effects, and new lewd sound effects
  
• Revamped UI
  
• Optional tutorial
  
• Adjustable font size for dialogue

The good news? No need to replay the game from the beginning when you get Volume 2 - Part 1. Pick right up where you left off at the end of Volume 1. There will be some updates coming to Volume 1 soon, and those include the revamped UI, adjustable font size for dialogue, and the optional tutorial. That will be a free update for Volume 1 owners, and it will not require a new playthrough either. You can start fresh, if you want, but I don't think the changes will be that significant that most would want to.

The store page for Volume 2 - Part 1 DLC is live, so go ahead and wishlist to be notified when it is available for purchase.

Apart from that work, I'm continuing to finish up the script for the next chapter, as well as revising the outline for the remainder of the game's story. As the choices expand, I wanted to spend a bit more time making sure that things were balanced and all choices accounted for. Better to spend some time now before I write myself into a corner. We've got a lot left in our story, and some exciting twists coming with Volume 2 - Part 1 and in future chapters.

I'll close by saying that there are still a few improvements I am working on to make To Be A King a very smooth experience on Steam Deck. It is completely playable now, as long as you invoke the keyboard when you first start playing when you have to enter your name (you can close the keyboard after), and when you do a save. I played through it on my Steam Deck recently, and I've had some other players report their experience was a good one. I want to get the controller mapping fully implemented, and fix whatever is preventing the keyboard from automatically invoking, as it should. Don't have an ETA for those changes yet.

I'll start with an apology for the confusion I caused with my last announcement. I did not mean to mislead, but it is very clear that I should have adjusted that announcement quite a bit. I will make sure to be much more careful in the future.

Second, I really appreciate some of your suggestions for how I can reduce the wait for Volume 2 here on Steam. Here is what I plan to do in that regard:

• Finish some big code and music/sound effects updates for Volume 1, and get that pushed out within the next two weeks. These updates are not DLC, so you'll get them even if you purchased Volume 1 long ago. No new content, but a lot of quality of life improvements that I think you all will appreciate.
  
• Get Chapters 8-11 prepared for a DLC release here on Steam as a Volume 2 - Part 1 release. I'll need a bit of time to add in achievements, bug test, etc., but I do not expect that to take too long. It is mostly just artwork for the store page, achievement artwork, and some playthrough testing that is needed. You'll certainly get an announcement when that is ready for purchase here on Steam.

Look for an announcement when I release the improvements for Volume 1 (again, no additional purchase required for that), and then another announcement when Volume 2 - Part 1 is released as DLC here on Steam.

Again, thank you all for your feedback and suggestions. I'm getting to work on this stuff now. Have a great week!

- IT Roy

Chapter 11 is now available, and we are that much closer to a Volume 2 release on Steam. Only issue is that the story keeps growing a bit. I am back on a nice regular development schedule and already hard at work on Chapter 12's writing.

In celebration of Chapter 11's release, I'm running a sale of 15% off on Volume 1 here on Steam. If you haven't yet dove in, now is a great time!

Thanks to regular steady progress in development (finally!), I've set release dates for the next three releases. Chapter 11 ended up growing quite a bit, so I've split what was originally planned for Chapter 11 into two parts. What was Chapter 11 - Part 1, is now just Chapter 11. Chapter 11 - Part 2 will be Chapter 12, and what I was calling Chapter 12 is now Chapter 13. I am thinking that Chapter 13 will wrap up Volume 2, but I'll know more about that mid-year. Might need a Chapter 14 to finish out Volume 2. I've put the planned released dates for the next three chapters at the end of this post.

Progress is good on the next release. There is finally a good groove, and issues I run into are more easily dealt with now. It has been a very long road to get here, much longer than I expected or hoped for, but the render speed gains, as well as the ability to do things in renders that were never possible in Daz Studio (my old software) are making me very happy. It is going to be fun to grow more into the new software over the next few years.

The remaining chapters in Volume 2 are doing a lot of work for our story. There are some characters, like Alessia, Tamura, and Flavia, that we have not gotten to know much about. That will be remedied over the next three chapters. Also, there are several big decisions, like choosing your queen, that you will be making. For a lot of you, there are going to be many more save files over the next three chapters.

My final note is that we have a few more characters coming into our story over the next two chapters specifically. These new characters are going to present some interesting choices for you, and some may test current alliances. Just when you think we might be getting some normalcy.

I'll be back around mid-February with what should be my final development update before Chapter 11's release. Have a fantastic 2024!

2024 Planned Release Dates:

• February 23: Chapter 11
  
• June 7: Chapter 12
  
• September 27: Chapter 13

To Be A King is back this holiday season with another exciting sale! We want to celebrate this winter, and what better way to celebrate than with an attractive discount on the game for everyone on Steam! ❄️

Steam Winter Sale is on right now and that means you can get To Be A King for a sexy 30% off discount!
This offer is fit for royalty like you, but it is for a limited time only so don't waste any time!

Don't let the onset of winter limit your thirst for power and lust. Play To Be A King, and be a part of the journey that takes you through tense drama, unexpected twists and of course an assortment of scenes featuring the hottest women in the sexiest of situations.

As always, thanks for the support, and join our Discord[discord.gg] server to discuss with other fellow kings ❤️👑

ITRoy