Salutations!
We are Cotton Candy Cyanide, a fledgling game development studio from Queensland, Australia. Cotton Candy Cyanide (or CCCN- for short) consists of two PhD students from Griffith University: Nyx and MoltenCherry.
We both have a strong interest in video games in general, and visual novels in particular. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Virtue's Last Reward, and the Persona series are amongst our favourite English VNs. While these games have some extra elements of puzzle solving or dungeon crawling, at their heart they are compelling stories where your choices matter. As game developers and consumers, this is exactly what we want to see more of.
Our mission is to create visual novels and dating simulators, that not only have interesting stories outside of the romanceable options, but also treat the players with more respect and autonomy than we have otherwise seen before. As some will know, most Visual Novels designate your sex and gender, as well as your sexuality. Most VNs are aimed at a male audience and as a result the protagonist is a male teen who has a harem of cute, busty women to choose from. What we want to do is give the player a little more choice.
We understand that almost half of gamers are female and that they have as much right to play as themselves as the male gamers do. MoltenCherry and I are both girls, we've both been playing games from a young age. Sometimes a pre-designated gender is necessary for the particular tale you want to tell, but Visual Novels, and especially dating simulators, that want you to make your own path should be held to a higher standard.
In the same vain, we are firm believers that dating sims shouldn't restrict the player to a heteronormative path. If you are a man and you want to date another man, lord knows, we are not going to stop you. Far from it. I'll probably ship it and start writing lemony slash fanfiction on AO3. You should be warned though, some of our characters just may not be that into you. They have personalities and minds of their own, your choices, including your gender, will change the romantic paths open to you in-game.
Prepare your hearts for the breaking.
Cotton Candy CN-