The Hayseed Knight cover
The Hayseed Knight screenshot
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Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Simulator, Adventure, Indie, Visual Novel

The Hayseed Knight

The Hayseed Knight: FULLY available in Spanish and French!!
[p]Hey everyone! [/p][p][/p][p]How have you been these last few months? My life's been going through a whole bunch of changes ever since I came back to Spain from Japan. Chief among them are that I've accidentally become a film producer; I'm attending evening classes to learn how to install solar panels; and of course… Sire Red and I worked tirelessly over these past 6 months to finish the French and Spanish translations respectively!
[/p][p]I would truly say that The Hayseed Knight is over at last for the time being… unless something catches fire or there's a bad enough typo that I need to come back and update it. That's why I wanted to take a moment to truly look back on it.[/p][p][/p][p]I wrote the first few versions of what would become The Hayseed Knight in Spanish, and only switched to English because I was so excited to show my online friends back in 2016 what I was writing. After that, I wrote exclusively in English, and had to figure out how to translate back into my own language. [/p][p][/p][p]Benjamin aka Sire Red came to offer his help right as I released the very first demo ever for chapter 1, halfway through 2017. He'd been following along since I started posting on twitter, he liked the game, and he wanted to be involved, volunteering to translate the game into French.[/p][p][/p][p]Neither of us knew how crazy the story was going to get. Long story short, it's been 9 years, we're both much busier people, and this feels like saying bye to a life project even if I already supposedly fully released the game back in 2024! 
[/p][p]I'm afraid that one part of the game will remain unfinished by necessity, however: the Japanese translation will sadly remain a translation of chapters 1 and 2 as a proof of concept. I don't have the money required to continue it with a new translator and editor (somewhere about 160k words remain, and the price tag would not be any lower than 10-14k EUR at the cheapest). [/p][p][/p][p]My friend Shion Kanda, who started volunteering to translate into Japanese sometime in 2019, now works as a professional translator — I look back and I can't stop thinking "wow… we were all just in our early 20s back then. We've all grown so much". When Shion first started translating, I could barely read a word in kanji. I'm now fluent in Japanese, and with that fluency comes the doubtless knowledge that I could not make justice to my game if I attempted to translate a word, haha.
[/p][p]Maybe one day we'll get to see the Japanese translation finished! But for now, I can only simply thank everyone who's supported the game along the way and apologize to anyone who was hoping to see the game in their own language. As always, if you ever find this post and think "translating this story is something I would love deeply" you can reach me here or on Bluesky.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Games have been my job for almost a whole decade now, all thanks to starting this visual novel when I first hurt my wrist after an intense career in comics. I've had great joy, I've been burned a lot, and I've had to contend with the reality that despite being enough for me since I made everything mostly on my own, at just 4500 sales worldwide currently over 6 years on steam, THK was a commercial failure. It doesn't make a difference to me in the end because it's something I made to prove to myself that I could make it, but my life isn't as simple as it once was when I had a stable job and less health issues, and money matters more than I'd like it to. 
[/p][p]I've tried and I've tried to go back to making games, but every time it feels like I'm forcing myself to do something that just feels draining. Rather than hurt myself making for the sake of making, I've decided to move on and work on other things until the need to make games comes back. While I spent a very long time thinking up a sequel and writing for it, I can't currently imagine the day where I'll go back to working on it… but I know in my heart where all of these characters are going, and perhaps one day I'll know exactly what I want to say again through them.
[/p][p]I do have other projects in store once that day comes, both set in the universe of THK and completely new! And I've also been posting lots of art and stories on Patreon if you want to keep enjoying the characters a little more. I hope you'll look forward to my next projects as much as I do. [/p][p]
[/p][p]Thank you always for your support. I've been Maxi, you've been wonderful.[/p]

Chapter 4: AVAILABLE IN SPANISH AND FRENCH AT LAST!
[p]Hey everyone![/p][p][/p][p]How have you been these last couple of months? I've finally moved back to Spain and I'm doing my best to get used to small town life after a year in Tokyo! With any luck, I'll be out on another adventure soon enough.[/p][p][/p][p]If I've not managed to break anything, this update won't be very significant to English players (I've mostly just updated credits, fixed a little thing at the end and changed some links)... but thanks to Bedeschi Mathieu doing the first pass in French, Alex García Cutillas doing the first pass in Spanish, SireRed editing and rewriting in French, and everyone's support on The Hayseed Knight's patreon, the translations for chapter 4 have been completed in Spanish and French!!! That only leaves chapter 5 left to be translated in both languages, but we're almost there!![/p][p][/p][p]I'm afraid, however, that the future for the Japanese translation beyond the demo version is still completely up in the air. Right now, I can't possibly justify the cost of a full professional translation (no JP players -> no sense investing +10k USD for the translation -> no JP players, the usual diallelus), and even on a volunteer level, there probably just isn't anyone who'd want to see the game translated with that kind of skill.[/p][p][/p][p]I'm learning Mandarin, and I kinda wish I'd accepted volunteer offers all the way back when to have the game translated into Chinese. Maybe it'd be just another worry, maybe it'd be another bit to be happy about... but I kinda wanted to know how Ader would be localized, haha.[/p][p][/p][p]I think that's about everything for now! I'll keep you up with the development of the Ader plushie (I FORGOT TO ANNOUNCE THE CAMPAIGN WAS A SUCCESS!!) once I start getting samples. Thank you always for your support! I hope you have a wonderful weekend and a wonderful November![/p]

OFFICIAL ADER PLUSHIE CAMPAIGN LIVE!!!
[p]The title says it all![/p][p][/p][p]You've been asking for it for years, and it finally has a chance to become real: the official Ader Plushie campaign is now live on Gimme Swag!! I designed the plushie myself back in 2023 and I've been waiting for a chance to get the design out there! AND HERE IT IS NOW!![/p][p][/p][p]Here's how this works: for the plushie to go into production, we need 100 pledges in 10 days (Sept 2nd - Sept 12th). If you pledge to the campaign, you'll be initially charged $2. You will only pay the full price of $34.99 if the campaign becomes successful, otherwise you'll be refunded![/p][p][/p][p]If the campaign is successful, we could do new campaigns for other characters and maybe other types of merchandise as well![/p][p][/p][p]Please, help me make the Ader plushie a reality and get your own lovely shovelhands to hug!![/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/39204820/1c1ec767a8dcc8bfdcb9e27f85d2232d73481b4c.jpg"][/p][p][/p]

Last 3 days of Summer Sales! + General Updates
[p]Hey everyone![/p][p][/p][p]How have all of you been doing? It's been half a year since the last update! [/p][p][/p][p]First off, I wanted to let you know that we're on the last 3 days of the steam Summer Sale! It's one of the best chances to get The Hayseed Knight in the year, provided I remember to set the discount (I did, I super did, it's 30% off). Tell your friends, tell your foes. Tell literally anyone because THK finally got to 4,000 sales two days ago after 4 years and a half since chapter 3 was first published on Steam. [/p][p][/p][p]I'm not going to lie, that is a tiny number in comparison with what games reach is and the 7 years of development that making The Hayseed Knight on my own took. But, it is still 4,000 people out there deciding to go and choose the game I started making one morning when my wrist gave up on me after 5 years working in comics and I had to give up what I thought would be the job of my life. It's bittersweet, but I am always eternally grateful for your support. Especially so because I've been without a stable job for a long, long time.[/p][p][/p][p]That's why I've spent the last two months focusing efforts on my patreon account to sustain myself in the mean time, and as a result, I've made tons of art after years fearing putting pen to paper!! You can get access to lots of cool exclusive fanservice illustrations, development stories and streams supporting me on patreon MaxiMJdev.[/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/39204820/58388f7e588a3e2a7e40e37fbb2c83f4bce5943e.jpg"][TAG-30][/p][p](Real interesting stuff in there)[/p][p][/p][p]I continue looking for ways to finish the translations before I can fully delve into developing a sequel. So far, even publishers who would have been interested in making a console port really don't see a reason to spend any money on translations for a visual novel like this, especially given that it's already released on steam. While I understand it (I broke down the HUGE cost it'd suppose in this post at the beginning of the year) to me that is the most important part — Console sales wouldn't make much sense or amount to anything otherwise.[/p][p] [/p][p]That means that at the moment, I'm limited to continuing to work with volunteers or people who would be open to accepting payment way below industry standards. I'm sorry to ask such a thing, but if you're a French, Spanish or Japanese native / fully fluent speaker with some experience writing or translating, and you would like to be involved in helping finish The Hayseed Knight's translations knowing these, please contact me on bluesky or send an email thehayseedknight (at) gmail (dot) com [/p][p][/p][p]My time in Japan is soon coming to an end, with October being the final date to return to Spain if I can't get a job. I'll be in Bitsummit next week, not showing but just running around trying to make contacts as usual. I'll let you know if anything comes out of that![/p][p][/p][p]That's all for now, I think! Thank you all for reading me as always. I hope you have a wonderful week and a wonderful month ahead of you![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

2025: Localization Plans vs Problems
Hey everyone!

Happy New Year, first of all! How have you been these last few months?

I moved to Japan back in October, and I've been having a lovely time over here in the big city (when my good ol' brain has been letting me do so). I've been touching up on python again lately, improving my Japanese fluency by talking to every person over 50 in the neighborhood, and squishing my brains dry trying to conceptualize the plot for the sequel.

It's getting there, but also, I realize that after 11 years in the industry I'm burned out on making games like you wouldn't believe. I'm still unemployed, and every day I feel like creative work is something foreign that I managed in a different life—my brain isn't braining quite as well as I'd like it to. I'll get there, I'm sure. The concept for the sequel is already awesome, and I just need to hammer it into place.


Since the last update back in July my husband Alex and I have been working tirelessly on the Spanish translation for chapter 4. It should hopefully be ready in the next couple of months! Which leads me to the first problem we'll be facing in 2025:

So far, the French and Japanese localizations were carried out by two close friends: Benjamin Beziat (French) and Shion Otsuka (Japanese). They offered to provide these translations voluntarily all the way back in the first chapter and chapter 3 respectively, and that was all good and well— except that The Hayseed Knight got really freaking long over 7 years of development and they both have lives that take priority over this project. Their situation has changed, and so I'm without a translation team at this moment.

I'm writing to let you know that the French translation is currently indefinitely on hold, and the Japanese translation will take a long time to resume.

I've worked as a translator for many projects, and I love localizations with all my heart —the fact that Ader's story can be read in different languages, that more people can laugh at the translators' choices and marvel at the way Ader's accent was localized— however, the truth is that even if I were to add all the sales for both the French and Japanese markets since the game was first released on steam I'd have a grand total of 125 sales.

THK hasn't even hit a total of 4,000 sales globally yet and that's a tiny figure in comparison all the same (3,3% as of now), but I'm Spanish and I know how it feels to be part of a market that only focuses on English releases. I truly wanted to offer The Hayseed Knight in as many languages as possible, so that we didn't have to play in someone else's language.

Localizations, beyond my friends' good will, are a cost that I cannot afford for a story as wordy as this (220k words total). With about 100k words remaining for French (chapters 4 and 5) and 160k words remaining for Japanese (chapters 3, 4 and 5). Assuming a rate of 0.07 per word in French and 10 yen per character in Japanese, completing the localizations would cost over 25,000 EUR. That's a cost I can't justify to fully translate the game right now.

The only way I see forward for localizations, short of finding a team that would be willing to assist the original translators, would be a publisher picking up the game for some form of re-release. There is definitely a TON of space for optimizations by people who know what they're doing better than me, and for release in consoles as well... but that's a pie in the sky sort of talk, as the industry is kind of in shambles right now.


No matter how and how long it takes, I promise I'll find a way to continue the translations.

I want to give one more thank you to Benjamin for being one of the first people ever to support The Hayseed Knight and for his determination to get the French translation out there (check out his channel SireRed so that I can keep on teasing him for being a youtubeur fameux); to Shion for being my friend and working in her spare time always to get the Japanese translation sorted out whenever I needed something for a new update, and to my husband Alex for always being willing to help out with the Spanish translation.

Thank you as well, for your patience and trust in me and my passion project. I hope 2025 brings you nothing but happiness.




1.8.1 aka FULL STEAM DECK, CONTROLLER AND KEYBOARD COMPATIBILITY!
Hey everyone!

How have you been this last month? After a fairly nice start, summer is getting hot as hell in Spain. Instead of resting as one ought to, I've been working hard on this update, and I hope it'll be one that helps a lot of people get to experience the story comfortably!

Introducing 1.8.1 aka FULL STEAM DECK, CONTROLLER AND KEYBOARD COMPATIBILITY!

I had to ditch the original plan of upgrading to Ren'py 8 as my game depends on a whole lot of stuff that is specific to the version 7.5.3 and doesn't play nice with python 3, so I rolled up my sleeves and started scouring the internet for fixes that could make this version steam deck and generally controller compatible! (Thanks to Ashley of Gods of the Twilight for helping me out and testing, and to Kam aka Elbar's voice actor for testing as well!)

I've added a lot of custom functionality to buttons so that you can navigate comfortably, play through every minigame, and get from start to finish of the story without needing to use a mouse! In fact I kinda enjoy navigating with a controller much better now, woops.

I also added a handful of new encyclopaedia entries, improved encyclopaedia and diary navigation (made the entries a little prettier too), fixed a few visual bugs and generally just made stuff nicer all around.


I believe this should be the last important update for a while until the localizations for each chapter are ready. After that, my plans include:

  • adding a descriptive mode accessibility function for visually impaired people
  • implementing a function to hover over a word to see a small encyclopaedia preview (which I managed to fully implement but sadly had to remove as it didn't play nice with localizations)
  • continuing to work on the next THK project sshhhhh


As a last personal note, I'm currently unemployed and could use some help gathering funds for the next project if you enjoyed the game. I have a Patreon page if you'd like to leave a tip, and if you have any leads on writing gigs (English, Spanish), voice direction (English, Spanish, Japanese) or generally overseeing a project, I'd really appreciate if you could tell me about it.

I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for taking the time to read!

1.8.0.2, fixes, and the future of The Hayseed Knight!
Hey everyone!

How have you been these last few months? Me, I've been enjoying my new-found freedom after 7 years obsessing over my project. I quit a 5-year-long job that had caused me massive burnout, and I've been trying to just learn how to exist again. I spent some time in USA with friends, I've been practicing different painting styles, I've been streaming a lot of fun games on twitch, and I've taken up singing lessons again.

The Hayseed Knight was born in therapy, in a space between jobs and finding a new life, and it's in this moment between calm and uncertainty that I find the most fertile breeding grounds for creativity. I'm not the kind of person who does well under pressure to tell you the truth, so I hope I can keep this peace moving forward.


On to the meat of the announcement!

1.8.0.2 was a rather small update to fix typos and a couple silly mistakes here and there, add hints to clarify how to get all the endings... and also to update all my socials to MaxiMJdev. Sandra took me here, and I'm very grateful, but I'm ready to start moving forward as Maxi Molina everywhere.

I'm planning a 1.8.1 update once I can figure out how to (or more likely find someone to help me) update a few custom functions I use so that they work with Ren'py 8 as it uses Python 3. That would also supposedly make it work with steam deck! I don't own one so I can't check, alas.


And lastly, but not least importantly: I've started working on the next THK-related project. I don't want to pressure myself for now, so I'm keeping it vague! I will let you know more about it when the time comes.


I love the world of Dakhná and the characters I created, and there are a lot of things I want to do with them in years to come. Look forward to all of them!

I hope you have a wonderful and queer June,

Maxi

The Hayseed Knight, FULL GAME OUT!

IT'S OUT! THE FULL VERSION OF THE HAYSEED KNIGHT IS FINALLY OUT!



Welcome to The Hayseed Knight v1.8, or what would have been v1.0 if I had known anything about versioning when I started!! Heck, given that there's essentially nothing left unchanged since the start, this may as well be v2.0. Short of anything failing catastrophically and needing patches, this should be the last big update.

The main game is finally finished, and I don't even know what to say. I've been frozen solid for the last couple of weeks, just trying to process the fact that 7 years of work were finally coming to an end. What started in late 2016 as a picaresque novel in Spanish I wrote for myself during my first time in therapy to try to untangle the Gordian knot of painful memories I always carried with me, has somehow turned into... this. All of this. 7 years and a half of this.

I'm terrified. I'm hyped as hell. I'm going to eat something nice to celebrate.


On to the meat of the announcement, though! While the saves should be compatible with any save past 1.6, my suggestion would be that everyone start a new game because HOO BOY, THIS UPDATE BRINGS A TON OF NEW STUFF!


  • Chapter 5 (all new 7 hours of gameplay on average!), with 3 main endings and a few non canon detours!

  • All new high quality animated intro so we can both cry thinking of a The Hayseed Knight cartoon!

  • 100% rewritten Sep and Ader meeting in chapter 1, so I no longer have to cringe playing through it!

  • Lots and lots of remade art. And I mean LOTS:


    1. Whole overhaul for Ilegrab; touched up Berbiz, Djao, Elbar, Eina, Sep and Ader!
    2. Better rendered, more varied backgrounds full of life and random people walking around where relevant!
    3. New and improved illustrations through every chapter!
    4. Better particle effects!

  • A new Gallery and Music Room that unlock automatically as you find new illustrations and songs! I didn't know I'd made about a hundred illustrations for THK, but apparently I have!

  • More wonderful voices yet for the cast, including a recast for Bammet!

  • New songs? I think?? I don't even remember anymore if they made it to the previous version!

  • I'm sure there's more stuff I've forgotten! Oh no!


While the English version of the game has been finished, work continues on the Spanish, French and Japanese localizations. The French and Japanese translations have been labors of love from my good friends Benjamin Beziat and Shion Otsuka, and we work relentlessly to bring you the finished product in other languages as well.

The current available languages were languages I spoke to some degree, so I was able to help my friends overseeing the translations, but there are so many languages I would love to translate THK to! In the future, I'd especially love to be able to find the funds or a publisher to get a Chinese translation, and a pipe dream of mine would be Japanese and Spanish dubs, haha.

I think that should be all. I'll leave you with a link to the intro animation, as a treat.



To all the people who have been along for the ride since the beginning, thank you. To the people who just arrived, thank you. To you, for reading this, thank you as well.

I really hope you will love Ader's story as much as I loved making it.

I've been Maxi. You've been wonderful.

Dev Stream Announcement + Small price increase for full release!
Now that The Storyteller's festival has started, it's time to make a couple more announcements yet!

First off:



To celebrate the announcement of the full release date (29th February, don't forget!), I'll be holding a Steam live broadcast playing through the as-of-yet unreleased full game demo! including lots of cool new visuals, voice acting, and the all-new rewritten meeting scene in chapter 1.

I'll be answering questions and hanging out with the chat, so come join us on the THK discord, and click on the event to get a reminder!

The schedule for the broadcast is:

PST - 9 AM, Friday 2nd of February
CDT - 11 AM, Friday 2nd of February
GMT - 5 PM, Friday 2nd of February
AEDT - 4 AM, Saturday 3rd of February (sorry :<)


Secondly:



The Hayseed Knight is 20% off for the duration of the festival! This will mark the last chance to get The Hayseed Knight discounted at the current price of 14'99.

After 7 years of development, and 3 and a half years on steam in a low-key early access state, the full game is finally going to hit the metaphorical shelves. By the time chapter 5 is out, there'll be more than DOUBLE the amount of gameplay as when chapter 3 was released!

The Hayseed Knight was the first game I ever worked on, and it has grown massively in scope over these years. I want to make sure I can continue to support a future where it keeps reaching new heights, be it potential console releases, side stories, sequels, merchandise, or even new additions to the game itself.

That's why I've decided that the full release will be priced at 19'99 USD, effective on the 29th of February.

This change won't affect the current owners! As promised, everyone who bought the game in its development state gets a better price, and free updates for every chapter.


Thank you all so much for your time! I hope to see you in the livestream!

CHAPTER 5 ahead! FULL GAME release date!
Hey everyone!

How have you been these last few months? I've been working a lot (and I mean a LOT) to bring you the full version of THK. In fact, as I write this my 9 year old cintiq 13HD has just died and I'm waiting to get a new tablet because I wanted to update a lot of backgrounds to bring them up to speed with my latest ones.

Just my usual luck, but I really think you'll love them.

Sep thinks so too.

...I think.


So! On to the matter at hand! The Hayseed Knight Chapter 5 and therefore the full game will release on

FEBRUARY 29TH, 2024



If you're thinking "Maxi, did you see it was a skip year and made a silly choice" yes, 100%, you are correct.

Chapter 5 is almost done (only animations and SFX remain at this point), but the last half of it is a very involved minigame and I need the buffer time to do a lot of QA, and pretend that I'm mailing press about the release.

I hope you'll love it as much as I've loved making it. Thank you all for sticking with me these 7 years.

Have a lovely week, and a lovely rest of January!
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