Love & Fool's Gold

About this game

Latest news

• Announcements·19 Aug 2026Official

  Love & Fool's Gold - Dev Log #3

  Welcome to our third Love & Fool’s Gold devlog! Things have been busy as ever over the past few weeks as we gear up for our Chapter 2 closed playtest at the end of this month. We’re also hoping to release a public, remastered/freshened-up version of Ch1 to go with it, to replace our existing demo. So, as you can imagine, there’s been a lot of processes running in conjunction whilst we try to hit this deadline. One such area which has required a lot of careful planning and coordination is voiceover, which is what I’m going to be focusing on in today’s devlog, as it’s one of the big milestones we’ve hit since our last update. By its nature, there are a TON of dependencies when it comes to getting voiceover in, especially for such a tight turnaround (yay, indie game dev). You can, of course, proceed with casting your voice actors before the scripts have been finalised, but once you’ve sent the scripts out for recording, that’s a hard content lock - no more chances to make last-minute edits to the in-game dialogue. So, when you send those scripts out, you better make sure you’re happy with it! One of my favourite parts of working on Love & Fool’s Gold is all the character design work. We have a pretty extensive ‘Character Bible’ which has a breakdown of ALL the characters in the story - even the minor background characters whose names might not even appear in-game. (E.g. above: meet Amanda and Mary.) For reference, currently, the Character Bible contains the biographies of 33 characters, and this is only set to expand by a few as we finish up the final two chapters of the game. Because I love to nerd out on this stuff, I’m going to share a complete list of what is contained in the character biography for each of the Holy Trinity: name, image, nickname, age, birthday, height, romance strategy, likes, dislikes, fears, skills, MBTI, first appearance, personality, flaws, motivations, goals, character progression, physical description, clothing, background, references/inspir...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Games with DNA)

• Announcements·6 Jul 2026Official

  Love & Fool's Gold - Dev Log #2

  Howdy and welcome to our second Love & Fool’s Gold devlog! This time, I want to start by addressing how the current demo (i.e. Chapter 1 of the game) fits in with our plans for the rest of the game. A ‘demo’ can mean a number of things in different contexts, but in our case, it’s as much a ‘demo’ as it is an early stage prototype, or a proof-of-concept. So yes, there will be things changing in the game, and many of these changes have been (and will continue to be) informed by your generous feedback and suggestions! I will talk more about these specific areas in future devlogs, but the main areas you should expect to see changes are in UX/UI, music, technical features, and general polish to audio/VO/narrative (and some subtle fine-tuning of art here and there). There are going to be some minor rewrites to parts of the first chapter (particularly to boost the sense of player agency) as we’re still in the process of finishing up the final scripts, and we want the narrative to be as tight as possible. I love a good diagram, so I think now’s a good time to show a very rudimentary flowchart to illustrate how the game’s narrative is structured, as has been featured in some of our early videos on social media: \There will also be a few additional ‘Bad endings’ not represented on this diagram where the MC (or… perhaps some other characters…) can die prematurely, but I’m not going to tell you where those are. The idea of structuring the game with this kind of branching is because there IS a set of events that take place throughout the game - so, in a way, it follows quite a linear OVERALL narrative - but the MC’s choices do determine where the story (and its characters) end up. That’s why you won’t see a ton of significant branching occurring within Ch1 (the demo) - the main branching occurs when you make the decision of which character you want to partner up with. And, as each of the Holy Trinity is involved in the core plot in a different way, the story unfolds to expose a ...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Games with DNA)

• Announcements·5 Jun 2026Official

  Love & Fool's Gold - Dev Log #1

  Hey everyone, and welcome to our first official Love & Fool's Gold devlog! I figured I'd start off our devlogs by properly introducing the game, including a breakdown of its genres and narrative structure. In future devlogs, I’ll be sharing more about the actual stuff the team has been working on since the last update, as well as breaking down our branching structure, and talking about specific components of the game’s design. So, without further ado… what IS Love & Fool's Gold? Love & Fool’s Gold is a Wild West romance/mystery narrative game with an Eldritchian horror twist. We deliberately try not to describe it as a “cowboy dating sim” - which is understandably a much catchier alternative - because I’ve personally never really felt like it was an accurate description of the game. For starters, it’s not really about dating cowboys at all. Technically, of the three romanceable leads (a.k.a. “Partners” (get it)), Tom is the only ‘cowboy’ - Santana is a bounty hunter, and Edgar is an outlaw. But my main issue with the phrase is that ‘dating sim’ doesn’t really capture the essence of the game. Back in March of 2024, when we first began work on the game, the intention was very much to create a ‘cowboy dating sim’. Why? One of the reasons is simply because we hadn’t seen anyone else try to do it - but the main reason comes down to what they say about making games: “Make the game you want to play”. Hell yeah, I wanna play a cowboy dating sim, so hell yeah, I’m gonna make one. At the beginning, it was just Lilli (Art Director, and a close personal friend of mine) and myself working on the game. We threw around some ideas for the first couple of months before settling on three particular characters, which we have officially/unofficially coined “The Holy Trinity” (or, alternatively, “The Good, The Bad, and The Sexy”): Tom, the Cowboy: moustached, older, rugged, a lil chubby, and very much Lilli’s typical flavour of fictional character; Edgar, the Outlaw: dark, cold, mysteri...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (PTG Platinum)

• Announcements·28 May 2026Official

  Love & Fool's Gold – Official FAQ

  Welcome to the Love & Fool’s Gold FAQ! Whether you’re curious about the story, gameplay, or future plans, this guide gathers the most common questions from our community and answers them in one place. Think of it as your quick reference while exploring the mysteries of Cortez Creek.What is Love & Fool's Gold about?Love & Fool’s Gold is a Wild West romance/mystery visual novel, with an Eldritchian horror twist. You play as a nomadic bounty hunter, arriving in the town of Cortez Creek to chase a bounty, only to quickly discover that not everything is as it seems. To get to the bottom of this mystery and claim your gold, you must forge an alliance with one of three intriguing characters: Tom, the Cowboy; Edgar, the Mysterious Outlaw; or Santana, the infamous Bounty Hunter. Each of the three partners is battling their own personal demons. Depending on your choices, you have the ability to aid their healing, or deepen their suffering.What are the game’s genres?Western, Romance, mystery, horror, narrative (in a visual novel format). Is Love & Fool’s Gold a dating sim?Technically, no. It’s a story-driven narrative game with romance and mystery (and horror) – the story and its main characters are the core part of the game, not the ‘dating’ element. The narrative unfolds differently depending on which character you choose to partner up with. What is the core gameplay experience of Love & Fool's Gold?The core gameplay experience centres around narrative-driven decision making (dialogue and actions) and investigation. By interacting with characters and making decisions, you progress along a linear (but branching) narrative with multiple endings. There is also a 'Relationship Point' mechanic with your chosen partner which influences which of their endings you achieve.Which engine powers Love & Fool's Gold?Unity (although the demo was originally built in Ren’Py).Is Love & Fool's Gold safe for streamers to play? (Any music copyright or any other type of concerns?)Yes, all the mus...
  Read full article on Community Announcements (PTG Platinum)