Today’s blog post is going to be a little different. About a week ago, I received the incredibly sad news that Xolf, a fellow VN dev, mod for the Mystery Gamedev community, and a very good friend has unexpectedly passed away on February 22nd, 2025.
If you’ve been around the English VN community for a while, chances are that the name sounds familiar to you. Xolf not only supported a number of VN developers as a fan and financial backer, he eventually became actively involved in many a project as a beta-tester, proofreader and even a developer himself.
He helped out with many of ebi-hime‘s projects, for instance, and as a member of NoBread Studio, worked as a co-writer and coder on Blankspace and The Elevator Game with Catgirls. He also participated in itch.io‘s 2023 Spooktober Jam as part of the Mystery Gamedev team, contributing to the creation and success of Reaplaced, which ended up winning third place.
You might have also seen his name pop up in the credits of our very own project GENBA no Kizuna, as he supported and partially funded development through his Patreon contributions and helped us out as a proofreader and tester for the demo version.
Therefore, I’ve decided to skip our regular weekly update today and instead dedicate this post to him.
When I first heard the news, they hit me deeply. Even now, it’s so hard to believe. During the last few weeks and months, he still regularly liked and commented on our Patreon posts, wishing us the best of luck for our new project and expressing how he was looking forward to it. And I, in turn, was very much looking forward to hearing his thoughts upon its release. There are specific scenes in there that made me think: “Oh, I’m sure Xolf is gonna love this!”
But now… I’ll unfortunately never get to hear his thoughts on them…
He really was one of our greatest supporters. I still remember the first e-mail he sent me after playing through SHINRAI. It was a very, very long one, and a very funnily written one, too. It sure made me chuckle a lot. I felt downright overwhelmed and flattered by all the positive feedback and kind words. But they also made me indescribably happy, of course!
From that point onward, he and I would message back and forth, follow each other on social media and get a little closer over time.
He became a Patreon member on day one of our Patreon launching, he helped us out with the GENBA demo, continued showering us with kind messages, and even commissioned fan art for us of the SHINRAI cast every once in a while, particularly of Kamen and Raiko.
One such fan art he even framed and sent me as a birthday gift all the way back in 2017. It’s been the center piece of my desk ever since, daily reminding me of his kindness and it will definitely continue to do so.
His support didn’t just end with our VN endeavors, though. He was also there for me as a friend, listening to me, giving advice, sharing his own experiences and cheering me up during the toughest time of my life. His words really meant a lot to me and I will forever be grateful for everything he has done, both for me personally and for Gosatsu Visual Novels.
Xolf truly was an all-around amazing guy. Incredibly kind, incredibly funny and incredibly supportive. And all of it without ever asking for anything in return. On the contrary, he kept giving and always tried to help out however he could. I even remember how he once offered to let me stay at his place (should I have decided to attend a nearby Jurassic Park concert), just to save on the lodgings, haha.
I will dearly miss him and the world is certainly worse off without him. In fact, if every person was only a little more like him, it’d be a much, much better place.
Our deepest condolences go out to his family and friends and we wish them a lot of strength during this difficult time.
You can find the announcement post over his passing on the NoBread Studio Twitter here, if you also wish to share some thoughts.
Farewell, Xolf. And once again, thank you so much for everything.
