Apr 05

Weekly Update #556: Plans For April

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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A new month has just begun and so, it’s once again time to give you an update on our plans for the coming weeks. Of course, they will mostly revolve around our new project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair. Now that the script is fully written out, and someone other than me has read the whole thing, we can finally shift focus more towards actual game development again!

But let’s take a more detailed look at the various areas that comprise making a VN like this, and check what kinds of tasks are lying still ahead of us! Beginning with the writing, given that Natsu and I were finally able to discuss the script together, now that she’s read it!

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Mar 29

Weekly Update #555: Saku Page Update

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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Today’s blog post is gonna be a short one, as I’m currently very busy, so let’s get right into it! As the title already gave away, I’ve updated the page for our next project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair, adding a character section to it.

As of right now, not too much is going on there, with only Raiko‘s icon available. If you click on it, you can check out her character introduction card which I’ve revealed in last week’s blog post. But of course, more cards will become available over the coming weeks and months, as we’ll slowly introduce the rest of the cast!

Now, if you’re a patron, there’s also something new to check out for you. Namely the finished base sprites for Nobara and Taiko (along with Raiko‘s), which you can find right here! Since there hasn’t been that much Patreon content lately, I’ve decided to make this post available to all paid tiers.

Well then, that about wraps it up for today. Gotta get back to work!
As for you, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care :3

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Mar 22

Weekly Update #554: The Aloof Sleuth

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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There she is! Our grumpy little detective as she will appear in our new project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair!

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Mar 15

Weekly Update #553: GUI Progress

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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A little while ago, I gave you a first WIP-look at the textbox design in our new project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair.
And today, I can share with you the updated and final version of it, so… here you go!

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Mar 13

Spring Sale 2025

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Announcement

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Today, the annual Spring Sale begins, lasting for exactly one week until March 20, 10:00 AM PST! In other words, you get yet another chance to grab both our murder mysteries (and their complete soundtracks) at a discount and enjoy the beginnings of spring with lovely moments of murder and beautiful bouts of despair, as you mull over myriads of mysteries!

If that sounds like your kinda jam, then head over to Steam or itch right away and fill up your digital cart! GENBA no Kizuna and its OST are available for 20% off and SHINRAI – Broken Beyond Despair and its OST for 50%!

There’s also a soundtrack bundle available for both games, allowing you to save an additional 10%!

And if you’re unsure whether either of our VNs is for you, why not check out some player impressions? You can read people’s thoughts on SHINRAI here and on GENBA here!

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Mar 08

Farewell, Xolf

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Announcement

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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.

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Mar 01

Weekly Update #552: Plans For March

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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Once again, I’m shocked to realize how quickly time flies by. Not only are we into the third month of 2025 already, but it’s also been half a year now since the release of GENBA no Kizuna! Originally, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect a bit more on it, especially since we’ve received a little wave of feedback again recently.

However, I’ve decided to hold off on that for a little longer, partially for reasons that will become clear in a couple of days and partially because, today, I’d just like to focus on SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair again. Last night, I’ve made some pretty significant progress on it, after all! Namely… writing the final lines of script before the credits roll!

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Feb 22

Weekly Update #551: Script, Sprite & GUI Progress

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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This past week has been a rather productive one in regards to our next VN project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair!
As mentioned last time, I’m still primarily focused on the script and have finally wrapped up the longest and most complex scene of the project now (the one I’ve teased to have a bit of a mystery element to it). With that taken care of, there are actually only two more convo scenes left before the story concludes. That said, though, I also still have some stuff to go back to in the earlier part of the story, which I couldn’t quite finish until getting a better idea of how the later stuff is going to play out.

Nevertheless, we’re getting closer now to the point where the writing tasks can move a bit into the background, while the focus can shift to other things, such as art assets and GUI design. Two areas I’ve also did a bit of work on this week!

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Feb 15

Weekly Update #550: Another New Character!

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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Say hello to Misaki, another new addition to the SHINRAI cast! You may remember hearing her name in Broken Beyond Despair a few times. Originally, she was supposed to make her debut in Withering Without Hope, but you will now get a slightly sooner introduction to her in our little in-between project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair!

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Feb 08

Weekly Update #549: Chara Intro Card Preview

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Dev Blog, Weekly Update

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Although I still haven’t fully recovered yet, this past week certainly was a lot more productive again than the previous one!

As you might remember, last week, I talked about picking a new resolution for our next visual novel project SHINRAI Saku – Blooming Beyond Despair and we’ve now settled on dimensions of 1920×1080, so quite a bit larger than GENBA no Kizuna‘s 1280×720!

Based on these new dimensions, I’ve already started working on some assets, including the character introduction cards.
You may have already seen me post a little preview on social media, but of course, I wanna share it here as well, so…

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