#camera anima

A date with Death ads here

let's start with those visual novels we've already saw. also sorry for putting two ads in one pic, but tumblr only lets me post 30 images per post

The Divine Speaker

The Sun and the Moon

Dreambound

Heyo~

Last update, we talked about progress being slowed for personal reasons. The last few months, we've been focusing on getting back into the rhythm of things to close out the year strong.

Sprites

Almost all sprites for story scenes are in the game! This involves getting all character sprites in-game - human, automaton, and flashback characters - and  presenting them correctly. This includes getting their expressions right, positioning them correctly, syncing them to audio and visual effects where appropriate, and more.

While side-sprites need to be implemented, they're far less complex and mostly focus on Essie.

CGs

All CGs have been inked and lined out, including our stretch goal ones! Colouring continues, but all CGs have been added to the game and play when intended.

Backgrounds

All but one background are fully coloured!

The last one is a special one. It's a mix between a background and a CG, and it's used during a climactic part of the game. While we can't spoil what it is, the ending is our most CG-heavy section, and the background is a bridge that works between the gameplay and narrative.

We'll be breaking for a few weeks to enjoy the holidays, and then continuing to work finaling. Fortunately, we're hitting the point in the project where most of our big ticket items are wrapping up, allowing us to turn our attention elsewhere. This includes:

Continuing to colour assets and test the build

Balancing QTEs

Working on the codices and the gallery

And reviewing Steam/itch.io processes.

Thanks for reading, and have a happy rest of the year!

Follow us on...

Heyo~ We're in this week's SteamNextFest showing off our horror point-and-click visual novel!

Play as a smart-mouthed girl and save your twin from a soul-stealing serial killer

Remember what happened 5 years ago

Beware the Artisan

Play the demo and don't forget to wishlist!

We'll also be streaming Glitchkraft's playthrough throughout SteamNextFest on our page so check it out for their impressons!

Heyo~

First update of 2025! Lots of parts are moving, lots of assets getting getting pushed to completion.

Editing:

Big update on the editing front: we've finished editing Act 2 and Act 3! 

Some levels will need minor changes to match (add a QTE; add or remove a cursor) but the core narrative experience is nailed down. Next up, all the edited text needs to be added to the build, played through, and reviewed. Once we've gone over the feedback and made any necessary changes, we can start prepping the text for lockdown so we can start copyediting (which is both amazing and makes the content feel concrete!)

There's still some writing left to do, mostly with the codex entries. However, they won't require the same level of work or focus.

Art:

Speaking of Act 3, background and CG work now into Act 3! All act 3's backgrounds have been inked, and we're now in the process of colouring them. Meanwhile, our CGs are now focused on depicting the big, climatic moments of the finale.

This year, we'll be focusing on getting levels towards "finished", which involves a lot of assembly work. It also puts things like release dates closer in the mirror.

We have a rough timeline for the remaining work, and we'll be keeping an eye on it to decide when we're ready to commit to release.

Heyo~

It's autumn and the spooky season again.

First off, we wanted to address how our current progress is looking against our previous goal of releasing in 2024.

Unfortunately, while we really wanted to hit 2024, it's become clear to us we can't physically can't hit that while maintaining quality. We're very sorry to push the game back again, but will keep you updated on our release plans.

A bright spot, though, is we're increasingly confident in saying we can see a finish line and we do feel confident that we can finish the game. A lot of our focus lately has been on polish and finishing assets rather than huge structural changes or additions, and we have some really pretty things to share in the next update or two. The biggest challenges, though, have come from balancing the progress we want to make versus our time and capacity.

Editing:

We finished editing Act 1 and have imported it into the game! The next steps include looking at the text in-game to see how well it plays, if there are any pacing or cohesion issues, and if we need to make tweaks to match its timing with sprites/CGs/gameplay/etc. Ideally, changes are minor so we can hand it off for a final edit pass.

Meanwhile, we're continuing right into Act 2 edits. Fortunately, we already did a pass on most of Act 2's story scenes and have imported them into the build, meaning edits to those scenes will more likely be very targeted. However, we still need to go over the exploration scenes and do rewrites to reflect gameplay changes that happened while building out the levels.

Art Things:

Progress on art assets continues at a steady pace. RL obligations slowed things down a bit since the last update, but we're happy to say we've finished art for all items and that they've been added to the game! The next step will be to finish puzzle art and zoom-in images (i.e.: newspaper clippings; pages; formula sheets; et.). 

We're also working on the final area of Act 2 that needs background art, and we're continuing CGs. Here's a tiny peak from one of our recent WIPs:

Heyo~

Happy Holidays, from Santa Cleaner and us!

We're winding down for the year to take some deserved rest before we hit the project again in the new year. A lot of our focus these last few months has been on "How many assets can we get ready before the end of the year?" And while we didn't get everything we wanted, we got a lot of what we wanted. In narrative, in art, in audio, and more, to the point it made it difficult to decide which highlights to share  this update. 

UI:

One of the biggest updates we've done to the game is updating our UI with the help of Sasquatchii's Designs! While there were things we really liked about our previous UI, we wanted a more overall cohesive experience. As such, we decided to give the whole UI an overhaul, and the results are gorgeous! 

There's still work being done, but we've been in love with the progress so far.

Editing:

We've also completed most of Act 2's editing! Act 2 is the largest act in the game, with some of the stickier puzzles, but it's also been more fun t work with. In addition to editing our exploration content, we've been able to drill down on the granular levels. Some lines we edited to better match our polished assets, some were to support gameplay changes, and others were in response to questions like, "Does the information feel repetitive?", "How does the flow feel between levels?", or "Can we give this moment more narrative oomph?"

Act 2 also introduces one of our favorite characters, and working on their interactions with Essie has been one of the highlights of editing.

Art:

Art-wise, we're continuing to plug away at zoom-in images! We've gone through Act 1 to update all our flyers, papers, and cryptic images, and are currently working on Act 2's in tandem with editing. A lot of zoom-in images are used for puzzles, so there's been a lot of back-and-forth to make sure they give you the information you need while also interesting to look at.

Audio:

Excitingly, we now have sound effects for all three acts of our game! Putting in SFX is a huge part of assembling and polishing, and it's one of the moments where levels start feeling "finished". We'll start implementing them in earnest in the new year, but here are a few sounds you can expect:

There's one particular sound effect that was a standout for us, intended at a key narrative moment. We can't share it because of spoilers, but we think it'll hit players just as hard as it hit us the first time we heard it.

Heyo~ Less than 48 hours until Steam Next Fest! We're participating with Camera Anima.

You can check out our demo on Steam now! Check it out and wishlist us if you like:

Heyo~

Happy summer!

The last few months have been rougher development-wise, both due to offline issues and the grind to push assets from rough->polished. However, we're continuing to chip away at CA to get it to a finished state.

Editing:

We're currently in the middle of Act 1 editing, working on the level that's required the most rewrites so far. This has largely been a consequence of it being one of the very first levels ever created for CA.

When this level was originally created, it was more 1:1 adaption of the short story version and meant to be a portfolio piece. However, since it now has to work within the overall game, we've gone through it to improve the writing quality, shift its focus to areas of the game that matter more, and edit Essie/Giselle's characters to more closely match who they've developed into over the project.

Backgrounds, CGs, Items oh my:

Lots of progress on art front! We're limited on how many backgrounds we can show at the moment due to spoilers, but we're a few areas away from finishing Act 2's backgrounds.

CGs are likewise hitting spoiler content. While we're excited to see certain moments illustrated, it's hard not being able to share them yet. For now, here's a tiny peak at one of our recent ones:

As for items, we're in the process of swapping out our placeholders for real art! More than half the items are arted, and older items are getting some additional polish to bring them in-line with newer work.