January 2025 Monthly Update

Hello lovely patrons!

Welcome to our newest monthly update where we update you on all things Two and a Half Studios. As always, these will come out every month on the 6th (AEST).

Putting '2025' on these won't look right for a while yet. Nevertheless, happy new year! I hope you managed to get a break over the holidays to sit back, relax, and play some indie games (okay and actually enjoy the holidays, too).

We took between Christmas and New Year 'off' (does work ever actually stop?), and are now back at it. We have a big few months ahead of us with a buttload of cool stuff coming up. However, that buttload of cool stuff begins with us finishing shipping off for our Beyond the Bet Kickstarter. We have roughly ~600 packages left to go, so we're well on track to finish by the end of the month.

For now, lets jump into our monthly update!

A Date with Death

Though Beyond the Bet marks the (mostly) completion of A Date with Death, we still have a few quick updates!

A Date with Death ZERO

The third chapter of A Date with Death ZERO was completed last month! It will be released here on Patreon on the 11th (AEST) alongside the second chapters public release. Here's a little preview:

The man who has been affectionately dubbed the 'hairclip reaper'.

Makeship Collab

We've had an influx of messages and emails asking about a few things...

1. Hoodie rereun?????

2. 5012 Plushie?????

While we cannot rerun the original hoodie, we have in fact designed a brand new one with our wonderful friend Endy, which will be debuting next month!

We'll have some proper posts about it later, closer to the release.

As for the 5012 plushie... we're currently in talks about it! We were about ready to wrap up our Makeship line, but how could we do that without completing the collection?

We'll let you know if it goes through!

Actually, 5012 Merch?

Okay yes I've seen all these comments too - we're planning to have some keychains for him available when our store reopens with Kickstarter leftovers. We're hoping to do this some time next month!

The Willowmist Emporium of Antiques and Curiosities

The Willowmist Emporium of Antiques and Curiosities is our unannounced, upcoming shop/narrative sim about running your aunt's antique store for three months and meeting the strange inhabitants of the small and isolated Willowmist.

WEAC is set in the same universe as A Date with Death - perhaps you'll even find some hints about the characters that will appear in Willowmist from Beyond the Bet!

Art

We've now completed all of our major character sprites! This includes 5 love interests (why oh why) and two different versions of our protagonist, Sage (renameable).

Here's a small preview! We'll be posting the sketches for both of them later this month.

With the sprites complete, we've now moved on to the key artwork, which will feature 7 characters. We expect this to take some time, but we're still hoping to be able to reveal this game next month in time for The Storyteller's Festival (more on this below).

Programming

We're slowly working on getting characters and UI in engine at the moment. This means getting the sprites layeredimages set up, adding in blinking, and working on positioning. Since we're using NVL mode for this game (a text box on the side of the screen), it means being a bit more creative with characters when we have a lot on the screen.

Two characters works pretty well, but once we start getting into 4+ we'll be using a bit of camera work.

We're also playing with some 'highlighting' for when characters speak. Because the text is all the way on the right and the characters on the left, it helps a little to instantly see who is saying what. We're still working on it, though :)

Writing

We now have a mostly complete outline, ready to begin writing! The way this game will work is similar in style to games like Persona (3/4/5) - there will be a main story that plays along each day, but there will also be side character stories and romance routes you can play through at the same time. You'll be able to play through each character's story without necessarily romancing them, too, though obviously we plan to have a lot of romance content for the character you choose to romance.

We're now beginning to plan side character stories - these are customers who will visit your store who you can get to know, and maybe help them with some of their problems. After all, what's an antique store for but helping people(?).

Though this month is dedicated to shipping merch, we will begin writing the demo in earnest next month. We're looking forward to showing it off!

Astralis Publishing Title - The Inn Between

Writing

Two of the three routes are nearing completion after being lengthened slightly. The solo dev C.L is juggling between writing, then programming said writing, but she's making great progress!

Art

Art is such a huge cornerstone of The Inn Between - so how about some previews?

New Beta

A new beta for The Inn Between will be releasing in the next week, and will include chapter 2 and 3 of Emrys' route! If you've been wanting to flirt a little with the charismatic catboy, now is your chance. You can check it out, when it releases, on the devs Patreon!

Support the Game

You can support the The Inn Between by wishlisting on Steam, following the team on Patreon, or following them on Twitter!

Astralis Publishing Title - Cage of Roses

Cage of Roses is planned to be released in time for The Storyteller's Festival, our Steam celebration of all things narrative games next month!

We've sent the finished build off to Steam to review, so fingers crossed we get through this stage quickly.

Support the Game

You can support Cage of Roses by wishlisting the game on Steam and following the developer on Twitter!

Astralis Publishing Title - The Last Rose

 Art

December brought with it an official artwork to celebrate Christmas! It features the main character, Kuri Rose, and her handsome love interest, Elliot Firren.

Screenshots

Work continues on the demo, and...

Demo Release

We're hoping to have the demo for The Last Rose available for The Storyteller's Festival next month! You'll get your first look into this apocalypse visual novel written by the fantastic RJ Fern.

Support the Game

You can support The Last Rose by wishlisting the game on Steam and following the developer on Twitter!

Misc Announcements

The Storyteller's Festival

We've been working with the very talented breloomings on our key art for The Storyteller's Festival!

Each year, we lean into a different avenue of storytelling. In our first, we saw a witch who could make stories come to life. In our second, we saw a God of storytelling, sitting lonely in the middle of the universe.

This year, we have...

Puppetry! A lonely girl who longs for one she lost, whose only solace is the stories she tells with a puppet.

Here's a little bit of our process:

The Storyteller's Festival 2025 will be running from Feb 18-25, and will feature a host of amazing narrative games on Steam! We'll have announcements, giveaways, streams, releases, and lots more <3

Website Refresh

Alongside our store reopening with leftovers, we plan to give our website a bit of a refresh!

We'll be working on this slowly over time! Lots of little things to fix still.

Focus for the next month

• Kickstarter merch shipping

• The Last Rose - Demo programming

• WEAC - Character implementation, UI creation, key art creation, and setting up the Steam page

• Website refresh

And about 1000 other small little jobs, haha.

Thanks once again for reading, and I'll see you next month!