twoandahalfstudios

2024 Yearly Review & Wrap Up!

Added 2025-01-01 07:13:04 +0000 UTC

Happy New Year, everyone!

It's the first of January here, and the perfect time to look back at what we achieved in 2024 and what 2025 is going to look like for Two and a Half Studios. Plus, we'll have a little recap of all the fun we had in December.

Before anything else, we'd first like to thank you for being here and supporting us. Patreon makes a lot of what we do possible. Without all of you, we'd never be able to make games. So, thank you!

2024 was another busy year for us, but a very concentrated one, too. We spent a lot of time on fewer games than usual, which was very refreshing. We love taking on multiple projects, but being just a two person team, it's also nice to focus on one thing at a time.

This year, we released one major game, and another major DLC. We also started working on our next big project, which we're excited to share more about in 2025.

So, let's start this wrap up with a look at our 2024:

The Past

A Date with Death - Beyond the Bet

2024 was the 'Year of Grimmy', that's for sure. I remember writing the 2023 wrap up, just after we released the original free game.

What a year its been since then! We ran a wildly successful Kickstarter, produced an amazing line of merch with Makeship, and released our final DLC. We couldn't be happier with what we achieved with A Date with Death - it will always be a project so near and dear to our hearts.

Many people have asked us about the possibility of more DLCs, but at this time we're very happy to leave A Date with Death where it is now. When we initially released the free game, we were left with a feeling of not being ready to say goodbye yet. We knew we had more to say. Now, we feel like when it comes to Casper, we've said everything we originally ever wanted.

Though it's sad, it's not really a goodbye. Casper will always be there to return to, and there's a million ways the story can go after the credits roll. The limit is only your imagination! Plus, we'll be releasing A Date with Death ZERO all throughout 2025. Make sure to check out our prequel webcomic if you haven't yet had the chance!

We still have some free content updates coming up, too. This will include voice acting, our Japanese localization, and some additional character creation goodies.

Plus, expect our Grimmy to still dominate in every single art poll we run here, so look forward to seeing more of him going forward!

Dreambound

Dreambound was our major project throughout 2023, and was released in April of 2024!

We loved working on this story, and exploring a slightly less 'happy' narrative.

When we originally were working on the outline for this game, it was supposed to be ~80,000 words long. As I always do, I wrote too much, and it ended up a little over 200,000 instead. If you like tragic boys with depressing backstories who don't handle their problems very well, you might enjoy Dreambound!

It feels like such a long time ago we began working on Dreambound - it was back in early 2020, which might as well be a lifetime ago. So much has changed since then, but we're happy to finally see it released to the world.

The Future

2025 is off to a big start... I say, but actually we'll be spending the majority of January shipping out Kickstarter merch orders. We're excited to get that finished up, though, and get back to some more creative work.

Our Next Game

We have begun work on our next large project (I say, wanting to focus on smaller projects going forward). This is a free post, so I won't go into too many details, but our Patrons have started to get a look at this new project!

It's quite different to all of our previously released projects, though I think if you like A Date with Death, it will likely be up your alley. It's a narrative shop-running, character-smoochin' simulator with a dual-protagonist system - two different main character designs, which you'll be able to choose from, rename if you like, and choose the pronouns for. While we love character creators and set protagonists, we're excited to try something new (and a little bit in the middle)!

We plan to announce this in early 2025, so please keep your eyes peeled on our social media.

The Divine Speaker

We're not ready to give up the TDS universe yet! We currently have two stories we're working on, though it's put on hold while we decide if we'd like to combine them or keep them separate. More on this later in 2025!

A Date with Death...?

As we said above, apart from the previously announced patches, we consider A Date with Death to be complete.

Saying that, we've heard some of your loud outcries for content for 5012. We wouldn't ever make this a DLC for A Date with Death - we want to keep that as a romance story between the player and Casper - but we are considering a few different ideas for him going forward. Yes, that could be a game just for him.

Right now, we're just exploring our options and considering possibilities of how to make it more of what you loved from A Date with Death but with a brand new spin on things.

It might happen, it might not, but we'll be thinking on it now and perhaps announcing something a little further into 2025, if we decide to go forward with it!

Astralis

For those that don't know, we have a small publishing wing of Two and a Half Studios for games we think align with our studio and the message we like to send with our projects. We were so excited to begin working with three different amazing devs in 2024, and two of the projects will be releasing in 2025!

Cage of Roses

Cage of Roses is a GL/yuri kinetic novel following Meike, a young woman from an impoverished noble family, as she’s swept off her feet by the mysterious Magdalena: a vampire who possesses a dark secret. It is developed by the fantastic ebi-hime, who has a host of wonderful games in her backlog you can check out.

If you like atmospheric and moody writing, beautiful art, gorgeous women and some vampire smoochin', then I think Cage of Roses will be perfect for you.

The current projected release date for Cage of Roses is in February (subject to change), so it's coming up really soon!

If it sounds like your kind of game, please consider wishlisting it on Steam here.

The Inn Between

The Inn Between is a SFW (with optional NSFW patch) BL visual novel following Myka and his lifelong search to recover his missing memories after an accident as a child left him in the care of his aunt with no recollection of who he was, or what happened to his family.

You have three different romance options to pick from, and a story full of mystery, magic, wonderful characters, and beautiful art.

The Inn Between, developed by Cats on a Lilypad Studios, is currently expected to release in 2025, so now is a great time to wishlist it on Steam!

The Last Rose

The Last Rose is an apocalypse adventure visual novel about Kuri Rose, friend to some, sister to another, weapon to everyone else. After her untimely death, she finds herself stuck in the middle of an apocalypse led by her ex-boyfriend's brother.

While one route has a romance option, this is less a 'dating' game and more of a look at a group of friends/family trying to survive after the end of the world.

It is being developed by the lovely RJ Fern, who has many years of writing under her belt. We're so excited to show you what she's been cooking!

The demo of The Last Rose will release in early 2025, so please consider wishlisting the game to get notified when it goes live!

2024 was a hell of a year, and I hope we can make 2025 one as well! Thank you all again for being here with us. I know it's easy to say, but we really couldn't do it without you.

Now, lets have a quick recap of our December 2024 Patreon posts.

» A Date with Death - Plushie Rerun & Pin Set

We have exciting news - Makeship brought back the original Grimmy plushie, and also released a brand new pin set at the same time!

Both are only available for ~9 more hours before being gone for good, so grab 'em while you can.

Pin Set

Plushie Rerun