my various projects and thoughts
Earlier this year on February 6th, 2025, visual novel players got the 1st episode in the 5 part detective cybernoir visual novel, of the Devil. In just under a month, the game received over 500 glowing reviews, praising the game’s mystery, pacing, cinematography, characters, and more—despite only episode 1 being out. Now, episode 2 has been slated for release on December 18th, 2025.
Today, I’ll be sitting down with part of the team at Nth Circle about their process for developing of the Devil!
As is tradition every Halloween, I get kidnapped and stuck in a windowless room with only a computer already loaded up with indie Halloween & horror-themed visual novels and forced to play said games before I can escape. It’s a daunting task, not because my life is on the line, but because, well, that’s a lot of visual novels! And so much time and heart went into them, but now I have to be judge, jury, and executioner??
The annual Spooktober Visual Novel Jam has wrapped, along with our judging period for the entries. This year we implemented a new system, a judge pass, which not only allows us to fund some of the event with the small fee for games wanting to be judged, but also significantly cuts down on the workload for us judges. In prior years, the number of entries we had to read kept going up almost exponentially and was ultimately unsustainable at the level we were operating with, as each judge had to read 80+ visual novels within 3-4 weeks (one year, it was closer to 110). Suffice to say, the judge pass has worked well at allowing us to keep the event judged with prizes as well as keep the event afloat.
But, today I don’t want to talk about the logistics of the event—I want to recap it, including some looks at my favorite entries and some trends I’ve noticed.
If you want to see my advice from previous years, you can read my wrap-up posts from 2023 and 2024.
Continue reading “I played 40+ more visual novels for Halloween”
Visual novels, sound novels, and adventure games have been around for a handful of decades now, with their presence in America & other Western countries being around 3 decades long. A lot has changed in the gaming and doujin industries respectively in that time frame—nowadays, anyone can make visual novels on their own and small groups can even make a living from them.
But what does it look like to actually release a commercial visual novel in the mid 2020s? Today I’m going to compare the releases for two visual novels I worked on, A Tithe in Blood and Asphodelium.
Continue reading “What does a modern visual novel release look like?”
Visual novel development is a joy – you get to create your own stories and bring them to life in a medium that relishes in the marriage of stories with visuals. For some people, making visual novels and releasing them for free as a hobby is enough. For others, they make visual novels as a side job or a fulltime job.
While both groups are making visual novels, there are some very important differences between making commercial visual novels and making free visual novels as a hobby. If you know how to make visual novels and want to take this hobby as a side gig, then this is for you.
I’m a hobby dev turned commercial dev, so today we’re looking at things to consider if you want to move from free visual novel development to commercial development!
Continue reading “Free VS Commercial Visual Novel Development”
December comes and rolls by again like clockwork. It’s the capstone month, the month for tidying up loose ends and getting ready for a fresh start in January. You wrap up what you’re working on and release your game to the world – you did release your game this year, right? Right?
As I procrastinate finishing Canvas Menagerie—which releases in 4 days as I write this—I wanted to talk about the incredible miracle of actually finishing and shipping indie games.
Taking the first step to start a new game is a tough one. Do you start with concept art? Outlining? Character bios? Mood boards? There’s really no bad way to start making a game other than not starting. However you want to go about it- as long as you make that first jump – is up to you.
They say the last 10%—well, really the last 5%—of development is the hardest, and it definitely feels true when you’re in the thick of it. Play testing, bug fixing, small edits you pushed off to later—it all adds up.
What’s worse is that you start running off of fumes rather than fixation and can lose steam—and love for the project—the longer it drags on. How can we avoid burning yourself out before the project is released?
Continue reading “How to Finish your Indie Visual Novel”
A little over a year ago, Steam players were tasked with a simple order—slay the princess. They took up the call to action in droves, diving into the depths of one of the most branching and intertwined visual novels to release in years and pushing it to well over 12,000 reviews. Now, a year later, Slay the Princess has received a massive expansion called The Pristine Cut, bringing it well past 16,000 positive reviews on Steam.
Today I’ll be talking to Tony Howard-Arias and Abby Howard, the developer duo at Black Tabby Games about their work on Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow!
