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October 2025 Monthly Update
🕑 Added 2025-10-06 04:06:48 +0000 UTCHello 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).
As we mentioned last month, both A Date with Death and Willowmist were accepted to take part in the PAX Australia Together Lounge! So, we've been working nonstop the past few months to get, specifically, Willowmist ready for the event.
We still have a little more to go (with three days until we leave for our flight!) but more on that below.
A Date with Death
Japanese Translation
Last month, we released the Japanese Steam page for ADWD1. It's been a long year of hard work implementing the translations and all the edits that came along with it, but we've finally been given the go ahead that the Japanese localization is officially complete, and it will be releasing on the 17th of October, just after we get back from PAX Australia.
Firstly, we're very excited for our Japanese fans (and, hopefully, soon to be fans!) to get their hands on the game, but we're also incredibly happy to be able to mark it off as complete for our own sakes - implementing a translation for such a choice-heavy game has been a nightmare! We'll now be able to focus more on our upcoming projects.
Voice Acting
All recorded lines have now been cut, balanced, and placed in game! At this time, our editor is going through and doing some testing to make sure everything is good to go, and Jonah is recording anything he missed and any pick-ups CL has decided on.
We don't have an exact date of release yet, but we're hoping for somewhere in November. More updates on this soon!
The Willowmist Emporium of Antiques and Curiosities
Beta
For our fans on the Solaris tier, a beta for Willowmist dropped just a few days ago! We were hoping to include the first 4-5 days of the game, but I managed to hustle and get the entire demo ready for testing.
The demo sits at around 72,000 words, though you won't necessarily see all of them on one playthrough. It took us a good few months to get this to a presentable stage, but we're super pleased with how it's shaping up. There's a lot of overlapping systems (I'm looking at you, stats, making everything so difficult...), but (so far!) everything seems to be in working order.
Art
If you've played the demo already, you would have been introduced to Kael, another character from Willowmist we'll see more throughout the game, but Anzai finished up with his sprite and has now moved onto a few misc tasks, namely:
PJs for Sage! Gotta stay cozy, afterall
A couple of extra expressions for Lucille
Blinking for Kael
Saed is also working on the supermarket background, where you have Eden's first character event. Soon, he'll no longer be in the void! On top of that, she knocked out ~15 antique item artworks in record time - peep one of them in the screenshots below :)
On top of that, we've been working with Tris (our UI artist) on a super cool new print out for events, take a look!
Programming
As we mentioned, we spent the last couple of months focusing almost entirely on Willowmist programming to get the demo complete. We're still working on a few convention specific things (auto-playing the opening, auto going back to main menu, where to cut it off, etc.), but once that's done we will be wrapping up the programming on Willowmist and going back to focus on storyboarding, character design, and writing. We have a rough three month plan of the game, but it'll be good to start nailing down ideas.
Over all, apart from the script, there's two major additions we programmed to Willowmist in the past month - bills and the experience system.
The bills are relatively straightforward - every week, they go up slightly, and you have to pay them off or receive a penalty. We'll be implementing three difficulty levels - on the first two, if you don't pay your bills the game will attempt to auto-debit them on Monday, and you'll be charged an extra fee. If you can't pay it all, it will be added to your next bill.
On the hardest difficult, if you don't pay your bills AND can't pay the auto-debit, you will get a game over. This is optional, though, and you'll be able to play it on the default or storymode instead.
The experience system was a little more to handle. As it stands, the max level is 30, so we worked on balancing the experience curve and making sure that by the end of the game, with some luck, you'll be able to max out most of your stats and pick quite a few talents from the skill tree (which is a spellbook).
We may still tweak things about both systems, but you can check them out in the demo beta.
Screenshots
Writing
Last week, we finished writing up the last of the "event" stories for the demo, including Quinn and Vivi's first character events. Anyone guessed what's going on with them, yet?
All side characters will have 5 event stories, whereas main characters will have 10 (plus will be around for the main story and have extra romance events, too!).
Once we're back from PAX, we will be focusing on outlining and writing for the rest of the year, so we'll have more writing updates then.
A Date with Death 2: REMNANTS
A Date with Death 2: REMNANTS is a sequel to A Date with Death we've been working on this year.
A quick reminder: this announcement is for patrons only. This will not be announced outside of Patreon until December. If we see news leaking about this game to the wider community before then, we will not be able to show previews here, and that would be disappointing for everyone. Please keep your excitement to our Patreon or the Patreon channels in our Discord for now.
Writing
Right now, we're planning out the remaining few days of the common route (which spans for 7 days). Your choices throughout the entire common route will lead you into 5012 or 0204's routes, which are quite different to each other but share some common themes.
For now, I want to share some of those overarching themes of the game:
The weight of a past you don't remember
Identity without memory
The difficulties of change
What does a cracked mirror reflect?
Art
Fuyuure is finishing up with a couple of artworks we'll need to be able to release the ADWD2 beta, which we hope to have ready for you all in late October or early November!
We're also working on some new side characters, here's a preview of one:
Programming & Screenshots
Day 1 of ADWD2 has undergone a first pass of editing and testing, though we'll be going through the full thing again soon to add in some additional content. Day 2 is also now programmed in game, though not tested.
The call sections of the game (introduced in day 2) have also been mostly programmed. Here's a look at it (minus the characters):
Soon we'll be back to programming the remaining screens for the game, so we'll have more to show next month!
Astralis Publishing Title - The Inn Between
Events
The Inn Between is participating in the MIGW event over on Steam! There's a bunch of super cool Australian-made games in the sale (including some of ours ;) ), so it's worth taking a look!
Writing
A little writing update as we start to round out the year (how???):
Leon Route - roughly half complete and sitting at around 50,000 words - however, this will likely be edited down.
Emrys - the route currently being focused on. Roughly four chapters complete with more on the way.
We've been taking up a lot of C.L's time with the ADWD voice acting, but that should be complete soon!
Art Previews
I like the juxtaposition of Emrys and Myka getting it on (ok maybe just kissing) and then chibi Myka straight after.
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 - The Last Rose
Demo
The demo for The Last Rose is out now over on Steam!
Support the Game
You can support The Last Rose by wishlisting the game on Steam and following the developer on Twitter!
Astralis Publishing Title - Cage of Roses
Sale
Cage of Roses is 20% off on Steam for the next ~13 hours, so now is a great chance to pick up this messy gothic romance visual novel if you haven't yet had the chance.
Misc Announcements
Steam Autumn Sale
All of our games are on discount for the Steam Autumn Sale, which ends soon!
PAX Australia
The team will be away from 9-13 of October for PAX Australia. If you go check out our games in the PAX Together Lounge, show us a picture!
Focus for the next month
Willowmist - Outlining, writing, finishing up demo build
A Date with Death 2: REMNANTS - Writing, UI programming, getting together beta of day 1
Comments
Ruis Plushie
ooo I wonder who 0204 is
Ariloon Swads
That Remnant art preview feels very tactically cropped π Looking forward to Willowmist!
