July 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).

We spent a lot of last month out of the country travelling, but managed to get a good chunk of work done in between. We're back in the office now and working on lots of exciting updates, though!

A Date with Death

A Date with Death ZERO

The ninth chapter of A Date with Death ZERO, our prequel webcomic about Casper, will release early on Patreon next week, and the eighth chapter will release on Webtoon and Tapas!

Here's a look at a little teaser:

And a look at the design sheet for Elias:

New Character Accessories

All of the character accessories are now complete! We'll soon be adding a host of new outfits and accessories to the expansion DLC.

Makeship News!

A few exciting updates today - in just over a day, we'll have a brand new Casper plush available for purchase over on Makeship!

This is in our new "standing plush" style, to match 5012! We'll likely be doing a matching Rowan at some point, too, if we can :D

You can check out the page here!

Also, after so many great campaigns, our future plushies will all be coming in custom bags!

They turned out so cute! Please look forward to getting one with your Casper <3

Voice Acting

Great news on the voice acting front - Jonah Scott, who voices Casper in English, has wrapped up recording for all of the base game AND Beyond the Bet (yes, that includes the NSFW scenes)!

Our amazing audio editor C.L is working on going through and cutting up all the hour long files into individual lines and editing the audio. We'll likely have some rerecordings to do, but this is a huge milestone for the voice acting, which is incredibly laborious in all aspects.

Japanese recording will not be able to begin until we've finished all editing passes (more on that below) and the English files are delivered to them. We'd hoped to release both at the same time, but it's more likely it'll be English first and Japanese later.

Japanese Translation
Last week, we went through yet another editing pass of the entire game and Beyond the Bet. This is, unfortunately, all manual work in Ren'Py - we have to switch out every changed translation by hand. We're hoping there won't be too many more editing passes..... but, it's all worth it in the end for a better localization!

BitSummit Appearance

We're so happy to announce that A Date with Death was selected to take part in BitSummit in Kyoto! We've been wanting to participate for years, so the chance to be a part of it now is a huge honor. You can come visit the booth this month for a chance to try out the Japanese version of A Date with Death ahead of release!

However... for us, personally, we were actually in Kyoto last month! Since we've been doing so much travel lately, we decided to have our localizers handle our table for us. We're sad not to be able to be there in person, but I hope those that DO go have a great time trying it out, anyway <3

Check out the event here!

The Willowmist Emporium of Antiques and Curiosities

Art

In the art zone, we've wrapped up Emmett, Florian and Lucille's first CGs, and we've moved onto Eden! Here's a little preview for Lucille's first event:

For our new opening animation, we're also nearing completion! Here's a little lineart preview:

Oh no, they're all hot...

Programming

I'm nearly out of UI programming hell, yay!

This month, we wrapped up the gallery, collection, inventory, and nearly finished up with the relationship tracker.

After this, there's a few less important screens to complete. However, these are NOT in the demo, so we'll be coming back to those later.:

1. Auction

2. Stat tree

After we finish with the relationship tracker, the only real UI left to program will be the relationship rank up screen, which we're still awaiting the assets for. This means that this month, we'll move on to programming the actual story! Finally.

Along the way of programming screens, I've also been working on a lot of the backend systems that the game functions on, which is why it's taking so long. The event system that goes alongside the schedule, all the formula that go into what items you can find or purchase to later sell, etc etc. The main one we still have to work on is the experience points - we finalized a lot of our ideas on it, so I'll begin implementing it soon.

But enough talking, lets look at some screenshots:

This isn't complete yet, but a lot of the building blocks are there!

The gallery! You'll be able to view all of your unlocked CGs and BGs here from the main menu.

The inventory and collection menus! The inventory is all the items you currently have and allows you to check the price you paid, as well as change the price you're selling it for.

The collections menu is more of an overall look at everything you've found in that one playthrough. You'll be able to fill it out over the course of the game!

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Oh, wow! I didn't expect to see a human out here.

Welcome to the outer rim of the liminal zone--you're dead!

Ahhhh, I wish I had some confetti or something...

>I'm... dead?

That's right! Congratulations!

Announcing A Date with Death 2: REMNANTS, a sequel to A Date with Death we're currently working on.

From here on out, we'll be showing updates, sketches, and behind the scenes goodies for this project here on Patreon, too, but that comes with some caveats.

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.

In the coming months, you'll see more about the story, your new player character, and the other characters in the game. Until then, I hope you enjoy this look at our new logo and main menu screen!

Astralis Publishing Title - The Inn Between

Art

Art is still continuing, with much of the route artworks already complete for TIB! Here's a few little cheeky previews:

You can find even more over on Cats on a Lilypad's Patreon!

Writing

A bit of a surprise - like we said above, we took a trip to Japan last month, and C.L (the creator of TIB) joined us! I cracked the whip and made her write (IM JOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!) - no, but C.L did get many thousands of words written for Emrys' route while I lazed around because of the heat. Her work ethic...!!!!

Support the Game

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

Focus for the next month

• Willowmist - Finish screen programming, edit demo, begin programming demo

• A Date with Death 2: REMNANTS - Begin UI programming, start programming first in game day