The spring this year had been a harsh one for hay fever, the brilliantly flowering gardens all about her spreading their pollen on the cool breeze. Even the proud statue of the academy's founder seemed to shimmer in the springtime sun as she passed it, the darke...
2021-03-15 18:18:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Thank you so much for your assistance, Carida. May I attempt to call you?
It was a strange night. Carida's phone buzzed with texts from Fauna that read 'a'; '<<<'; and 'I'm very sorry, but I would like some help if that's alright.'
Carida desperately needed a distraction from her mind-numbing research papers, about the inte...
2021-03-15 18:18:49 +0000 UTC View Post
My sword vibrates in my hand, faster and faster as Sabrina draws more magic into her hand. The spell she's about to cast is a powerful one, that much is obvious, so I don't have much time to think. Fortunately, I don't need to, either; I know exactly what my next move should be. I charge at her with a cry, raising my sword above my head. The strike is obvious, but that's the point.
Just as I expected, Sabrina throws out a spell. A fireball, to be precise. I swing down my sword and she s...
2021-03-13 21:26:19 +0000 UTC View Post
She goes to a nearby cafe and orders some iced tea. After finding a chair and taking a sip, she tries to concentrate on the words in a Yayue children’s book about how vinegar was made, but all she can think about is Cherry.
I’m an adult. This is embarrassing.
Mima looks at her watch. She is fiddling with her hands and her heart is beating harder than it should be. Maybe she...
2021-03-11 04:21:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Meowdy everyone, it's adi! Hope you're having a good month. Time is fake! I can't believe it's already been a year since we announced Lock and Key. Looking back, I realized I never talked about the development of the logo (which I am very proud of), so I decided to write this up to celebrate the anniversary.
The original info I got from our director was this:
Hey y'all,
February was certainly an up and down month for us. Despite the hard parts, we've made some pretty good progress.
A lot of that has been Samayuuni progress. We've been working on it a little bit as a change of pace from focusing so heavily on Please Be Happy, like the full-body art shown in last month's post. I also mentioned that we'd be doing an internal test soon using those, and I'm pleased to say that came out well.
There's a quick preview above. The GUI is a...
2021-03-01 16:56:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello our dearest patrons! It's adi again. We hope you have had a lovely week. What's more is that it was Aromantic Awareness Week!
We wanted to do a small illustration in celebration, so Theo and I worked together to create this. It's always so much fun working on pieces together!!!
I've attached wallpapers for the illustration - 1080p, 4k and a vertical format for mobile devices. Thank you for your support, as always, and I hope you have a lovely week ahead of you!
2021-02-28 20:31:12 +0000 UTC View Post
She looks out the window. The grass is pretty under the moonlight and she can just barely hear leaves rustling outside. Her pale reflection on the window overlays the school buildings.
A yawn escapes her. She notices her diary on the windowsill and picks it up. Cherry solemnly reads the entries she’s written thus far and then stares at the date for the last entry. It’s been two weeks since she last had the energy to record any event in her l...
2021-02-25 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello everyone! It's me again, adi! I hope you have all been well. New month, new technical post! I wanted to share with you the art process for how I tackle backgrounds.
I personally don't think I'm a very skilled background artist. I put all my stat points into 'anime girls smiling at 3/4 angles', so I struggle with anything else really! Even so, for Please Be Happy I wanted to do these backgrounds myself. I really wanted to try and capture the city with a wide variety of backgrounds,...
2021-02-22 22:41:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Across from her at the table is Lexa, who is also gazing into the distance.
“Carida…”
Lexa has been like this since the date happened last Friday. She’s been sketching drafts for picture books, but mostly just drawing variations of a dog character. Cherry gets the feeling this particular design is inspired by Carida, Lexa’s ...
2021-02-16 19:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostHey all,
Today marks the second anniversary of Heart of the Woods' PC release, and we've got a bunch of HOTW-related news to share today.
First up, we're finally able to announce that Ratalaika has taken over the HotW port and should be finishing it up in the next couple weeks. We had some troubles with previous porters that led to us having to start over twice, and now Ratalaika's version will be the third. They have a great track record though, and have ported a TON of Ren'Py ga...
2021-02-15 21:35:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Meowdy to our loveliest patrons! It's adi! I wanted to do an illustration of Miho in a hanbok and also something for Seollal, so here I am. A little fun Korean fact for everyone, to say 'happy new year' we say 'saehae bok mani badeuseyo' which roughly translates to 'please receive a lot luck/blessings in the new year', which I think is very pretty neat!
Attached is a 4k resolution desktop wallpaper and a 'pretty tall' phone wallpaper, so if you'd like to spend some of the new year with ...
2021-02-12 18:43:15 +0000 UTC View Post
"So, I have a month and a half to get Alessia to the coast, is that correct?" I'm sure I heard Claudette right, but I need to hear it again; it feels like a joke.
"Yes, though you might have a few hours more. Or less. The book doesn't specify the exact margin, so I recommend that you act like you have forty eight and a half days."
"I… see. The train will get us from here to Eleurini in about a week or so, so that's not a problem either way. Do you mind if Alessia spends the nigh...
2021-02-09 20:52:44 +0000 UTC View PostHello again, and welcome to February. Here's what we've been up to:
First of all, we've had a couple Lock and Key birthdays to celebrate! Today is Ruby's birthday, while Sherri's birthday was back at the start of January. Once again, we have some lovely birthday art from adi to celebrate the occasions.
2021-02-01 20:52:56 +0000 UTC
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0. Celestaria Records & Cherry's Story Announcement
All main Celeste Academy posts are made available for the public! Bonus posts are available to our patrons who support us at $5 and up.
Her dreams are always about her time in high school. She’s never been a standout student compared to the actual geniuses in her class, but her attitude toward work was exemplary and her classmates respected her maturity. That said, she’d been described by them as an odd cookie: when she tried tea for the first time, she remarked how coffee was much better in taste (resulting in some looks of surprise and wonder from th...
2021-01-30 19:01:00 +0000 UTC View Post
This is most true when students and faculty discuss the history department. Professors and students come from all over the world to explore the annals of Attunement history and lore. There, they pore their eyes over texts and scrolls from eons ago and come out of these halls accomplished and changed.
“To engage with history,” one famous alumni of the academy once said, “allows ...
2021-01-23 19:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone! It's adi again, with another PBH technical post!
You may have seen in an update a little while back, but I've been working hard on the map for Please Be Happy! It was a multi-day affair, and I underestimated the workload… drastically. But I'm more well informed now, and I thought I might share the process with you all!
The sword and coins… This can't be good. The Cataldi family's been minding their business out on the east coast since I was a kid. This town is far from where they normally operate. Very far. There's no reason for their agents to be here. Unless… I hear the innkeeper sigh, and turn my attention to her as she pokes her head out from behind the counter.
"I-I...
2021-01-10 18:33:53 +0000 UTC View PostNeed a refresher on the girls of Celeste Academy? Read our post history here. Or, if you'd like, read the dates of the girls tonight.
It goes without saying that 2020 was a hell of a year. We had a lot of cool plans fall through because of Everything Going On, but still managed to accomplish a lot. Every year when I sit down to write these posts and reflect on what we’ve done, I’m a little surprised. It ends up being more than I expected, and this year has been no exception, especially given the circumstances.
Our biggest release of the year was Highway Blossoms: Next Exit. What originally started as a sh...
2020-12-31 21:07:41 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey everyone, it's me again! I hope you've been enjoying the PBH posts! This month I actually did a soft poll in the Discord server's Patreon channel for the topic - if you're feeling sociable, join us there! I occasionally drop WIPs and share silly stories as well.
In a blink and you'll miss it moment in the trailer, you may have noticed a couple of unnamed characters!
Hey everyone, it's adi! Happy Winter Solstice to all of you. Informally, it's our queen, Geladura's birthday too, so happy birthday Geladura!
I've been pretty bad at crossposting little birthday sketches I've been doing for the main characters of our games, but let me know if you'd like to see me do so! I'm always a little worried that it's just sort of the same content as twitter and bloating up our posts on Patreon, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. We're about halfway there now - i...
2020-12-21 20:43:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Thankfully, this time she was given an address, rather than the fascinating—yet cryptic—set of directions the diviner provided for their first meeting, which Carida is extra thankful for as she walks down the row of surprisingly normal-looking house...
2020-12-17 03:23:28 +0000 UTC View PostHey everyone, and welcome to our last mid-month update of the year. Like many others, I know I'll be glad to see 2020 in the rearview. These past couple weeks haven't been the busiest for us, but like always, stuff's still happening.
The rewrites for the first chapter of Please Be Happy have finally been finished, and minute and adi's started scripting the scenes into the game. She and I have been working really closely together on the story and characters. Since PBH is a slice-of-life ...
2020-12-15 21:48:11 +0000 UTC View Post
"The apocalypse is coming, and I require your assistance to stop it."
...Wait, what? I look the girl in the eyes, looking for any sign that she might be joking—but there's nothing of the sort. She looks like she genuinely believes every word she's saying. Maybe she's not all there yet; she has been asleep for longer than I've been alive, after all. In that case, maybe I should wait a while for her to fully wake up...
"Er, hello?" The girl tilts her head, confus...
2020-12-10 22:42:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey there, everyone! I’m Rachel, writer/director for Lock and Key. We’ve had quite a year, huh? It certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since we announced Lock and Key last December, but here we are again! I still haven’t forgotten how excited you all were back then, and I can’t thank you enough for all the enthusiasm you’ve shown since that announcement. You’re seriously the best.
While Covid may have thrown our schedule for a loop, we’re still hard at work...
2020-12-07 21:04:22 +0000 UTC View PostG'day, friends.
Hard to believe this will be the last monthly update of the year. I think this has been our longest consecutive streak of actually posting these things. Much like the last update, there's not a whoooole lot to share today, cause the big stuff will be later this month.
A week from today will be the 1-year anniversary of when we first announced "Lock and Key," so we're putting together something small but special for that. The game has come a long way since then, and...
2020-12-03 02:20:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Hi everyone, it's Adi again!
I hope you've enjoyed the Aspen/Miho design posts… now it's time for our ascended side character, Juliet!
As you may know, Aspen was originally the protagonist and Miho the heroine… and Juliet was just a 'cool vampire'. She didn't even have a name for a very, very long time. At some point, the entire dev team was like 'why can't we date the hot vampire?' and here we are today. Listen. Listen. We have one braincell and we love women.
2020-11-26 01:09:39 +0000 UTC
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What's up everybody! It's adi again with more designing talk! This time we're here to chat about I Told You So! Thanks to our lovely team with feedback and ideas every step of the way!
I'm actually writing this before anyone knows about this project existing...! I'm looking forward to seeing what people think!
First thing's first - font hunting! It depends on the project ...
2020-11-19 22:26:20 +0000 UTC View Post