Hey everyone, Rachel here again! I’ve got another character interview this week. Hope you enjoy! (This interview takes place before the events of Heart of the Woods, just fyi)
Before my interview with Tara Bryck, internet star and host of Taranormal, I know I’ve got my work cut out for me. She’s already got a reputation for causing trouble during interviews, and this looks to be no exception. She arrives to the studio 15 minutes late, carrying a cup of iced coffee...
2018-09-10 21:42:16 +0000 UTC
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Looks like Maddie will never live down her goth phase. Thanks, Tara.
Happy #ScreenshotSaturday to all!
2018-09-08 19:00:01 +0000 UTC
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For those of you who were able to enjoy the three day work weekend, we sincerely hope you enjoyed it! Maybe a few of you played TWA:P in that time? Who knows!
Currently, TWA is moving along very nicely! We had fallen behind in development while we were pushing the Heart of the Woods demo and the Prelude, but we've definitely caught up! Ally has been writing a lot, and barring some minor edits Act 1 is ready to go, and Act 2 has been moving along nicely. Go Ally!!
...
2018-09-06 19:01:00 +0000 UTC
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Happy Music Mon(th)day! This month, our featured track is Cold Comforts, composed by Sarah Mancuso and featured in Heart of the Woods.
When you think of love, you think of warmth. Isn't it astonishing, then, that love can bloom even in the middle of the bitter winter?
2018-09-03 20:40:10 +0000 UTC
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Hellooooo,
It feels like only a month ago that I was just writing our last monthly progress update. Time flies, huh?
That's a good thing though, because even though July was a bit of a slow month for us relatively speaking, August has made for up it a lot. Drafting has been going a lot quicker than it was, with a bunch of new scenes for both TWA and HotW being written up. We also got a handful of completed HotW CG's, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. There ...
2018-09-01 20:30:53 +0000 UTC
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It's #ScreenshotSaturday, and today... EVERYONE IS HERE!
Maybe one day we'll get their obligatory beach episode...
2018-09-01 19:00:03 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone, For this week's TWA Sneak Peek, we have a new chibi set by Namie. We're going to have keychains of these available for purchase later! Some of us, including Namie, will be at Anime Weekend Atlanta later this month. You'll be able to buy these keychains, as well as some other fanart merch by Namie, from Sekai Project's table there!
We officially announced TWA and HotW at AWA last year, so going back once again is a nice sort of deja vu. We won't be an...
2018-08-31 23:45:41 +0000 UTC
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Hey Patreon folks! I’m Sarah, one of the composers for Heart of the Woods. I’ve written a bit about three of the songs I contributed to the soundtrack: “Communion,” “Restless One,” and “Into Another World.”
“Communion” is Abby’s theme music, but it originated as a piano sketch of a melody I was auditioning for Heart of the Woods’ romance theme....
2018-08-26 23:02:13 +0000 UTC
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Happy #ScreenshotSaturday! Whether you're a dev or a fan, we hope you'll have get inspired by all the great game screens going around.
Also... somewhere in this screenshot, we've made a very discreet addition to the GUI. I wonder what it could mean...?
2018-08-25 19:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Hello everyone! Rachel here with a progress update for Heart of the Woods!
It’s been an extremely busy month for everyone on the team as we continue to push towards release. Adi and Minute have been working tirelessly to get the Chinese translation for the demo polished and ready to upload, and you can expect to be able to play it (drumroll please) tomorrow! We’re putting the finishing touches on it right now, so please look forward to it!
Josh and I have put toge...
2018-08-23 20:54:25 +0000 UTC
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It's #ScreenshotSaturday! This is the first chapter transition screenshot in Heart of the Woods, illustrated by Renée Park and featuring Maddie.
Here, she's just gotten off of the train to Eysenf...
2018-08-18 17:30:00 +0000 UTC
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Hi hi!! It’s Adirosa here for this month’s technical post!
I’ll be talking about… drumroll… the The Waters Above UI! Specifically, I’ll go into the design choices I made for the choice boxes in depth. I might go over the menus some other day, if y’all are interested, but we have lots of people writing about a lot of fun things, so... we’ll see!
2018-08-15 19:15:33 +0000 UTC
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Happy Music Monday, everyone! This month, we're giving you a sneak peek - er, sneak listen - to the track Frigidarium from The Waters Above, composed by Kris "Astartus" Flacke.
Isn't the piano such a heartstring-pulling instrument?
2018-08-07 00:25:15 +0000 UTC
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(Hey everyone, it's Rachel again! For this interview, I'm going to be introducing a new character who will be hosting all future character interviews! Elisheva (or Eli for short), a journalist reporting from the totally-a-real-building Élan HQ, is going to be making sure you get the inside scoop on all your favorite gals. As for learning about her...stay tuned...)
Maddie Raines arrives at the studio a little more than a half hour ahead of schedule, rolling a small suit...
2018-08-05 17:48:18 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone,
With July wrapping up, that’s our first full month on Patreon finished. Thanks so much to everyone who’s been supporting us! We hope you like the content we’ve put out so far and that you’ll stick around with us for a while. Something you feel like we should be doing differently or that you’d like to see? Hit us up in the comments or with an email to melanie@vnstudioelan.com.
...
2018-08-01 23:52:16 +0000 UTC
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Ally here with this month's piece of short fiction y'all! Based on the prompt where Abby is Tara's new manager. It got a little longer than I anticipated so it's not all coming this month, this is chapter one of two or three! It takes place in an Alternate Universe, so don't worry about any spoilers. Anyway! I hope y'all like it!
There were eighteen blue jays sitting outside the kitchen window this morning. Tara sighed. There was always some kind of weird animal thing ...
2018-07-30 23:38:50 +0000 UTC
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Hey y'all!! Ally here for this month's update on The Waters Above!
Unfortunately there is not a lot of to update you all on right now. As you know at the end of last month we released The Waters Above: Prelude and a lot of this month has been a wind down from that. We have gotten a lot of feedback, both positive and negative, and we have discussed and reflected on the prelude and its reception and are incorporating all that into making the final game as good as it can possibly be!
2018-07-26 23:32:35 +0000 UTC
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This week's Music Monday, we're sharing another beautiful piece from the Heart of the Woods demo! Hope you enjoy!
2018-07-23 18:24:51 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone!
Josh here with a quick behind-the-scenes for HotW. Today we’re gonna be previewing a very special alternate outfit for Maddie. Rosuuri only recently finished the design for it, but I can safely say it’s one of my favorite things she’s ever drawn.
We don’t wanna spoil too much of the context, but basically, Maddie’ll be getting this outfit towards...
2018-07-19 18:34:16 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone! minute here, and I’ll be writing our first technical post.
What are technical posts?
We’ll be using technical posts to go over a wide variety of topics, all pertaining to the creation of our visual novels. From posting first drafts of our scenes, to scrapped music, to GUI and programming tutorials and theories, technical posts will be the place to see how we put everything together. What we did right, what we did wrong, and what we tried to improve ...
2018-07-15 19:01:00 +0000 UTC
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(Hey everyone, Rachel here! For my creative post this month, I'm sharing the first of four in-character interviews with the HOTW gals! Hope you enjoy!)
After the release of the Heart of the Woods demo, we got a lot of great questions about Morgan. Who is she? What’s she about? Does she actually think Tara’s funny? To answer these questions, we’ve sat down with the woman herself to get to the bottom of things.
She arrives at the studio around 3pm (the inter...
2018-07-08 19:00:01 +0000 UTC
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For this week's patreon Screenshot Saturday, here's a look at Tara from the first Heart of the Woods CG! Flying across an ocean and spending a few hours on a train tends to take it out of you. This is probably the only time she's quiet in the entire game, so be sure to appreciate it while you can!
2018-07-08 00:41:32 +0000 UTC
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Hey y'all! So for this month's TWA Asset sneak peak we wanted to show off this CG of Maera and Apple! When stars are brought into the sky at night this is where they are placed, and here we see Maera comforting and singing to Apple as they shine throughout the night!
We've also included the in-progress images from Namie! Attached you will also find a zip of all the images, including full size versions of both variations of the CG! We ask that you not post them on social media but feel ...
2018-07-06 00:05:39 +0000 UTC
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Hey everyone! Starting today, as a Patron you'll be getting access to our upcoming Music Monday one week in advance! This week, enjoy the title theme for Heart of the Woods: A Brittle Song of Things to Come!
2018-07-03 01:59:03 +0000 UTC
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Hi everybody! First of all, we’d like to thank each and every one of you for being our very first patrons! We’ve got a ton of great stuff ahead of us, and we can’t wait to share it all with you! These monthly updates are going to be a way to let you know what we’ve all been up to lately and what you can look forward to, as well as glimpses ahead into the future!
Starting with a recap, this month has seen us dealing with a terrific response to the Heart of the Woods<...
2018-07-01 21:15:01 +0000 UTC
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Hey y'all, Ally here! For one half of this months creative content I'll be writing a short story of around a thousand words with a subject of y'all's choosing!
For this month's prompt fill we will be taking suggestions in the comments. Please make your suggestions in the format of "Character1 + Character2 + Word or Short Phrase." Any word or phrase of your choosing!! So for example "Maera and Abby, Potato Peeler Battle." You can choose any two characters from HOTW or TWA or even o...
2018-07-01 17:14:00 +0000 UTC
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Steam
Itch.io
It's finally out! It's been an exciting month leading up to this but it's finally here and ready to be played! Right now the game is only up on itchi.io but we are expectin...
2018-06-27 22:19:37 +0000 UTC
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Meowdy gamers!
Thank you so much for your support. And to show our appreciation to all of you, we’ve decided to release a beta build of The Waters Above: Prelude to everyone who’s pledged to us.
Please keep in mind that this is still beta. We’re currently in the QA phase, fixing up a lot of minor details, bugs, and other little fish like that. In its current state, TWA:P is mostly complete, but is missing one scene (The second part of Maera’s story). For the full release y...
2018-06-24 19:41:02 +0000 UTC
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Hi everyone!
This is Josh, the founder of Studio Élan. We wanted to write up a quick introduction for anyone who hasn’t heard of us before. If you’re one of those people thanks for taking the time to check this out and read it!
There are 8 of us in Studio Élan currently, as well as a number of people that we’re working with on a project-to-project basis. Here’s the list of permanent members:
Josh (me!) - Game director, writer
Ally - Game director...
2018-06-24 05:07:05 +0000 UTC
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