vnstudioelan

Technical Post - PBH Designing the UI

It's adi! I'm late! I'm sorry!!! Until I am no longer late, you may call me late adi. I will put on that hat again slowly.

But! Even if I am late! I am HERE! To talk about one of my favourite things! Designing the interface!!!

I'm not sure how many of you realize but my main job here is actually being the graphic designer. I just wear a lot of hats. (including one that says LATE) And I really do enjoy doing graphic designs! I have a lot of ideas that are kind of hard to make-work ...

August 2021 Monthly Update

Hello and happy August!

Looking back at what we did in July, a lot of it falls under the category of "can't share any details with you right now," but that just means we'll have some extra-exciting updates in the future. As far as what we can talk about, well… The biggest news, of course, was the launch of the Switch version of Heart of the Woods! There were a couple hiccups, but overall we're really happy that most people have been really enjoying the game. We're hoping to have a pat...

Spring Grove - Wallpaper

Hi patrons!! You can call me NOT late!!!! Well, maybe just a little. The technical post will be up shortly, but I wanted to finish this picture first.

I wanted to draw Aspen being pretty, and to finish off the heroines in nature set. It's not exactly Spring like... anywhere in the world, but it will be Spring soon in New Zealand, so, y'know!

I've been looking up a lot of videos on painting backgrounds and nature lately. It's still not my strongest suit, but I've been making an eff...

Summer Night - Wallpaper

Hi patrons, I'm... I'm late... you can call me late...

I am sorry!!! Last month has been hectic and somehow finding a moment to finish this was quite difficult!! This is the June wallpaper for the month. Despite being so terribly late, I hope you all like it!

I wanted to do a summer picture that was a bit more evening-like, and I also wanted to do a Juliet solo wallpaper, so here is that combination! Is this perhaps a bit too much sunlight for Juliet? Maybe, but she's a champ who ...

July 2021 Mid-Month Update

Hey everyone,

Hope you're having a good July. Summer is in full swing here and it's hooooot. So, what better way to celebrate than with a cool visual novel in a snowy forest? Of course, I'm referring to the recent Switch release of "Heart of the Woods," which has somehow already been out for a week. We've seen a wave of new people discovering the game, which is super cool. We're so lucky to have an awesome community like y'all.

You may have seen on Twitter, but we got a few report...

Honorine's Run To Save The World - Chapter Eight

"Alessia, how long have we been traveling now?"

"By my estimates, about two weeks. If I may ask—are you well? This is the third time you have asked me this today."

"Wait, three times today?"

"Affirmative. You asked me once this morning, again four and a half hours afterwards, and now, one and a half hours later. On average, you have asked me this question once every two hours today."

“I... See.” The first time was just this morning? It feels like it was ...

Heart of the Woods Is Now Available on the Nintendo Switch!

At long last, the game is available for purchase and download from the Nintendo eShop! Huge thanks to Ratalaika Games and Sekai Games, our porter and publisher respectively, as well as you guys and our Kickstarter backers for helping to make this happen. Releasing a game on a Nintendo console is definitely a "dream come true" moment for a lot of us here, so we're not taking this for grante...

PBH Technical Post - Voice Acting?!

Hello everyone, it's PBH technical post day! (Well, it's a bit later than that, sorry! But there will be another one this month!) As you can tell from the title, I'm really excited to talk about voice acting today!

First and foremost - the voice acting is handled by Studio Coattails. If you want some voice acting for a visual novel, or if you want to voice one of our characters one day, take a look at their site! Our c...

June 2021 Mid-Month Update

Hey everyone,

It's been a while, huh? The end of May and June so far have been a really hectic time emotionally and development-wise for us, so we appreciate y'all's patience as Patreon has been slow this month. Lots has happened in June already, so as promised, this is gonna be a big recap. Let's see...

As part of Wholesome Direct a couple weeks ago, we released the Please Be Happy Demo as well as the voice cast! We held auditions for the game nearly a year ago at this point, s...

Please Be Happy Demo Available Now! + bonus wallpaper

Hello everyone! It's adirosa here!

People that are plugged into other social media (Twitter) may have gotten the notice already, but the Please Be Happy demo is now available for everyone to download!

And it has a little something extra... it has full voice acting!!! You have no idea how much I've wanted to yell about this for the last few months.

Links are below. I hope it brings a little bit of joy to your life.

2021-06-14 09:43:56 +0000 UTC View Post

Bed of Daisies - Wallpaper

Hi everyone! I hope you've been having a lovely May. It's adi, and I'm back with a new wallpaper!

After the Aspen/Juliet wallpaper last month, I decided I wanted to give Miho a bit of love! I dusted off an old sketch I had and decided to use it as this month's wallpaper.

This month, I told myself that I'd get back on track and do the wallpaper in the first half of the month but it somehow fell back to these last few days again... Ah well, at least I did get it done! I tried to be ...

Technical Post - PBH Music Development

Hello patrons, how are you all! It's adi. I hope you're doing well. Somehow we've made it all the way to May - it's honestly scary how fast time is going past! As well as how close the end of 2021 feels sometimes. But nevertheless, we must march on and at our team, continue making games!

This month I wanted to take y'all through the process of PBH music development (from my perspective)! My audio... music skills are a bit too lacking to go into a ton of depth, but I thought it would be ...

May 2021 Mid-Month Update

Hey everyone,

It's a slowish month so far in terms of progress, but we did have some cool updates to share.

The first chapter of Please Be Happy continues to be in the final stages, while work on Chapters 2 and 3 is ongoing. Currently, adi's working on one of the last cg's needed for it, featuring a reflective Miho atop Mt. Victoria.

Speaking of PBH, you may have already seen, but ...

Cherry's Story Epilogue: Huiyin's Story

Three years have passed since Huiyin last saw Cadence Isle from this very same ferry.

When she first arrived on the island, it was a starry night just like this one. At first, the island’s shadowy silhouette was a menacing sight to her, but now she sees it as her second home.

And someone I love is waiting for me there.

She goes to her room and begins to pack her belongings back into her luggage. A book falls from the desk and she picks it up.

It’s the po...

Honorine's Run To Save The World - Chapter Seven

In hindsight, leaving the train might not have been the best idea. We've been walking for hours now, with nothing to guide us except for the slowly-sinking sun. Under normal circumstances, I'd hardly complain; I'm used to walking for long distances, for one, and the views within this forest are particularly pleasant, but these are not normal circumstances. I have no idea how far Zephyr Coast is, and I don't know if Alessia's as used to hiking as I am. She isn't complaining, however, and there...

May 2021 Update

Hey y'all,

Hope April was kind to everyone on the way out. May is looking like it's gonna be a bit of a slower month for us, with June being the one where everything happens. So, on that note!

-The main focus for PBH has been and still is finishing up Chapter 1! We're really close to having it complete - the most time-consuming part left is implementing the GUI. But, there's a largely-playable build that we've been using for testing, which means it's pretty far along. Of course, t...

Cherry's Story Chapter 11: Sweetheart's Chocolate

Months have gone by.

Long, tiring months, filled with research, writing, editing, re-writing, and reading. And tonight, Huiyin gasps and lays on head on top of her keyboard.

The dissertation is finally done…

Behind her, Mima still lays asleep on the bed, her hand barely grasping a book.

Huiyin has been sleeping over at Mima's ever since she realized how much she enjoyed their first sleepover. Lexa stays over every once in a while, but she preferred to take...

Teatime! - Wallpaper

Hey everyone, it's adi! It's month three of the PBH wallpaper project.

It's... it's fun...!!! It's definitely not super easy, but it is super rewarding. I hope you're having a good time with this too!

After a Miho wallpaper, and a three-character one, I thought up a Aspen/Juliet illustration! I had a friend privately mention to me that they love to see Juliet in a fancy waiter outfit, and I just extended that brainwave into a butler outfit, and a maid dress for Aspen! I can finall...

Cherry's Story Chapter 10 - The Missing Ingredient

Mima’s phone beeps. 

She leans the broom she was just using against the wall, taking out her phone and finds that she’s received a message from Huiyin on Wondr. Opening it, she sees a photo of her and another tired looking person (Lexa, perhaps?) posing with a stack of books. The message below reads, “Will be coming to the cafe soon. Serious talk.”

Serious talk?

Mima taps on the phone: “What do you want to talk about?”

An immediate reply: �...

Cherry's Story Chapter 9 - In the Art Gallery

Cherry still can’t believe the school year is almost done.

She looks at the school calendar before her, the realization that only a mere three months are left finally dawning on her. This makes her anxious.

For the past few hours, Cherry’s been flipping back and forth through her passport. She wants to pretend the visa expiry date isn’t real or that she’s misreading it, but that’s — of course — impossible.

I knew I would only be here for a year… 2021-04-23 19:06:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Technical Post - Wellington Real Life vs In-Game

Hello lovely patrons! It's me, adi again!

I was thinking for a looong time what to do this month for a technical post, and here you have me, writing one quite last minute!!! It's been a hectic month for me. I'm a job-haver now, as of late March, so I've been trying to adjust to that while keeping up with game dev. After having a chat with my lovely Elan friends, I've decided to do a highlight post on the backgrounds and how they compare to real life!

So as you all may know, PBH is...

Honorine's Run To Save The World - Chapter Six

Of all the buildings I've seen in this country, there are few as far from Streician design as Solais Station. The station's high ceilings, dark colors and recurring use of cubes and rectangles in its architecture put it in an entirely different category from the low, white, circular room I'd found Alessia in, and yet strangely enough, she seems more at home here than she has since we left Claudette's house. True, she's still hovering in my vicinity—she hasn't gone any further than an arm's ...

April 2021 Mid-Month Update

Hi everyone,

Hope your April is going well so far. Here's what's up with us.

-Like in many of our recent updates, PBH progress has been cruising along. The last of the Chapter 1 stuff is being worked on, including scripting and final edits. The new music tracks that we mentioned in one of the last posts are already well under way and sounding great! We've been posting screenshots on our Twitter most Saturdays, in addition to the ones we post on here. We've got some exciting PBH ne...

Celeste Academy - The Day of Celestaria (Finale)

Carida joined the throng of people filing into the bustling park grounds, the day of Celestaria proving as popular an outing as ever.

Strolling along the path, she glanced upwards from the stream of gossiping people around her, the sky above cloaked in a vivid pink hue as far as the eye could see.

Magic had always been considered not only the domain of humans, but of the very Earth itself. 'Celestaria' was the term given to the annual display of magical energy releasing from nat...

April 2021 General Update

Hey everyone,

With March now safely in the history books, here's a recap of what we did last month.

-I got most of the way finished with drafting the Samayuuni common route! Some parts are left unwritten because they're just conversations, and we're going to talk more together at some point about character voices. For example, I may have mentioned this before, but I have to try hard to not make Hanna sound too much like Aspen when I'm writing, which is difficult since I'm working ...

Leap! - Wallpaper

Hi everyone! I've self-proposed a project to do a wallpaper for PBH every month actually - I wanted to try a few months before seeing if it was doable. A little late for this month, but a three character composition is hard!

I'm happy with how this turned out though, I hope you like! I'll be uploading wallpaper versions for all of you lovely patrons!

https://youtu.be/a3h75L7VgYY

Linked is the process video ...

Technical Post - PBH CG Process

Meowdy everyone! It's nearing the end of the month, which as usual means it's time for a PBH technical post! I hope you all have been well.

This month I decided to focus on CGs - in particular, the ones I'm creating (but I'll show you a step by step for a kobuta CG as well 👀)

For Please Be Happy, there is a mix of two kinds of CGs - the big moments CGs, which are illustrated by our wonderful character designer...

Summer at the Edge of the Universe - Characters

Meowdy! Last year, we posted the individual character introductions for the Samayuuni cast. We've now collected them all into one post for easy viewing! We kind of meant to do this last year, but it slipped our minds. We decided to post it now, since we have even more Samayuuni character stuff coming soon 👀

Name: Summer Nansen

C.V: Hikaru Station

Celeste Academy- The FINAL Poll!

Carida's heart thumps loudly in her chest.

Next Monday is The Day of Celestaria, a celebration of friendship, love, and new beginnings. As magic swells to incredible proportions on this one day of the year, the skies, waters, and air will be an enchanting pink. The fountain in the town square will be filled with rose petals, and many people, attuned or not, young and old alike, will ...

March 2021 Mid-Month Update

Hello!

I'm a day late on this post so I can't make any "ides of March" jokes. That's probably for the best.

March has been a busy and productive month for us! And it's only halfway over.

For the past few weeks, I've been working on the Samayuuni common route. It turned out to be about 10 scenes long, and I'm pretty happy with it so far! There's just one or two more scenes left to go on it. We brought on a new editor to help us with Summer, specifically in regards to story de...