February 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).

January was "packed" (ha ha ha) with sending out packages for us. It was a crazy busy month, but we managed to get through all ~1200 of them for our Beyond the Bet Kickstarter, yay!

Now we're onto working on all kinds of things, many of which are small and fiddly, unfortunately. Still, we're getting to the point where soon enough we'll be only working on new things, which is exciting.

For now, lets jump into our monthly update!

A Date with Death

While Beyond the Bet marks the (mostly) completion of A Date with Death, we still have a few quick updates to give!

A Date with Death ZERO

The fourth chapter of A Date with Death ZERO was completed last month! It's due to be released here on Patreon in around a week, one month before it's released publicly. Here's a little preview:

More hairclip reaper! I really enjoyed this next chapter - I think you will too!

Makeship Collab

As we said last month, we'll be having another collab with Makeship this month! Keep an eye out February 19th if you'd like to grab it.

Merch Store Reopening

Later in February we also plan to reopen our merch store with Kickstarter leftovers plus a few new goodies. This will include our new 5012 keychains... and one other cool surprise!

Voice Acting & Translation

Voice acting continues, with the wonderful Jonah Scott currently working on the end of the original game. Once that's done, we'll be moving onto the voice acting for Beyond the Bet! This will definitely still take us some months, so please look forward to the voice acting in the latter half of 2025.

As for Japanese voice acting, recording should begin soon. It takes significantly more time than the English VA, because the full game needs to be translated and edited before it can begin. More on the translation below, but we're happy to announce that Hidenori Takahashi (高橋 英則) will be working with us for voicework.

Taking a step back to the translation, both the original game and Beyond the Bet are now translated, and we're working on implementing and testing the translations.

Once we're done with implementation and testing (this will likely take us the next week or so, it's a very... very... manual process) then a new build will go back to our localizers Kakehashi Games, and they will begin the long process of testing the full game and every single choice/branch once again. We'll get a list of changes to make, and the cycle continues.

As you can see, it takes a lot of time, so we're still awhile off starting the VO recording. Past the fact that translation is incredibly expensive, it's another major reason we aren't looking at localizing into any other languages. It's hugely time consuming. Still, we're excited for our first JP localized game!

Sequel...?

We've started brainstorming on a sequel(?) to A Date with Death that features a new main character, 5012, and perhaps another character. Right now we're just collecting ideas and seeing what sticks. If we decide to go forward with it, work on it won't begin until the latter half of 2025 as Fuyuure is busy with the last of the backer rewards from our last Kickstarter, but she's making great progress!

The Willowmist Emporium of Antiques and Curiosities

Art

Artwise, we've now completed six backgrounds so far, with a seventh currently in the works (which will serve as our main menu background).

Here's a small preview:

Character wise, as we mentioned last month all of the sprites for our "main" cast are now complete, including the two for our protagonist, 'Sage'. We've also now completed our key art, which you'll see soon too, in both sketch form and complete!

We're now working on two side character sprites before moving onto the demo CGs, which we're planning 6 of.

UI

UI work continues with the wonderful Tris, who has completed many more screens for us:

Of course, I still need to work on actually implementing all of these, which is very time consuming, but hopefully I'll have the time to begin soon!

We're also beginning to work on a logo:

Writing

I'm super pleased to announce that between everything else, I've managed to start writing this game!

As you can see, I began working on our demo writing on the 14th of January, and now we're sitting as a crisp 24,000 words. This encompasses the first four days of the game. The demo itself will go for seven days, so it will be a relatively long demo.

This only includes main story events - WEAC also includes many random events and side stories than play as you decide how to use your time in the store.

We have a big ol' spreadsheet full of planning for these events. There's going to be a LOT of them - some will be short, and others will be longer and character driven. At the moment, we have 25 planned for the demo.

Once writing on the demo is complete, I'll begin working through these. It's hard to guess how long it will take, but hopefully not too long!

As for the actual game script, here's a tiny preview:

While Sage isn't quite as.... gremlin-like as the ADWD MC, there's still plenty of time for teasing.

Opening Music

We're working on a custom opening track for WEAC! While we don't have anything to share yet, we're working with the very talented Mizu on this original song, including vocals!

Screenshots

These are mostly mockups in engine - programming of the script hasn't yet begun. We still have to work on sprite positioning and lots of editing, and the UI is not yet complete. Still, enjoy!

 A tiny preview!

Steam Page & Game Announcement

We're super pleased to say that we've already set the page up on Steam and gotten approval. We're now waiting for The Storyteller's Festival to come around and then the game will be announced to the world! We hope at that time, you can wishlist and help us spread it around - this is a big project for us, so we need all the support we can get to be able to make it!

I still have work to do on the copywriting here, but it's nearly ready!

Astralis Publishing Title - The Inn Between

Programming & New Beta

Something excited released for The Inn Between - a brand new beta build with more of Emrys route... but more importantly, it introduced the character Mercury, who was created by me. Yay! Bunny boy!

This new beta contains 137,000 words, with the full common route and the first two chapters of Emrys route. The developer C.L is now working on implementing chapter 3 before going back to write the end of his route.

Check it out here!

Art

Lots of new pretty art in the works for The Inn Between - seeing updates every month is an absolute highlight.

Patreon Previews

CG: Spirited Away (Emrys)

CG: First Kiss (Emrys) 

Cats on a Lilypad also run their own Patreon, which you can sign up to even for free to get updates from! Here's a couple of previews of some posts there from last month ^

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 - Cage of Roses

Cage of Roses has been fully approved for release by Steam, including the optional 18+ patch!

At the moment, the plan is for it to release either in time for The Storyteller's Festival or shortly after, in early March. Either way, we're excited!

Support the Game

You can support Cage of Roses by wishlisting the game on Steam and following the developer on Twitter!

Astralis Publishing Title - The Last Rose

Screenshots

Demo Release

The demo for The Last Rose (which is being programmed by us) is now complete! I managed to fit in working on this in between everything else (somehow). It has now been approved by Steam for release, so look forward to seeing it for The Storyteller's Festival!

Support the Game

You can support The Last Rose by wishlisting the game on Steam and following the developer on Twitter!

Misc Announcements

The Storyteller's Festival

As we keep mentiong, The Storyteller's Festival, our Steam celebration of all things narrative in games, is coming up!

Go check it out for discounts, new announcements, and lots more!

Website Refresh

Our website refresh is now complete, though we're holding off on launching our site until Patrons on the correct tier get a chance to grab Kickstarter leftover goodies before they're released for everyone.

Still a few small things to fix, but its overall complete! We need to get some counts of leftovers for merch still, though.

Focus for the next month

• The Storyteller's Festival Launch

• The Last Rose - Demo Launch

• WEAC - UI creation, side character creation, announcement and writing

• A Date with Death - Translation implementation, testing, some small programming additions

Thanks once again for reading, and I'll see you next month!