AHH

Blog of Abby Howard, award-winning cartoonist and game developer. Co-creator of Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess, creator of The Last Halloween and The Crossroads At Midnight

[blacktabbygames]

"And you're afraid that your cousin has dipped her cup into Enoch's well of devilry. Isn't that right?"

[abby-howard]

Summer spread :]

Iced tea, succotash salad, fried fake chicken + fried tofu (to compare), biscuits +gravy, pickled plums, and two tarts: rhubarb and vanilla custard, and dark chocolate with fresh black raspberry jam and lemon chiffon cream!

[abby-howard]

Does the vampire girl from that Vampire Yuri comic have a name? What is it?

She has no name! She is just The Creature

[blacktabbygames]

play scarlet hollow

[abby-howard]

This is such a nice review yaaayyy

It's 25% off btw :]

[abby-howard]

A couple scenes from a little gay vampire story I was kicking around a couple years ago! I sometimes do little pencils-only scenes for things and never post them. But I was looking back at these and was like why not? They're cute!

I have a whole story for these two, but just for funsies, something to do every now and then when I need to let loose.

[abby-howard]

(she will eat them though)

[abby-howard]

Ah.. game canceled, Spoons is using my laptop as a pillow 😔

[abby-howard]

Closed the laptop. Now neither of us has what we want

[abby-howard]

Ah.. game canceled, Spoons is using my laptop as a pillow 😔

[abby-howard]

Wanted to highlight a little segment from Tony's big post that I liked :3 (SPOILERS for Episode 5 of Scarlet Hollow, scroll past if u don't wanna know ✌️)

[abby-howard]

A couple scenes from a little gay vampire story I was kicking around a couple years ago! I sometimes do little pencils-only scenes for things and never post them. But I was looking back at these and was like why not? They're cute!

I have a whole story for these two, but just for funsies, something to do every now and then when I need to let loose.

[abby-howard]

(she will eat them though)

[abby-howard]

A couple scenes from a little gay vampire story I was kicking around a couple years ago! I sometimes do little pencils-only scenes for things and never post them. But I was looking back at these and was like why not? They're cute!

I have a whole story for these two, but just for funsies, something to do every now and then when I need to let loose.

[blacktabbygames]

new scarlet hollow devlog! it's 16,000 words long, so some casual monday morning reading for you

On Writing Scarlet Hollow (Episodes 4 and 5 edition… and maybe The Roads Untraveled, too)*

* Look, it’s been a long time since I wrote an analytics devlog, okay?

[abby-howard]

NEW DEVLOG ALERT, Tony did a big write-up diving into user data from our surveys!

If you wanna know about choice breakdowns across people's playthroughs, or if you want a fairly comprehensive summary of the winding web that is Scarlet Hollow's narrative structure, here's where you find all that :]

And big shout-out to all our players for helping us balance the game during our Early Access period, your survey data is SO helpful 🙏

[abby-howard]

Spoons is 15 today, happy sweet fifteenth spoons!!

[blacktabbygames]

been having fun digging into the episode 5 survey data! it and episode 3 are neck and neck for being people's favorite episodes to date, and the spread across our romance options continue to tighten

will be doing a longer writeup soon, but in the meantime, enjoy this infographic!

[abby-howard]

We're starting to sift through the survey results :]

[abby-howard]

Check this out...

Bat sisters >:3

New little art dolls I made!

Their wings are poseable!!

They have joined my clown baby

[abby-howard]

Hi, you mentioned you would share another decision tree (decision braid) for episode 5. The post where you said this was like two years ago, but I just stumbled into it while looking for something else. I totally get it if you changed your mind, though, given the episode's scope.

Anyway, love both your games! I hope you guys aren't overworking youselves 🥰 I'm forcing my boyfriend to play SH and he seems to like it, too

Aw, thank you so much for your interest, and for playing!! I think I would perish if I had to draw out a decision tree for Episode 5 XD You're entirely right that the scope is a bit large for it at this point. As an example, the part after you leave the Estate where you choose who to turn to has 27 possible scene variants, most of which are determined by decisions made in previous episodes. Charting that would be..... horrific lol.

They say the most accurate map of the world is the size of the world.... so if anyone is curious about a decision map, the game files themselves will probably serve you better than any simplification I could provide! Maybe some brave soul will attempt a tree at some point, though what a cursed undertaking that would be.

[abby-howard]

How do you feel about the reception Stella's been getting post chapter 5?:0c

I'm not sure what the reception has been, from other people's POV! We have a lot of discussion with the alpha testers as we release scenes for testing, so we can get a handle on whether the narrative is landing the way we want it to. But once it's all out there, I tend to disengage from fan spaces. So I only see what Tony shows me, or fanart that comes across my feed :]

My impression of the reception is that people see her the way we wanted them to, with all her flaws, and many find her more compelling than ever for that. I'm sure that means there are some who now feel like she isn't the person they thought she was, but that's inevitable when people are engaging with an ongoing story-- we can foreshadow all we want for how a character arc is going to play out, but that doesn't mean everybody is gonna pick up on it until it starts to unfold!

~

TWO DAYS AFTER SAVING THIS AS A DRAFT: Okay now I'm seeing some Posts

Interesting XD

[abby-howard]

In an ideal world where Dr. Kelly was honest with Reese and they tried to work through his condition together, how would've that turned out? If that's not too spoilery to ask.

They absolutely could have dealt with it.

But of course, the tragedy is that they didn't, and now it's too late. She chose a path, and tried to deal with the problem in a way that made sense to her, and a way that she could control. And now their relationship is so thoroughly damaged by the betrayal of trust that her worst fears have manifested— she made them real by believing them to be real— and there's no going back and trying to fix it now.

Unless the MC is so so charismatic and beautiful, of course.