Shadybug Dev

Making narrative games, focusing on monsters and mental health. Run by @cicadaghost and @otaroddball. Currently working on Lavender Hollow + Switch/Glitch!

[cicadaghost]

give up your searching, i don't want to be found your gaze would haunt me

[shadybugdev]

Meet restless ghosts and puzzle your way through helping them move on in Lavender Hollow!

The new 1.0 demo includes:

- completely revamped visuals

- audio (including voices!)

- and a brand new ghost!

Keep an eye out for a detailed changelog soon! This is the completed demo - any further updates will be bug fixes or small visual changes. Even if you've played before, there's much more to discover!

Give it a go, spread the word, and let us know what you think! 💜

https://shadybug.itch.io/lavender-hollow

[shadybugdev]

Hello, everybody! We’ve been hard at work on Lavender Hollow behind the scenes, and we have some big news: the next update of the demo is almost complete! Aside from some polishing that may be added in future small updates (graphics, bug fixes, etc.), this is the final version of the demo.

Lavender Hollow Demo 1.0 will be released on April 26th!

The release will be later in the evening (MDT), because in the morning and afternoon, we will be offering an early sneak peek at All Pikes Peak Makes 2025! This event runs from 10AM-3PM at Library 21c in Colorado Springs, Colorado. If you’re in the area, come say hi and try the updated demo! We also have some very fun headstone-shaped business cards, which are the closest thing we’ve ever had to merch.

Finally, a reminder that if you want to see more behind-the-scenes updates, we share regular progress updates, screenshots, concept art, character bios, and more on our Comradery for just $5/month. It’s like Patreon, but cooler! (Plus, if you’re a creator yourself, they just started their open beta, so you can start your own projects!)

Thank you, and see you soon!

[shadybugdev]

Hi all, it’s been a while! Today, we have some important announcements to make about the future of Shadybug Dev and Lavender Hollow. First of all, we now have a page on Comradery! Comradery is a creator-owned alternative to platforms such as Patreon and Ko-Fi, and it’s a way for people to support our work in exchange for some behind-the-scenes looks at development. Every month, we’ll make two Comradery-exclusive posts: a devlog about what progress we’ve made on our games and an introduction to a character you’ll meet on your visit to Lavender Hollow. Our first devlog post will go up on November 30th!

You might also notice we’ve switched over to using “we.” For a long time, this project has been the work of @cicadaghost alone, with occasional help. However, @otaroddball has now joined as a permanent member of the team! He’ll be helping with concept work, community management, social media, and more as needed. (Plus, it’s much easier for Cicada to get work done when there’s someone else holding them accountable.)

Our Comradery is set up to encompass a primary project and a secondary project. Until its release, Lavender Hollow will be our primary focus! Development on the game has been going at a snail’s pace for quite some time, but having a consistent development schedule through Comradery means that we expect to make much faster progress from here on out. While much of our updates will stay on Comradery, you can still expect to see public posts on other platforms (like this one) as we have time to make them. Stay tuned!

As for that secondary project… 

Switch/Glitch won’t enter formal development for a while yet, to keep focus on Lavender Hollow. You can still expect to see some concept work on Comradery, and after Lavender Hollow’s release, it’s slated to become our next primary project!

That’s all for now! See you soon!

[kiwistickers]

Lavender Hollow Valentine Cards fanart! Lavender Hollow is a cute ghost game by @shadybugdev <3

[shadybugdev]

Postmortem - Halloween Demo - Lavender Hollow (Demo!) by Cicada Carpenter

Lavender Hollow was a game I started on the 1st of October, as part of three challenges: Gentle Ghost Jam, Cryptid Jam, and Devtober. As a wrap-up of Devtober, I’m making a post mortem, both of the...

I wrote a postmortem about the past month of doing gamedev every day! The real lesson here is no matter how cool your project is, be careful not to neglect your health or comfort.

See you around the next 30 days, tumblr!

[shadybugdev]

The demo for Lavender Hollow, my devtober game, is finally released!

Lavender Hollow is a quiet town in the mountains, where a population of monsters have taken refuge from human society. On the edge of the forest you can find the graveyard, where Daisy and her apprentice Ghastropod live and work.

A town as old as this has its fair share of ghosts, old and new. Your job, as a medium and graveyard caretaker, is to help them move on. Each ghost has their own story, traumas, and personal hauntings holding them back. This is about a game about showing compassion for the dead, as well as compassion for ourselves.

The game is free for Windows/Linux/Mac, and you can play it on itch.io!

[shadybugdev]

Days 15/16: I forgot to post yesterday, but these past two days I've been figuring out the inventory! It still has some bugs, but you can drop and pick up items... most of the time.

[shadybugdev]

Day 14: two whole weeks of gamedev!! here's to two more! 

Added in a day/night cycle, sped up here for demonstration purposes, along with a basic time indicator

Revamped my item system, and added an inventory that persists between scenes

Played with shadows some more. For now for all the sprites, I'm going to make a basic mesh to be their shadows, and then just hide the actual mesh. I'm probably gonna just have to learn how shaders work soon.

[shadybugdev]

Day 13:

Spent most of the day at a game festival, a lot of people played 1365 and I got some great feedback!

Worked on some game concepts, symbolism, and character design for this game

Finished up the particle effects on the ghost

Fixed the bug that made dialogue loop forever, so you can talk to people without getting stuck!

[shadybugdev]

Day 12 (forgot to post this one!): I spent most of the day doing this ghost sprite + effects! Still getting the hang of particles. I also did some shadow research, so I can hopefully fix my weird sprite-shadow problem with some tests soon!

[shadybugdev]

Day 11:

Created a moodboard with screenshots of games with aesthetics I'm going for, so I can get a better idea of the aesthetic direction (a few include Pokemon BW, OneShot, and Undertale)

Researched pallettes and found one that fits the game better! I may make my own eventually

Spent some time writing up documentation for someone who asked me about the 2.5d effect in Godot (DM me if you're interested!)

Got an item system working! And made one of the sprites for the many flowers you can pick up.

[shadybugdev]

100 days of Game Dev day 10, and Devtober day 2!

Played with shadows, and got things kind of working

Made an indoor test scene!

Figured out a door system, added a scene transition, and finagled some test variables so that the player character stayed facing whichever direction you came in

Started on a character dialogue option, although if you start it you get stuck in a loop of “Hi!” over and over, so... some work needed there.

A new character??

[shadybugdev]

HAPPY OCTOBER! October 1st marks the start of a few things: Devtober, the Cryptid Jam, and the Gentle Ghost Jam over on itch.io! I might also be participating in the Rainbow Jam and Crowntober Jam, but we’ll see! Either way, I’m starting a new project for all of October, temporarily named Graveyard Days. We’ll see how many themes I can hit without making it forced!

Today I started the prototype:

Created two iterations of a placeholder sprite (you see the second one here)

Cropped it for a temporary portrait image, and made another for a major NPC

Repurposed a dialogue system I’d created before to make a quick dialogue option and wrote some temporary dialogue and gravestones!

Loaded some placeholder Kenney gravestones and messed with the material. The shadows need some work.

Made a basic light and environment setup!

Figured out the scale! making a pixel 2.5D game in Godot has some weird unit challenges, but I have a system that will... kind of work.

Played with Godot’s Sprite3D so that the sprite always faces the camera! It still needs some work, but I’m proud of it!

Lots of work, but lots more to do!

[shadybugdev]

Day 8: Nothing screenworthy today! Just got the pause tree working. It’s a lot easier to pause things in Godot when you do it the built-in way, instead of the ugly workaround way like I've done in the past.

[shadybugdev]

#100daysofGameDev day #7 - the first full week! Today I got the dynamic camera working, so it tilts as you go up or downhill. It makes the game a lot easier, so the next step is to introduce some more challenges!

[shadybugdev]

Day 6: coming up close on the first full week!! I made a temporary rock texture and played with the world environment - the game now has distance fog and blur, which makes it look much nicer! Tomorrow's goal is to look into a water shader I found, and also to make a dynamically tilting camera so it's easier to see when going uphill.