#studio announcement

[brightdawnstudios]

Our voice actors have officially been selected! Welcome to the team everyone, and happy Indie Animation Day!!

[vnstudioelan]

Our comfy yuri slice-of-life visual novel, Please Be Happy, is out TODAY!

A story of love and friendship, and about understanding not just how to be happy, but how to be human.

Born as a fox in the forest of Korea, Miho carries with her the memory of a traveler who showed her kindness and spoke of home. Now more human than fox, Miho has spent a long, long time searching for her person. She arrives by airship to Wellington Skyport, one of the jewels of the floating island of New Zealand.

Despite her years spent observing humans, she still has a lot to learn about their culture and society. She's made a living so far as a thief, her heightened senses allowing her to easily take advantage of people. She's also seen a lot of the worst of what mankind has to offer.

It's only after meeting Juliet, the owner of a small library, and Aspen, an aspiring novelist, that Miho starts to understand what kindness is, and that there's more than just the bad stuff when it comes to people.

 Get the full game below!

On Steam || On Itch.io 

[brightdawnstudios]

VOICE ACTOR CASTING CALL!

That's right! Auditions are now open for the main six, and we need YOU to give them voices! Anyone (over 16) can apply! We can't wait to see what all of you will cook up!

Go to this link to our website if you are interested in auditions!

[brightdawnstudios]

All it takes is a call.

[vnstudioelan]

We’re a part of The Storyteller’s Festival - now live on Steam!

The Storyteller's Festival is a Steam event hosted by Two and a Half Studios to celebrate narrative-driven games from top developers all around the world. 

The event will be hosted from March 25th to April 1st.

We’re participating with our in-studio title Please Be Happy and our Bellhouse title Twofold!

To celebrate this event, Please Be Happy is 15% off for the duration of the festival!

Please look forward to more discussions of these two titles over next week, and have a wonderful Storyteller’s Festival!

[vnstudioelan]

❅ We have NEW Heart of The Woods goodies! ❅

We’re proud to reveal this gorgeous illustration of Tara and Morgan by @lavenderincubus, and a new epilogue story by @ladygwyndolin.

❅ If you’re one of our $5+ patrons, you can view both of them! ❅

Thank you for supporting Heart of the Woods for all these years - we really appreciate it!

[vnstudioelan]

We're less than $3k away from a light novel adaptation of Highway Blossoms!

We’re so close, we can almost taste the pages manifesting from the ether...

Interested in making our dream a reality? (And getting super-cool physical releases for Highway Blossoms, Heart of the Woods, and Please Be Happy?)

Back our Kickstarter today - it’ll conclude in a little over a week!

[vnstudioelan]

What’s on for us in 2023?

A roundup of our plans for 2023 and onwards - all in one neat post.

If you’ve watched our 2022 Year In Review, you’ll know what we’re talking about. But for those who want a summary, here’s a post all about our future projects and announcements!

(Announcements are under the cut.)

Heart of the Woods' Playstation and Switch Editions will receive a physical release through Limited Run Games!

Pre-orders for these editions are slated for sometime this year. You can get the game on its own, or in a bundle with the soundtrack.

Élan Festival 2023 is happening - hopefully!

If it happens (and we really hope it does), we’ll probably hold it later in the year. We hope to have a lot of cool stuff to share by then.

 Twofold, the sequel to Salty Salty Studios’ Bellhouse title First Snow, is releasing this year!

Twofold is the story of Olive, a college freshman on the verge of dropping out, as they make a last-ditch effort to save their academic career. 

To survive, they're going to need to join either the writing or the art club, getting themself tangled up in the ongoing battle between the clubs' leaders.

There will also be a free DEMO ahead of the full release.

Love In A Bottle is still in development!

Look forward to more info on our newest Bellhouse title sometime this year.

National Park Girls’ final episode will release in the first quarter of this year!

On Halloween last year, we merged with Studio Coattails. They helped us develop Highway Blossoms. Now, they’re a part of Studio Élan!

Their episodic visual novel National Park Girls is a zany, thrilling story about America's national parks coming to life as cute girls. We hope that you enjoy the conclusion to their story.

Please Be Happy will receive a console release this year!

(But right now, you can purchase our latest title on Steam and Itch.io.)

We also have PBH merch on our webstore, and we plan to release even more this year.

We’re giving Lock and Key: A Magical Girl Mystery a major makeover!

We won't be changing the story or characters, but we will update the art direction. 

Because we're making Lock and Key without a publisher, we're thinking about taking the game to Kickstarter. This will help us raise funds for the game's development, and add extra goodies like custom backgrounds and voice acting. 

Summer at the Edge of the Universe is back in development!

Back in 2020, we announced this solarpunk visual novel alongside Please Be Happy. We wanted to develop them at the same time, but things got busy behind the scenes...

Now, Summer at the Edge of the Universe is taking front and center stage!

This game - which we call Samayuuni - is the story of Summer Nansen and her friends Hanna, Quinn, and Izzy - plus the robot Curiosity. 

When all of them reunite for the first time since high school, it's the start of an intergalactic adventure that takes them all the way to the very edge of the universe. They stop at several different planets along the way, seeing what each world has to offer. It's a story full of good friends and good vibes!

Samayuuni will have three routes, so it’ll be our longest game yet. That means it's going to be a couple years until it's ready. 

Right now, we’re anticipating a release year of 2025. This is a long way off, but Samayuuni has a lot of words to read, a lot of characters to meet, and a lot of alien planets to explore. There’s also the original soundtrack...

Still, we hope you enjoy Samayuuni when the wait is finally over. In the meantime, we’ll give the game a bigger reintroduction sometime this year, so you can get back up to speed with Summer and friends.

Here’s an adorable illustration of Summer to tide you over! This was made by Samayuuni’s character designer, @adirosa.

Oh, and one more thing...

...we're working on making physical copies of the PC editions of our games! 

We want to make special editions that’ll be exclusive to our webstore. We’ll also sell regular editions at conventions and other events. 

Additionally, we’re retiring some of our webstore merch to make room for new designs. 

If you're thinking about picking some merch up - don’t wait too long!

We hope you have a wonderful 2023!

- Studio Élan