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Chronotopia Update: Light Again!

It’s been a hell of a long time since the last update. For once, I’m happy to bring good news!

After nearly four months of many administrative formalities, I finally managed to close the Single Member Limited Liability Company formerly known as Traümendes Mädchen and start as a self-employed individual. I must say that having to feverishly wait for weeks between each step, waiting for the registry of my local commercial court’s validation, has been especially anxiety-provoking and that I’m relieved to see the light.

During my administrative woes, Chronotopia was still able to join the 2025 edition of the Storyteller Festival, it was nice!

My plan for the future is rather simple: I will work in a different field than video game publishing in order to earn something of a living. Given the current state of the world, I think you’ll understand the necessity, especially since this adventure has put a dent in my budget. This way, I hope I’ll soon be able to afford producing the rewards I still owe my backers, particularly the physical ones. I will of course keep you up to date if there’s any progress.

Kionna knows a thing or two about fresh starts...

By then, I intend to simply pick up hobbies again and rediscover my love for writing, piece myself back together if you will. Upon re-reading previous Kickstarter updates, I realize I have been so obsessed with finishing Chronotopia’s campaign at all costs that I set completely unrealistic objectives. Overcome burnout in 1 or 2 months sharp? Easier said than done!

So I think I’m going to stream for my own pleasure and go back to my first loves (reviewing anime and videogames) to try to rekindle the flame. It will be more efficient to find motivation than force myself like the brute I am.

So yeah, my modest goal for 2025 is to at least be done with all digital rewards and slowly go back to creating video games.

[traumendesmadchen]

Chronotopia Update: Light Again!

It’s been a hell of a long time since the last update. For once, I’m happy to bring good news!

After nearly four months of many administrative formalities, I finally managed to close the Single Member Limited Liability Company formerly known as Traümendes Mädchen and start as a self-employed individual. I must say that having to feverishly wait for weeks between each step, waiting for the registry of my local commercial court’s validation, has been especially anxiety-provoking and that I’m relieved to see the light.

During my administrative woes, Chronotopia was still able to join the 2025 edition of the Storyteller Festival, it was nice!

My plan for the future is rather simple: I will work in a different field than video game publishing in order to earn something of a living. Given the current state of the world, I think you’ll understand the necessity, especially since this adventure has put a dent in my budget. This way, I hope I’ll soon be able to afford producing the rewards I still owe my backers, particularly the physical ones. I will of course keep you up to date if there’s any progress.

Kionna knows a thing or two about fresh starts...

By then, I intend to simply pick up hobbies again and rediscover my love for writing, piece myself back together if you will. Upon re-reading previous Kickstarter updates, I realize I have been so obsessed with finishing Chronotopia’s campaign at all costs that I set completely unrealistic objectives. Overcome burnout in 1 or 2 months sharp? Easier said than done!

So I think I’m going to stream for my own pleasure and go back to my first loves (reviewing anime and videogames) to try to rekindle the flame. It will be more efficient to find motivation than force myself like the brute I am.

So yeah, my modest goal for 2025 is to at least be done with all digital rewards and slowly go back to creating video games.

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Hi everyone!

Happy April! This month, we’ve had the pleasure of having Lilybelle interning with us, and she drew this month’s header image of Hannah. Doesn’t she look enchanting? ^^ March was a busy month and April is shaping up to be even busier, so let’s get onto the news!

Today we’re adding Arcadia Fallen II emotes to our Discord! And, due to popular demand, everyone’s favorite flower mage Quinn now has one too! Thank you Lilybelle again for helping us get the server looking sharp for Spring, and we hope you’ll all enjoy using them!^^

Our little home office was starting to be rather cramped. A small army of Mime plushies will do that xD So, after much deliberation, we’re finally moving into a bigger space. We’ll share pictures of our new office once we get everything settled. Wish us luck heaving our heavy desks down the stairs! x,D

This month, Elias got a few new sprites and we also drew the background for the Mender Ward where you might find him helping accident-prone students get patched up.

One aspect of game development you might be less familiar with is how we approach showcase season. We want as many people as possible to hear about Arcadia Fallen II, and online showcases are a great way to reach our future players.

Showcase season is coming up, but a few months in advance we busy ourselves writing applications and preparing trailers. We're right in the middle of that process now, and we'll let you know which showcases we make it into. Fingers crossed for us and for everyone else going through the same process right now!^^

Thank you so much for following our journey! And we’ll see you in May for another DevLog!

Cheers!

- The Galdra Team

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Unleashed

Release date (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Online) English: April 1st, 2025

"I had always joked about wanting a sugar daddy… until a mutual friend set me up with one. Sebastian is thoughtful, contemplative, and a little bit on the nerdy side. Oh, and he's deliciously kinky. When we meet for the first time—when we first negotiate—I can already tell this is going to become something much more than a meet-cute.  After all, I've always wanted to be someone's pet project~ 

Unleashed is an NSFW erotic romance sim about developing a new and unexpected relationship and friendship based in healthy, consensual and intimate BDSM."

This is a free, 18+ game with sexual content created by olivia/lunamakaio for NaNoRenO 2025! You can download it here.

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Time Travel Romance Visual Novel, The Retrospection of Tomorrow is Now on Kickstarter

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Outfit vote

Hello everyone, one of our lovely backer, cannot decide which outfit she favors, so let's help her. 👀

Vote for your favorite!

For the anecdote, pant type of outfits (and also non-red ones) were not originally planned for Imperial Grace, but our awesome backers made such creative and nice propositions, we decided to include a bit more diversity in our outfits and I love to see the result 😊

Also if you wanna actually wear it in game when we release, don't hesitate to wishlist us ~

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:3 is hereditary.....

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I don't think I posted these here yet? So here are some screenshots from Out of the Ocean! It's a cute slice of life yuri VN I've been working on recently with a mermaid love interest! Yay \o/ This VN will actually have two girls you can date: the cute mermaid Nerine (in the screenshot at the top) and your elegant, wealthy classmate, Misuzu (in the screenshot at the bottom). An ebi yuri VN with choices and multiple love interests? No way....... You can wishlist the VN on Steam here if you're interested!!!

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We're pleased to announce that A Tithe in Blood will be releasing on June 16th of this year - mark your calendars!

On top of that, the updated demo of the game, featuring full Japanese voice acting & translation, is now available to play on Steam!

Wishlist it on Steam

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Steam's 2025 Visual Novel Fest is abysmal.

for the past few years, perhaps as a way to appease the thousands of visual novel developers for the poor search abilities on Steam or perhaps to get more money from the thousands of porn games on the platform, Valve has hosted an annual Visual Novel Fest, a week-long event "promoting" visual novels on Steam. this event has always been questionably helpful to developers, but this year I believe takes the cake.

context: I'm a visual novel developer. I also help other VN studios with steam stuff. so I interface with steam's backend and these sorts of things.

first off, the requirements. if we go to their publicly available steamworks documentation, we can see the eligibility requirements here:

basically:

Reading is the primary gameplay

The player cannot walk around, and can typically only look around from a static position

There is no combat - if there is fighting, the gameplay loop is a small portion of the game. Multiple outcomes leading to different plot events is allowed.

makes sense, right? except some fantastic visual novels like of the Devil, Date Time, and others were rejected from the festival.

okay, so maybe they're being incredibly strict with their definition of a visual novel—

as usual from previous years, some games that are wildly not visual novels are included in the festival. well, there's probably a thousand or so games in the festival, so some will always slip through the cracks, but at least the rest of the festival is alright, right?

the main tabs for the festival up top are:

Featured

Browse Games

Browse Adult Only Games

Free to Play

Free Demos

Upcoming

every tab except for Free to Play and Upcoming only feature games that are for sale AND discounted. if your game is released and in the festival but not discounted, it is shown nowhere unless a steam user scrolls through the giant wall of "All" games (which is mostly filtered by popularity).

Free Demos? no, that only shows discounted games as well. (a lot of the games in this fest are daz 3d "visual novels")

well, at least there's an "Upcoming" tab to share visual novels that haven't been released, right? no. that big, main tab only has 1 widget - Popular Upcoming. for some reason, they didn't populate the tab with any other widgets like the others, which have sections for Horror, Otome, LGBT+, etc.

this also means that only 22 unreleased games are actually getting space in the entire festival.

now, there is one exception to this - if users scroll all the way down on any of the tabs, there's a "Browse Games" widget that lets them filter and see every game in the festival. but this is just the Steam search section, nothing groundbreaking.

but it does allows users to see all of the visual novels in the festival and not just the featured few - mine can only be seen if you do some filtering in this search section.

so this VN Fest has become nothing more than a VN Sale - I don't know why they don't just call it that. nowhere in the documentation did it say you have to discount games in order to be actually featured in it, and as usual indie devs are given the shortest end of the stick from Valve.

...all of this is to say....

go play visual novels on itchio

35k+ visual novels on itchio!! can you imagine playing even half that many? and so many of them are free and made lovingly by sickos. go find some wonderfully weird or creatively romantic visual novels to play today.

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Only 20h left to enjoy The Storyteller's Festival & get Chronotopia at a special discount! 😁

I’m very happy to announce that Chronotopia: Second Skin is joining the 2025 edition of The Storyteller's Festival hosted by @twoandahalfstudios to celebrate storytelling excellence. Thank you so much for the opportunity! 💖

You can get Chronotopia at a special discount (25%) & check all kinds of amazing games. Now would be a great time to leave a review if you’d like to support us ✨.

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The Silent Kingdom (Early Access)

Release date (Windows, Steam) English, Spanish and Japanese (early access): February 18th, 2025

"Place yourself in the role of Princess Erinys, whose kingdom has fallen under the yoke of a sorrowful curse. In order to save everything you have ever known and loved, you’ll have to stand against the entire world - and even defy the Goddess herself.

How much weight will a withered kingdom burden your soul? As a princess, will you be loved or hated, betrayer or betrayed? Will you seek comfort in the companionship of others, or will the demise of your kingdom seal your heart away forever?

A path of thorns is waiting. The manner in which you walk it is up to you."

A main character that's defined, yet mouldable to your taste. Princess Erinys is an established protagonist with both a background and a personality of her own, yet it's up to you to decide how she'll evolve and relate to the other characters. You can also select your own preferred name for her.

Roleplay experience. Apart from the most impactful decisions in the story, many dialogue interactions will also contain choices that merely focus on immersion. One answer is not necessarily better than another; it just offers different ways of interacting with others.

Romance. If you wish, you can explore romantic bonds with the two accompanying characters. Although not required in order to see the story to its completion, the relationships you forge with other characters will influence its development.

Turn-based battle system. While the story remains the most important element, combat will be indispensable to progress. The turn-based combat system offers three distinct and fully hand-animated characters.

Dark and emotional story. Will the princess question her own morality? Will narcissism and lust for power replace faithful bonds to become her most loyal companions? And from what prism will she judge the sins of others?

In English and Spanish (EU).  Choose the language from the options menu.

This is a commercial otome RPG by Lucky Cat! This early access version contains the prologue and chapter 1. You can buy it or try the demo on Steam here! You can also download the demo on itch.io.

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Made Marion Development Update, February 2025

Festival Season Continues!

As I mentioned last month, we're in a variety of Steam festivals this Feb-Mar. The first one is the Storyteller's Festival, which is on now!

I got a few buddies and our faithful first reader/editor Edhie together for a blind playthrough of the first few scenes. Take a peek and learn a bit about John's impish side and, um, giant swords. This is pre-beta footage, so rest assured that the couple of bugs that made it into this stream will be fixed before release! (Today. They will be fixed today.)

John Route Progress

So the problem with deadlines when you're chronically ill is that, yeah, chronic illness. I wasn't able to finish John Chapter 1 by mid-February as I'd hoped (part of that was taking the time needed to code in the material for the festival stream, but hey, that coding had to happen sooner or later), but I am still truckin'!  I was having brain issues and had to do a lot of re-writing.  I will continue working and hope to be moving on to Chapter 2 ASAP.

That's it for this month, next month we should have some previews of the ongoing (improved from original plan, with full movie animation) lore intro!

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It's day 2 of The Storytellers Festival!

Haven't gotten a taste of what's happening at Castle Dracula yet? Or maybe you have and you want to sink your teeth into something else? Either way, check out the festival 🖤🦇

The Storyteller's Festival 2025 (Steam)

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With so many great games showcased in #TheStorytellersFestival this year, where do you look next?

Perhaps these Stories of Love & Heartbreak will pique your interest! 💖💔

We've joined together with some of our fellow indie visual novel developers to bring you a shortlist of our games for your next adventure!

Asphodelium by @arimiadev: A melancholic slice-of-life boys love visual novel about your past confronting you.

Summer at the Edge of the Universe by @vnstudioelan: An LGBT+ yuri solarpunk adventure about the trip of a lifetime through the cosmos.

A Tithe in Blood by @vnstudioelan: A dark yuri romance story about modern magic mixing with old mysteries.

Reanimation Scheme by @windchimesgames: An otome visual novel. Play as a necromancer, fail to summon the spirits of the dead, unravel mysteries — and maybe fall in love!

Emberfate by @windchimesgames: An immersive MMORPG-simulation chatroom based romance / otome visual novel. You are the leader of a raiding guild in the world's hottest MMORPG, Emberfate. Will you lead your guild to success in the newest raid — and perhaps find love along the way among your guildmates?

Imperial Grace by @synstoria: A visual novel about romance, medieval intrigue, and political strategy. Will you rule with your head, or your heart?

If something with more intrigue is your speed, we've also got some Whodunits & Thrillers to whet your palate: 🔍👀

Fearbonding by @nightasobu: A Yandere x Demon BL Horror Visual Novel.

Reanimation Scheme by @windchimesgames (See above!)

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon by @arimiadev: A young woman finds herself in the middle of a mystery when her business partner is found dead in this Victorian vampire otome visual novel.

Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery by @vnstudioelan: A romantic thriller starring a married couple of former Magical Girls. Along with and old friend and a new protégé, they'll undertake one last journey to free Chicago from the terrifying grip of a mysterious serial killer.

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I’m very happy to announce that Chronotopia: Second Skin is joining the 2025 edition of The Storyteller's Festival hosted by @twoandahalfstudios to celebrate storytelling excellence. Thank you so much for the opportunity! 💖

You can get Chronotopia at a special discount (25%) & check all kinds of amazing games. Now would be a great time to leave a review if you’d like to support us ✨.

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Magical Warrior Diamond Heart is part of The Storyteller's Festival hosted by @twoandahalfstudios ! A celebration of 400+ narrative games on steam 🫶🏽

✨Give it a wishlist if you haven't already, and check out all the other fantastic narrative games on display