Life as Designed, the romance and coming-of-age story featuring Cho Fukuda, is now available for purchase!
Cho Fukuda has spent much of her adult life as a freelance costume designer, to the point that she feels like she's been typecast. Her motivation to work on projects that all feel the same flounders until she ends up botching a commission, leaving her with no leads and the feeling that she's made a mistake with her life. With Cho out of a job for the time being, she and her girlfriend will soon have to explore how their love will adjust to this new challenge.
Taking place about ten years after the events of Eldritch Academy, this visual novel continues the story of Cho Fukuda and her friends Akomi Miyazaki, Kagami Nakayama, and Yue Ishikami. (Some knowledge of Eldritch Academy is recommended, but not required to understand this story.) This game explores how the direction of Cho's life might change depending on who is her pillar of support, including an unlockable bonus route that depicts a relationship not seen in Eldritch Academy. Each of the three main routes has two endings, with neither of them being more or less valid than the other.
Life as Designed will release on XX XX!
Life as Designed, the romance and coming-of-age story featuring Cho Fukuda, will be releasing on XX XX! The planned price is $6 USD or the converted equivalent.
Life as Designed Demo Released + Other News
The demo version of Life as Designed is now available for download! In this demo, you can play through the first three scenes of each of the main routes.
Also, the original announcement for the demo on my blog featured a few other announcements as well, which you can find here. In particular, the post introduces Mysteries of Akiramine, a series of short stories that focuses on Shizuka Hirose (from Shireishi and Eldritch University).
I hope everyone enjoys the demo! Which character's story will you try first?
Version 3 Hotfix Update (Steam Only)
A small update has been made to Eldritch Academy's v3 release. Changes to the way the script tracks story completion in v3 made the achievement "Director's Tenacity" difficult to unlock. This hotfix should make it possible to unlock this achievement in v3. In addition, the conditions for the achievement should now be checked in additional situations. (Previously, it only checked on game start. Now, it will also check upon reaching the end of the credits of most endings.)
Version 3 Hotfix Update
A small update has been made to Eldritch Academy's v3 release. Previously, error messages would sometimes appear at the edge of the screen in some situations. This hotfix should remove most (if not all) of these messages.
Eldritch Academy v3 Release
The long road to version 3 is over! With this update, Eldritch Academy can now be played with the new art, music, and script. Some highlights of the changes:
Character and event art redrawn to match the style of Eldritch University
Custom music in the same style as Eldritch University
UI adapted from Eldritch University and a widescreen aspect ratio
Improvements to the script, particularly in removing filler/duplicate scenes and making the choices feel more organic
(More information on the changes can be found in some of the devlogs from during the process.)
Note that your save games from previous builds will NOT be compatible with the new version! (Not even the v3 beta's saves are safe.) The underlying code has changed too much to promise that old saves will load, so you will have to start a new game to see the changes. However, a lot of the persistent data (particularly ending completions) should carry over.
Still want to try the old versions? They will remain available for now, accessible in the following ways:
Steam: Open the "Betas" tab and select the desired version. The game will then "update" to that version.
itch.io: Download the ZIP or APK for the desired version and re-install.
I hope that this update is fun for both new and returning players, so let me know what you think! And if there are any bugs, let me know and I'll look into patch fixes when I get the time. Thank you for supporting Eldritch Academy!
Preparation for v3: Launch Settings
As part of preparation for the v3 update, the launcher settings have been modified to use the new filenames. However, this means that the game may give an error when trying to quickly launch it from the Steam Library shortcuts.
To open the game when trying to play v1 (original) or v2 (current), there is an alternate launch option that is available when launching the game from the main library page or the collections page. Make sure to select "(v1/v2)" as your launch option from the menu that appears. (If you use shortcuts, you may need to update your shortcuts.)
Once v3 releases, both launch options will remain available, with the default option launching v3+ and the alternate option launching v1/v2.
Nightshade Games Survey
In order to gauge what level of interest there might be in potential features and such for the games set in the Nightshade universe, I've put together a short survey. The survey can be found here:
Testing for this build went a lot smoother than I expected it to (thus the quick turnaround to release), but it's still possible that some bugs or issues made it through. If you notice any issues (outside of the unimplemented content in Act 4 and the endings), be sure to make note of them in the discussion forum.
Speaking of testing, the one difficulty that I did have during testing was getting the Steam client to download the proper build. This is a more involved process than I recall it being, so I'll give some steps to follow if simply switching the beta branch isn't working:
Open the game's properties in the library and go to the Betas tab.
Select "v3_beta" (or none to return to the current default build)
Uninstall the game and close the Steam client.
Re-open the Steam client and navigate to the game in the library view. Make sure it shows [v3_beta] in the listing. (Or nothing if returning to the default build.)
Re-install the game. The file size should be slightly different than the other build. (You can also check the build ID number in the game properties.)
Hopefully this has to do with my network connection and not everyone has to do these steps, but I figured I'd share this advice in advance.
(As a side note, an artifact of me trying to configure the launch options for the different builds means that you'll see two launch options for the beta. Only the default one works; the second one is for the old name of the executable.)
If there are any issues with getting the beta to work, let me know and I'll take a look. Otherwise, I hope people enjoy getting to see most of the game's v3 update. I'll probably include a bit more fanfare when the final version of v3 is ready to go, so look forward to the full update. Have fun!
Eldritch Academy v3 Beta Announcement
Last year, I announced that Eldritch Academy was getting a major update for Version 3. After a lot of on-and-off work, that update is nearing completion. In the meantime, I figured it was time to give a better look at the update while the last chunk is implemented. For that reason, I'm planning to make a beta branch for the game here on Steam once I've double-checked the common route for any major bugs or issues.
What's in the Version 3 Beta?
The current plan is to have the full game be available in the beta, though some scenes will not have finalized art implementation and final script checks. In general, this is the breakdown:
Prologue/Act 1/Act 2/Act 3: Implemented
Act 4/Epilogue: Art not implemented, script under review
Aftermath stories (standalone): Implemented
Bonus Features: Implemented
If there are any major issues in the "implemented" scenes and features in the beta, bug reports would be very helpful in removing these issues from the final v3 build.
How do I access the beta?
When the beta is uploaded, you will be able to switch to the beta by:
Right-clicking on Eldritch Academy in your library and selecting Properties
Navigate to the Betas tab
Select the v3 beta branch and apply your selection
After this, the game will replace the files from v2 with the v3 beta.
Once the final version is out, you may need to opt out of the beta build to download it. (Needs comfirmation.) This is the same process, but choosing to not opt into any beta builds.
When will this beta be available?
I'd like to do some final checks on the existing content before uploading the beta, so I'd say the beta will be uploaded within the next week or so. I'll delay the beta if something major comes up, but otherwise I'd like to get it out there so people can pick up on any issues that escaped my notice.
I'll post an announcement on the Eldritch Academy page once the beta is available, so keep an eye out if you'd like to try the beta.
