It was a slow month for development, but we were able to hit a couple of major milestones and make contributions to improving the project. We have big plans for 2024, which include reworking the prologue by February, testing an updated build, and early access near the end of the year. But for now, we'll tell you about what's already finished.
Visuals
After finishing the characters, we made a few more edits. For example, William let his beard go a bit. He was our first character to be drawn, and we were afraid to experiment with him. But now that our artist has already created some amazing bearded men, we've added a little spice to Will's look.
In January we just need to transfer the last sprites into the engine and then we can concentrate on everything else.
We haven't drawn any new illustrations in December, but we have improved the quality of three images that were included in the demo version, and prepared the New Year's art. In the next few days we will finally get our hands on the new merch to gift it to everyone who actively supported us in the past year.
Plot
We have an interesting updated prologue, in which from the very first scene the player will have a choice. Each choice will have consequences, and the plot will become richer and more varied. You will have to decide how to deal with the stranger in the park, how to respond to Martin in the cafe, whether to make Beatrice cold, cynical and aloof or attentive, kind and grateful.
Storybook
It turned out to be a real 1 million characters book. Margot has finished the last two stories in mid-December, and there will be no more. But the team still has a lot of work to do with editing and translation. We will continue to publish stories for our Patreon subscribers while we work on the project. Thank you all so much for your support.
Happy New Year!
We hope that you have celebrated the New Year well. Rest is also an important part of work, because it helps you to gain strength, take your mind off things, find new sources of inspiration and motivation. May all your wildest dreams come true in 2024! Ours is the release of the game in early access!
See you next month!
Report article: November 2023
Characters
We have finished working on the characters. There are twenty-one altogether, making a total of forty-seven poses with variations. The artist's work took two and a half years. The result is impressive and inspiring. This is a very important stage in the life of the project.
Locations
We continue working on the backgrounds. We have finished stylising another location. It was not originally part of our plans, but the story was so often based around the kitchen that we had to make one more background.
CG Arts
After a long pause of a few months, we have picked up a very good pace and are keeping it up. This month we drew a new sketch for an illustration, finished several lineworks and completed three renderings. In addition, we had time to spend on some old illustrations: we prepared a plan for revision and brought one of the arts to a common style.
Plot
We worked hard on the prologue of the game, adding a lot of choices in the first scenes. We plan to finish it in December, so that we can start testing and preparing for showcases in the new year. Now the beginning should feel more dynamic, more involvement is expected due to the branching of the story in the early stages.
Engine
We started uploading the revised text and found a lot of bugs in the latest version of the framework. We have already told you that in summer we completely rewrote the technical implementation of the project, reducing the weight of the future build, optimising it, improving interfaces and introducing new functionality. And we have almost fixed the bugs we found.
Storybook
During the month of November, we completed work on Martin's series. His story ends with him sending Beatrice a text message, which begins the events of the game. The prequel ends there.
But the work on the storybook is not yet complete. We've gone back a bit chronologically to finish the missing series on William's behalf. It's already half done. In December, we plan to fully finalise the new texts and go into editing.
This month, the author of the project experienced some personal hardships that made it necessary to seek additional investment so as not to sacrifice the project and the speed of development. Now we no longer have the luxury of an extra year to rethink the project. Now there is no right to delay, and we will launch the game into early access during 2024. It's not yet certain that we'll have enough money for voice acting, but we'll try our hardest.
See you next month!
Report article: October 2023
Art Department
We ran a recruitment to the Tenebrae team for two vacant positions: background styling and rendering multiple illustrations. The recruiting was run fairly quietly, but we got a lot of responses. The new artists we've welcomed into our warm family are already hard at work on new content for the game. Now there should be more development news, at least in the reports.
Characters
In two months we managed to draw all three poses for the awesome Young Crowley. The man is worthy of a separate romance line, but his heart belongs to a different lady, one that Beatrice won't be competing with.
We are currently in the process of drawing a new character and hope to show him in the next report.
Locations
During the silence we managed to put together 2 backgrounds in 3D and finish the stylisation for one of the locations that will be included in the early access release of the game. The artist quickly got up to speed with the tasks and at the first attempt was able to replicate the style of the previous artist, who stayed in our project as a consultant. An empty location consisting only of walls came to life thanks to the linework, new details and picturesque nature.
CG Arts
Work is boiling in this direction as well. The artists have prepared several sketches and lined them, and the new member of the team has managed to finish three renders. We started with the illustrations that will be included in the updated demo version of Tenebrae, where the inimitable Morris will be revealed in a whole new light.
Storybook
The work on the storybook is coming to an end very quickly. We hope to be able to print it as a physical book someday, for example as a reward on Kickstarter if we manage to prepare a campaign for it.
- In September, the series on behalf of Dante was completed. The themes raised were complex and traumatic. Whether love can heal this lost soul as you progress through the game is up to you. - In the same month, we wrapped up the stories in the later Beatrice series. It's been a pleasure writing about our favourite girl, describing in colour how she got the message, what her journey across Europe was like, and how she ended up in Vilnius in the arms of a handsome detective called Martin. - In October, work is well underway on Martin's series, in which the story is told from a new angle, through the eyes of the detective. Several shocking scenes are written, and the story comes to its most important climax with the sending of a key SMS about leads in the case of Beatrice, which starts our game. - Patreon subscribers, meanwhile, are reading Young's later series and enjoy the aesthetically pleasing behind-the-scenes episodes, spiced with notes of the desperation and brutality that necessarily go hand in hand with achieving the desired goals.
Programming
Not much work has been done on the technical part and preparation of documentation for testers, but we are not abandoning this area and are planning to try to test the new framework over the winter and prepare it for the spring and summer showcases.
See you next month!
Report article: August 2023
Unity
Work continued to be centred around technical solutions and challenges with Unity. We finished a voluminous job with character controllers, avatars, abandoned the inbuilt animator and wrote our own very concise solution that reduced the load of the app.
We also achieved the incredible result of compressing 4GB of content down to 500MB. This is not the final weight of the build, as voice acting, illustrations and a few characters will be added. But the final build is not expected to exceed 2GB when we add all the necessary content.
We've restored the game's main controllers, linking them to the spreadsheets where the game's texts and events are stored. These systems are now conveniently set up, giving us more flexibility when designing and scripting the game.
Experimented a bit with fonts to find a good option and integrate the styles into the engine. Slightly updated the textbox layout and moved the character's name outside of it.
A lot of routine work was done to get the content ready for use: characters, backgrounds, illustrations, effects, music, sounds, voicing. We hope to finish everything in the autumn, after which we'll delve into testing and reworking the script.
Right now we're working on the wardrobe screen. In the new demo you will have the opportunity to change the main character's clothes in special scenes. We've received this request often, and we're ready to implement this nice cosmetic mechanic.
Storybook
- Over the summer we managed to finish a late series on behalf of Jane Holland. The story turned out to be less grand, but very intense due to the emotional swings. Some of the questions find their answers, but give rise to new mysteries. - Work has already begun on a series on behalf of Dante. At the time of publishing this article, five stories are ready. The story takes on a scary manic undertone, spiced with the agony of choice, a series of mistakes and misunderstandings. A little more, and we get to the events when Beatrice went to search for her mother. - Two series have been heavily edited and translations have been prepared for publication. - All the stories in the late Friedrich series have been published for Patreon subscribers, and we are beginning to publish the late series on behalf of Young Crowley.
Visuals
- Finished assembling one of the backgrounds in 3D and started a new location. - Prepared some sketches for illustrations and finalised the lining. - Finished drawing Jane Holland and the first pose of Young Crowley. - We'll be opening up recruitment for additional artists to the team soon to speed things up.
Events
It's been a very busy summer, making it almost impossible for us to devote time to social media and news about the project. We've been participating in exhibitions at festivals dedicated to games, watching guests play our demo, analysing feedback and building development strategies.
It's an exciting journey ahead, and we see the project as more and more coherent, interesting and exciting because we know how to improve it. Wish us luck!
See you in a month in a new report!
Report article: June 2023
This month was dedicated to deep refactoring of our technical solutions, making code lighter, putting the project architecture in order, updating documentation, improving interface layout, responsiveness and clarity. Without further ado, take a look at what we have achieved:
Think of it as working almost from scratch. We ported the game to the latest version of Unity. Going from a 2020 version to a 2022 version as we faced the challenge of supporting Web, MAC, Android and IOS versions due to software getting outdated. It's a great topic for ironic jokes about how long game development takes.
The new version required fixes for all the scripts we had written, and some support assets were not updated in the shop where they were purchased. In the end, we only ported over the supporting parts, heavily modifying them, tweaking them, and writing new logic for them. This is an important step called "fixing previous mistakes".
The previous build was done "the way we can", and the new one is done "the right way", taking into account the idea of architecture and code cleanliness. In a couple of years it will seem to us that even this result is wrong, but it is definitely several steps ahead of our previous implementation. And it gives us a chance for easy porting.
Details
The disclaimer hasn't changed much, but we've added a logo pulsation animation and language selection. Hopefully one day, there will be more of them.
Our start menu lacked the game title and we couldn't fit it on the right side in the old layout. We had to move the buttons to the left and put the logo above them. At the same time, we added information about the amount of unlocked content and the build version. Currently it's just a dummy, but real numbers will appear soon. In addition, we replaced our favourite Lobster font because of common prejudices about it.
In the main game menu we have improved the quality of icons and smartphone images, changed the layout of buttons in the text box, and made softer animations. In order not to overload the interface with texts, but to make it as clear as possible, we added a special line with a description, which appears only when hovering over the buttons:
Some of the new features we promised: when your relationship with characters changes, you'll see a hint at the bottom right of the screen. This feature can be switched off in the settings if you want to keep the maximum intrigue in your playthrough.
The log screen has also become a bit more aesthetically pleasing. One of our subscribers helped the project out of the goodness of her heart by drawing the smartphone in vector graphics. The picture is now beautiful and scalable.
We have also added hints to this screen. At first we wanted to put information about relationships with characters somewhere in the smartphone. For example, in the list of contacts. But then we thought that the smartphone is not always available to the player in the story, so we decided to use the screen with logs, which can be opened at any moment of the game.
The system menu got new buttons and was designed in the same style as the start screen. There is also information about the build version and what frame is currently displayed on the screen. Useful for bug reports. Did you notice in the video that when you press some buttons, the sound of a heartbeat is played?
The settings menu is a complex system to which we devoted more than a week of daily work. We made two groups from the previous three: with system settings and sounds.
Changing the language does not require restarting the game, the display mode was flexible in the last version, but our settings were not intuitive. Now there are hints with a description of the settings. You can immediately see at what speed the text will be displayed on the screen, listen to the volume of not only music, but also sounds and voices.
New settings that were not available in the demo:
- The ability to skip all text in general or just the text you read. - Enabling and disabling hints about the change of relationship level with characters after making choices, answering phone calls or SMS.
A lot of work was done with the layout, choosing icons and the size of interface elements.And even more work was done with the quality of responsiveness of the interface. All settings are already directly linked to other elements that they affect.
Here's another screen that took a lot of time and effort. No, it's not molecular chemistry or a map of the underground. It's a story map. As you play, you can see what story block you're in, what percentage of content you've been able to unlock and read throughout your playthroughs, what endings exist, and which ones you've already unlocked.
Visuals
Despite the partial paralysis of the art department, we continue to work on characters and locations. We finished drawing the mother of our main character, the flamboyant Jane Holland.
The summer has been rich in interesting events, we participate in competitions and festivals, win prizes, receive both criticism and positive feedback. Our social media has become less busy, but we'll make up for it in autumn when we have fewer reasons to leave the house.
See you in the next progress report!
Report article: May 2023
It has not been an easy month for the Tenebrae team. We were swamped by the daily routine unrelated to the project. Important life events and various activities distracted us from our work. Several artists went on extended leaves for various reasons, and some were on sick leave unable to carry out their tasks. Undoubtedly, all this will have an impact later, closer to the game's early access release, when deadlines start to loom.
But despite all the challenges, we're still on track to meet our goal.
Characters
At the beginning of May we finished working on Walter's sprites. Patreon subscribers, to whom we have already shown the result, are lamenting the fact that a handsome older man is not a romantic interest in our game. But we do have a great series of stories on his behalf as additional content to the game.
Right now we're drawing sprites of Jane Holland – the mother of our protagonist. We've already shown her sketches on Patreon and hopefully in the next report we'll be able to show you the results.
Backgrounds
In May, we managed to put together a 3D model of the new background and furnish it beautifully. It's going to be a cosy kitchen, which we hadn't originally planned at all. But the plot inclines us to believe that this location is very important and we can't do without it.
Unfortunately, at the moment we don't know what to do with finalising the backgrounds. The drawing of the location with the gazebo has been put on hold and we don't know if the artist will be able to come back to work on the project.
Illustrations
At the very beginning of the article we mentioned the leaves and the problems with free time of our artists. This month we have written three technical tasks for the game illustrations, but we have only drawn three sketches for one series and started work on another one.
But look how cool it is!
This is the sketch for the illustration that will go into the updated Tenebrae demo.
Programming
After getting a lot of feedback about players wanting to see a more explicit difference between the heroine's thoughts and direct speech, we have implemented two ways:
Highlighting speech in bold.
A slight darkening of the text during internal dialogue.
We don't know yet which of these we will choose, but technically we like the second option better, as it doesn't affect the text size and outline in any way, and we won't have any problems with text-box overflow.
In the meantime, we've implemented a notification to the player about losing unsaved progress when exiting the game to the main menu. It was supposed to be included in the demo version, but something went wrong and we forgot to implement this feature in a hurry.
Storybook
All month we've been publishing one story per week, written on behalf of Friedrich, to Patreon subscribers. There's one last story left to come. His early series reveals a lot of lore and backstory, but there's no room for romantic experiences.
The early series of stories on behalf of little Beatrice has undergone revision and been translated. A couple of illustrations are already finished for publication in June.
The stories on Charlie's behalf have been completed. This series includes fourteen short stories in which the reader observes the emergence of a person in a difficult life situation.
A late series has begun from the perspective of Jane Holland. The focus group has already appreciated the ambiguity and unpredictability of the plot. They liked the metamorphosis that happens to the characters and the way they transform over the course of the narrative.
Apart from the storybook, we managed to progress with one scene in Silvan's storyline. It was a heavy scene emotionally. The screenwriter reread the lines hundreds of times, writing a little bit at a time. We try to work for quality rather than quantity, and avoid watering down the lines and engaging in graphomania. We strive to check every frame so that it carries something meaningful and important, not forgetting about the emotion and rhythm of the text.
Thank you for following our project. See you next month!
Report article: April 2023
This month tested us to the limit, and we made it through. We had to veer slightly off course to pay attention to issues that should have been addressed a long time ago. For example, creating a video presenting the voice acting of our characters. Be sure to take three minutes to watch and listen to the stunning voices to the suspenseful soundtrack.
Script
We had a big goal: to finish the script for Early Access during April. It seems we didn't achieve that. But we've done a lot of other work, also related to the script:
- A lot of clarifying lore details, character biographies, character motivations have been added to the documentation, and we've made it even more clear who was doing what along the timeline of the entire game's story. - With that in mind, we corrected a few details in the finished texts to make them as authentic as possible and completely rewrote one scene. • A flowchart has been drawn up for the rework of the central route that was included in the demo. We now have a precise work plan and checklists. - A Peace Convention document is in the works. It's an agreement between vampires, werewolves and the Inquisition. Sort of like our Constitution, only it regulates inclusive rules for a limited range of individuals. We're working on the text with lawyers to replicate the complex legislative style. - There are two and a half more scenes ready for Silvan's route. That's already 19 of the 26 planned.
Characters
Having finished with the pretty Lucie, we have started work on an older character. We won't tell you who it is yet, and we won't show much. Patreon subscribers will soon be able to enjoy the rest of Walter's sketches. By the way, an impressive collection of stories has been written on his behalf.
CG Arts
Without further ado, just look at this magical artwork. Can you guess whose storyline we're drawing? Silvan's, of course!
Backgrounds
Finally we have something to talk about in this section as well. We are back to work on our backgrounds. So now we are going to delight you with new sketches and finished artworks again. Right now we're working on the styling of the garden. It's a very important location for the story, which will go into early access.
So far it's just a sketch, we've outlined the shapes, the landscape, the rhythm of the trees, found the desired dynamics and tried it all on with the adaptive text-box.
Storybook
For Patreon subscribers, we've posted three stories from Friedrich's early story series this month. The narrative no longer leans towards romance and emotion because the Colonel is a very calculating, careful and concise man, speaking the language of numbers and facts.
During this time we've managed to finish Ryu's series, marking the end with the story, which has been a long time in the making. And Charlie's series has progressed by six stories. And there's a lot of emotion, traumatic experiences, internal conflicts and contradictions in it.
Other
One day it became unbearable to keep all the ideas for the next game, which would be called Tenebrae: Rebirth, in our heads, and we had to take the time to unload the RAM in our heads and put together a proper concept document. Immediately it became easier to live and work on Tenebrae.
Our team was given access to a handy task manager where we could organise, among other things, a database for the project. So we spent a few days moving the project over: moving all documentation, technical tasks, creating kanban-boards, distributing task lists, and setting up a very pleasant space for ourselves.
In the meantime, we wrote some technical tasks for artists, so that we didn't stop working on the game's visuals.
Don't forget to subscribe to our social media, add the game to your wishlist, be sure to play the demo and share your opinions with us. See you next month!
Report article: March 2023
We have prepared a roadmap, planning our objectives for the rest of the year. We would like to share this list with you and discuss it a little.
Roadmap
While actively creating content for early access, which includes working on the script, text, visuals and soundtrack, we are busy rethinking the demo, thanks to the feedback we have received from the audience. In the first half of the year we plan to improve the controls, add controller support and key reassignment to make the gameplay more comfortable for you.
Many players had difficulties with button designation in the game's interface and it was hard for newcomers to the genre to understand what function the settings perform. Therefore, we will add hints so that any player will get comprehensive information about the buttons and settings.
In the early version of the game, which we plan to release at the end of the year, you'll be able to complete two full storylines with William and Silvan, unlocking all the endings of the orange branch, and then we'll continue working on the blue, red and purple branches, which will reveal six more love interests.
And we also want to implement all the screens we didn't have enough time to prepare for the demo: gallery, smartphone customization, route map, so you get visual information about the available game content. And we'll add an interface for the reputation system, so you can keep track of your relationship level with the characters. This feature can be disabled in the game settings if you so desire.
Content
In March we resumed work on the script, prepared some of the visuals and approved the plan for a range of content, access to which has been blocked for a number of reasons. Let's take a closer look at each area.
The script
Work on the Silvan's route is well underway. We have about 25 scenes planned in the script, and we are now on the eighteenth. The plan is to finish the text during April, after which the material will be handed over to the script doctor, editor, proofreader and translator. If everything goes according to plan, we will start voice acting for the game's early access in the summer.
The demo version as you know it now will not be included in the early access. - Some scenes will be edited minimally, with just a couple of lines changed. - Other scenes, including those with dialogues, we plan to carefully refine to improve the characters' portrayal. - The description of some of the choices will be changed so as not to mislead the player. - The branching between the red and purple route will be significantly changed. This applies to the scenes that followed after the interactions with the musician Ryu. Some of the scenes will be rewritten and new ones will appear, including some with illustrations. - There are also plans to rework the "backstage" scenes on behalf of other characters. And a new one will be added to shed some light on the reason for Beatrice's arrest.
This was a hard decision for us to make, as it requires extra time, funding and rolls us back a bit. But we really want to better reveal characters like for example Morris, whose role in the club no one seems to have understood. We'll even get a little hint of his occupation when we start the illustrations in April.
The storybook
In March we managed to finish the stories of the real March cat, Morris. His series has turned out to be interesting and diverse: an indulgent lifestyle, fun, a meticulous revision of his father's club, an Oedipus complex, rivalry, betrayal in show business, a colourful past and a sudden weight of responsibility.
The next series is Charlie's story, which is no surprise. If you've played the demo, you've already noticed that these characters are close. They have a lot in common, but the details will only be revealed in their routes. And you will be able to experience their connection through a collection of stories.
Characters
We continue to work on Lucie's sprites. In the previous report we showed you this girl in full-face, and today we are already working on her 3/4 pose. In April we will finish working on her sprite from the side and then move on to the next character.
While we were reworking Silvan's route scenes, it was decided to remove one of the sprites from the plan. In the prototype, this character - we won't say which one yet - appeared in three scenes. We changed the script so that we could do with just one illustration. It took the load off the character designer, made the development a little cheaper, and the story only benefited from that.
Illustrations
There was a lot of wonderful romance between Silvan and Beatrice this month. Warm embraces, reverent kisses, tenderness and care in critical situations. We made an exact list of all the necessary art when we went back to the script. In April we will be compiling specifications for artists to bring this beauty to life.
See you next month!
Report article: February 2022
Development report for February 2023.
This month we have been working on the visuals and texts for additional content, making new useful connections, improving our own skills and carefully processing the feedback we received from the demo players. Next month we want to show you our road map, but for now let's see what we have so far.
Characters
We would like you to meet a girl named Lucie.
Maybe you will already notice a resemblance to one of our characters, at least because of the colour of her hair and eyes. We have an entire chapter dedicated to her in our storybook. We also talk a lot on our social networks about the fact that we plan to make DLC after the game is released, and there will be three new love lines. Lucie is one of the characters we're going to feature in the DLC.
We have already chosen the voice actress for this girl. The voice of Lucie will be Jenna Oliver.
Illustrations
There are many different situations in our story that we want to illustrate. We love each of them with all our hearts and we want you to love them too, to have a taste of them, to enjoy the good and bad moments, to be able to understand our characters. And we try very hard to do so.
- In February we wrote three technical tasks for the illustrations. - Corrected the shape of the nails in all the illustrations with Beatrice. - Ordered a real painting for International Women's Day with a portrait of little Beatrice. - Conducted some serious work on a sketch of a romantic scene. Transferred this sketch into line and handed it over to the artist for rendering. - Completed the rendering of two more images.
Look at that sweet bun we've ended up with!
Storybook
At the moment we have 12 chapters ready and 7 more are in the works. In a narrative that started somewhere in the early 1700s, we're already getting close to the 2000s. While working on the storybook, we have strengthened the background of the characters considerably and prepared five more love interests for the next game, which we will tackle after the release of Tenebrae and its DLC. The universe of this game is already living its own life, courteously offering us more and more stories we're eager to tell.
We almost finished publishing the Jane Holland series in February, and we've just completed a short story in which we tackled the important subject of intimacy between the two best friends. Our subscribers are about to be introduced to this erotic story.
In March, we will begin publishing the stories on behalf of Friedrich. And currently we've completed the stories told by a certain Walter, on which we've been working for three whole months.
See you in March!
Report article: February 2023
Development report for February 2023.
This month we have been working on the visuals and texts for additional content, making new useful connections, improving our own skills and carefully processing the feedback we received from the demo players. Next month we want to show you our road map, but for now let's see what we have so far.
Characters
We would like you to meet a girl named Lucie.
Maybe you will already notice a resemblance to one of our characters, at least because of the colour of her hair and eyes. We have an entire chapter dedicated to her in our storybook. We also talk a lot on our social networks about the fact that we plan to make DLC after the game is released, and there will be three new love lines. Lucie is one of the characters we're going to feature in the DLC.
We have already chosen the voice actress for this girl. The voice of Lucie will be Jenna Oliver.
Illustrations
There are many different situations in our story that we want to illustrate. We love each of them with all our hearts and we want you to love them too, to have a taste of them, to enjoy the good and bad moments, to be able to understand our characters. And we try very hard to do so.
- In February we wrote three technical tasks for the illustrations. - Corrected the shape of the nails in all the illustrations with Beatrice. - Ordered a real painting for International Women's Day with a portrait of little Beatrice. - Conducted some serious work on a sketch of a romantic scene. Transferred this sketch into line and handed it over to the artist for rendering. - Completed the rendering of two more images.
Look at that sweet bun we've ended up with!
Storybook
At the moment we have 12 chapters ready and 7 more are in the works. In a narrative that started somewhere in the early 1700s, we're already getting close to the 2000s. While working on the storybook, we have strengthened the background of the characters considerably and prepared five more love interests for the next game, which we will tackle after the release of Tenebrae and its DLC. The universe of this game is already living its own life, courteously offering us more and more stories we're eager to tell.
We almost finished publishing the Jane Holland series in February, and we've just completed a short story in which we tackled the important subject of intimacy between the two best friends. Our subscribers are about to be introduced to this erotic story.
In March, we will begin publishing the stories on behalf of Friedrich. And currently we've completed the stories told by a certain Walter, on which we've been working for three whole months.
