July 2020 Update (Patreon)

Another month, another monthly update. Two months in a row this time - that might be a new record! Let's see, what's happened these past few weeks...

For one, a couple days ago, Studio Coattails held a charity stream that included playthroughs of (some of) Highway Blossoms, Heart of the Woods, and their own project National Park Girls. I was a guest for the HB section and part of the HotW section, and I'd also like to give a shoutout to a few of our voice actresses - Allie, Teffi, Katie, and Lisa - who were also on the show. In total, Studio Coattails managed to raise around $2300 for Black Lives Matter and the Navajo Nation Covid-19 Relief Fund, so thank you sooo much to everyone who helped donate! To celebrate hitting the goal of $2000, We also did a preview of the first scene of Highway Blossoms: Next Exit.  If you missed that and wanna see it, you can check out the VOD on their Twitch Channel.

If you're still feeling charitable, we have a pair of digital postcards/wallpapers featuring Ruby from Lock and Key. All proceeds from the sale of these postcards is donated to The Okra Project, a program helping to feed black trans women. You can get the postcards on our itch.io or on our webstore.

HB: Next Exit itself is still cruising along smoothly. Scripting is about halfway done, with 9 out of 18 scenes completed! We've seen a lot of questions about the length of the DLC - it'll be approximately 40-50,000 words. Once we have a final wordcount, we'll share that.

Aside from scripting, we're waiting on one or two more backgrounds (plus some variants), one musical track, and most of the voice recording. We're making pretty good time, overall!

The Heart of the Woods voice acting update has just about been wrapped up. All of the files for all of the lines are recorded, edited, and in-game! Now we've just gotta do final checks and fixes, and it should be ready for release scheduling! This update has been a lot of work; more than we expected at the start, really. We'll do a more in-depth post about it when it's actually released, but suffice it to say, it's really exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel here. We think it's been worth the wait! Now that the new content is finished, we can also start printing the physical copies for Kickstarter and sending out those rewards.

Along with the Lock and Key update we posted a couple days ago, that's about all the news we have to share today. If you're looking to pick up either Heart of the Woods or Highway Blossoms, now is a great time, since they're on sale on Steam for the Summer Sale right now! The voice acting update to HotW will be totally free, so you can get the game now on discount and then play with voices when those are released soon.

Normally around this time of year, I'd be getting ready to head to Anime Expo, out in Los Angeles. It's always a good time, full of cool merch, cool friends you don't get to see most of the year, and cool new announcements. While it's disappointing that AX (and every other convention) won't be happening this year, hopefully there will still be a silver lining somewhere. Maybe next year we'll be able to see some of y'all at a convention, AX or otherwise.

Like always, thanks for your support! If you're going to be traveling or celebrating this weekend, please stay safe, and remember to wear a mask! Next update will be in a couple weeks. 'Til then, take care.

Josh