With Steam's Scream Fest in full swing now and SHINRAI being featured in it, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide another quick update on our next murder mystery GENBA no Kizuna. In case you haven't seen it yet, the store page for it has already been published, so be sure to check it out in order to get a good idea what it's going to be about, and maybe even add it to your wishlist if you want to get notified the moment it's out!

Speaking of the moment it's out, the release is actually the primary topic we'd like to address here, so let's jump straight into it and get the bad news out of the way first:

If you've seen the previous news post or checked out the store page before, you'll notice that the release date has changed. There's still too much left to do to fully wrap up before the end of the year, so as unfortunate as it may be, the date had to be set to 2024 after all.

The good news is that we are getting closer and closer to the end of the project. Script-wise, we are currently tackling the final chapter, the soundtrack is fully composed, and even when it comes to the major art assets, the vast majority of them is taken care of now!

We're terribly sorry about yet another delay, but we obviously don't want to rush anything on the final stretch and risk the conclusion of the project not being satisfying, so yeah... a little while longer it is.

These aren't the kinda spooky horror news we wanted to share, but we hope you'll understand and grant us a little more of your patience (the amount of which you've shown up till now, we are already deeply grateful for). Believe us, no one's more eager to finally see this project up for sale than us!

Now, before we come to a close, there's one more thing I wanted to share with you. The guys over at Fuwanovel asked us for an interview recently (the first one we've ever given), so if you're curious to learn more about us, how we got started with VN development, our inspirations, some behind-the-scenes info on SHINRAI, some more tidbits about GENBA and much more, you can check it out here[fuwanovel.net].

Well, that's about it! Remember, we're doing weekly updates on our website every Saturday[gosatsu.com], in case you want to stay up-to-date with development, but we'll also make another announcement post here, once we have something major to share.

Until next time, please take care and, of course, have a very spooky Halloween ~°w°~

As you may have already seen, Steam's Visual Novel Fest has just begun!

For an entire week, the spotlight shines on our personal favorite medium of interactive storytelling, which is why we thought that it's a good time to post a little update again, especially given that the anniversary of SHINRAI's release is also coming up later this month!

First of all, in case you haven't seen it yet (the cross promo post seems to have gotten lost in the Steam ether of oblivion), the store page for our next murder mystery GENBA no Kizuna is up, featuring a trailer, some screenshots, a description and a feature list, which will hopefully give you a good idea as to what you can expect from it! And if you think it's something you'd enjoy delving into once it's out, be sure to add it to your wishlists! It'll only take one click, but provide us with tons of joy!

Speaking of GENBA coming out, though, we sadly still can't give you an exact release date yet, but as you can see from the store page, it's scheduled to finally be finished this year!

So yes, at long last, the finish line is visible on the horizon!

We will share more info and some new glimpses at the later parts of the game very soon, so keep an eye on our website[gosatsu.com] and social medias if you're curious!

We've said this a couple of times before, but want to once again take the opportunity to apologize for the delays and also to thank you all for your support and patience. It's been quite the development journey and it's so hard to believe that it has seriously been this long since SHINRAI's release... BUT! That makes us all the more excited to finally share our next project! Although it's technically neither prequel nor sequel, it still has strong ties to SHINRAI and will finally shed light on some of its unanswered questions! And who knows? Maybe you'll get to see some familiar faces again as well...

Anyway, there is one other thing we would like to direct your attention to before we come to a close!

For the past two months, we have been building something together with a number of other fellow mystery developers, namely... a little community!

Its aim is for both mystery developers and mystery players to come together and help each other in their endeavors of creating their own mystery games or simply finding new ones to enjoy! So if that sounds like a fun idea to you, feel free to join the dedicated Discord server and hang out with us[discord.gg]!

You can also find more information here[mysterygamedev.com]!

Now, with all of that said, if you do decide to spend this week playing some visual novels, we hope that you'll have a fun time doing so! And if it's a mystery one that strikes your fancy in particular, maybe leave a recommendation for others over on the Mystery Gamedev Discord ;3

That's right, at long last, the store page for our next murder mystery visual novel is finally live! You can check out the trailer, a bunch of new screenshots and an updated feature list which now more closely reflects what you can expect in the final product.

Currently, we're still busy with the penultimate chapter, so we don't feel confident enough to throw out an exact release date yet, but as you can see on its store page, we are definitely intending to release GENBA no Kizuna later this year, so be sure to add it to your wishlists to get informed when it becomes available!

For more details on our plans, you can check out this blog post on our website[gosatsu.com]. We also keep posting weekly updates over there regarding the development process.

It's honestly been an unexpectedly long development journey and we're truly sorry for the wait. There are many reasons as to why it's been taking so long, from private life shenanigans to this project becoming a whole lot bigger than it was initially intended to be (it's waaay longer than SHINRAI now).

We will delve into the specifics once it's finally released. In the meantime, we'd like to thank you for your patience as well as your continued support and ask you to hold out just a little longer! Hopefully, you're still as excited to tackle this new murder case as we are to finally present it to you!

Now, since we've just finished this as well, we're gonna share our New Year's artwork with you guys here too, featuring none other than Shiku Jura, one of GENBA's four suspects:

We hope you've had an enjoyable and promising start into 2023 thus far and wish you only the best for the months ahead! Let's all work real hard to make this a very productive and successful year!

Today marks the 4th anniversary of SHINRAI's release and, in celebration of that, we've just released a little update for it!

Although no new major content (such as additional scenes or diary entries) has been added, this update applies a number of tweaks and changes to the game, which will definitely provide a better experience. From simple bugfixes and typo eradication to the addition of new music tracks, as well as a much desired checkpoint system for the final chapter.

But let's have a closer look at the changelog, shall we?

(Note: It's advised to start a new game after updating, as the use of old save files might cause glitches)

• General Fixes: A number of minor issues such as typos, bugs and visual errors have been fixed.
  
• GUI Adjustments: The textbox design has been updated to better fit with the rest of the GUI.
  
• Sound Adjustments: With the help of our new composer, Solo Acapello, we've tackled a number of sound-related issues. BGM/SFX loops are now seamless, the volume for various sounds has been adjusted, and some have even been redone.
  
• Music Addition: Since some players found the occasional (rather long) stretches of silence to be awkward, new ambience and music tracks have been added to fill the auditory void. In total, there are four new BGMs, one of them being a variation of an already existing track, whereas the other three are completely original compositions.
  
  (If you've bought the OST on Steam, they've been added to it through an update)
  
  
• Notebook Update: The text size for the notebook content has been slightly increased (yes, it was even smaller before). As a result, all "Diary", "Trivia" and "Clues & Evidence" entries, as well as all character profiles have been revised. In some instances, new tidbits of information have been added, along with references to our new projects. Since some players have gotten confused by it, the "DD/MM/YYYY"-format for D.O.B. information has been changed, as well.
  
• Script Changes: A bunch of dialogues and narration segments have been revised for better readability and structure, as well as to make them more concise and thus improve the pacing a little. Some parts have even been rewritten, while others were elaborated on. This mostly affects the first two chapters and the game's extra content.
  
• Checkpoint System: If you pick the wrong culprit and end up getting a bad end, you will now get a choice between going to the title screen, or returning to an automatic checkpoint that will let you try again. Thus, players who don't save often or overwrite their save files a lot will not run the risk of locking themselves into a bad end anymore.
  
• Code Cleanup: Natsu has taken the time to optimize the game's script, getting rid of thousands of unnecessary lines of code. Honestly, this is something that you, as a player, won't notice. Nevertheless, it makes us feel pretty good!

There are a number of reasons as to why we've decided to update SHINRAI now, four years after its release. Some of the changes are tied to something we can't quite divulge yet, but it will be unveiled within the next two months.

What I can already tell you, however, is that this was also done in preparation for our next two projects:
GENBA no Kizuna[gosatsu.com] and SHINRAI - Withering Without Hope[gosatsu.com].

As some of you may know, SHINRAI was originally written as a short novel in 2011, never intended to be a VN until 2013. So it's actually been nine years since its initial conception, and ideas for a sequel have been gathered ever since.

Naturally, these ideas have greatly evolved over time, especially during these past four years, while we've been busily working on GENBA and WWH. Thus, I wanted to take the opportunity to update SHINRAI with these developments in mind.

There is also the fact that, back in 2016, when I decided to add some extra content to the game, hinting towards the sequel, it was done pretty much last minute. As a result, it ended up being a little rushed, which is probably why we've found most of the typos in there. Some minor things also didn't quite make a lot of sense, so I wanted to fix that as well.

If you’ve already beaten the game, there may not be enough new stuff here for another full playthrough, but you might at least want to check some of the extra content again, particularly Kamen‘s secret diary entry. She now elaborates more on her feelings towards a certain someone, which will naturally play a big part in the sequel.

So, how is development going on our next project anyway, you may wonder...?

Well, we've made some major progress on GENBA this year, which is still scheduled to be released first. Although it chronologically takes place before SHINRAI, it further sets up WWH by introducing characters, themes, relationships and important plot points.

As of right now, I don't want to make any promises. I can tell you for sure that it won't be out this year, but we have a release date for it in mind, which we'd really like to meet. So keep your eyes peeled for more information towards the end of the year, I guess!

I will talk more about this update, the BBD changes, GENBA's and WWH's development, as well as our plans for the upcoming months in our next weekly blog post. However, before this one gets any longer, I should better wrap it up.

We know that a lot of you guys are eagerly awaiting our next projects and we're really sorry for the long wait. Which is why we appreciate your patience and continued support all the more! Believe me, no one wants to finish these games more than we do!

It's been four years now, and we still receive messages of new and old players on a regular basis, telling us how much they enjoyed our little murder mystery and that they're looking forward to what's next. However, even though we'd love to release something ASAP, we also don't want to disappoint you. So, while it is taking quite some time, please rest assured that we keep working as hard as we can to deliver something that will live up to your expectations!

We're sincerely grateful for all the positive feedback and reviews, the kind comments and messages, and the exorbitant amounts of motivation your support has supplied us with over these past four years!
As developers, we couldn't ask for more ːspumpkinː

Today is the anniversary of SHINRAI's release and we celebrate it by providing you with a fresh new look at our new project, the murder mystery visual novel GENBA no Kizuna!

We have released an extended demo, which now introduces all of our main characters and offers some basic details about the case. The playtime lies somewhere between 2 - 3 hours, depending on your reading speed and how thorough you are.

For more information about the project, please check out our website:
http://gosatsu.com/genba/

For now, this demo is only available through external means, but will eventually be published on Steam as well. Content-wise, it is the final demo we will provide before the full release, but we want to gather some feedback and polish the experience a bit more, before we put it up here.

I'd also like to get a better idea of when the full release is likely going to happen.
(Unfortunately, we're still just a team of two people, so it's a little hard to tell... sorry "orz)

If you are curious about our demo, you can download it on the page linked above, or alternatively, on itch.io: https://gosatsuvns.itch.io/genba

If you wish to support development of this project, please consider checking out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gosatsuvns

And if you'd like to provide us with some feedback, either use the community hub here on Steam, post in the comments down below, or hang out with us on Discord[discordapp.com]!

Now, to wrap this up, here's this year's anniversary artwork. As voted by our patrons, SHINRAI's Kamen has dressed up in the GENBA police uniform and is ready to arrest you!

Thank you so much for reading and for your continued support!

If you've visited our website or any of our social media accounts over the past few months, this probably isn't anything new to you. However, we've been hard at work on two new projects, one of which has finally reached a stage where we can share a little more than just words and pictures!

You can now download a demo for our next murder mystery visual novel GENBA no Kizuna and generally learn more about it here: http://gosatsu.com/genba/

The demo is pretty short and only serves to give you an early idea of the feel and direction of our newest project (and hopefully, it will also provide us with some useful feedback).

If you do decide to check it out, please let us know what you think about it!
We're naturally open to suggestions as well!

Although it can be seen as more of a spin-off, GENBA does have quite a few connections to SHINRAI and will eventually tie into its actual sequel as well. So if you have enjoyed our previous work, you will hopefully enjoy this one, too.

Also, in case you are interested in supporting development of this title and get early looks at the script, characters, assets and much more in return, please consider checking out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gosatsuvns

With that said, we would like to once again give a huge thank you to everyone who decided to give SHINRAI a chance, and an even bigger one to those who went out of their way to even provide us with feedback. We know we have been repeating this ever since the very beginning, but it truly means a lot to us. We definitely took your feedback to heart and very much appreciate your support. Seriously, thank you so much for everything!

Seeing as it's been almost half a year since the last one, we've decided that another news post is in order!

As always, we'd first like to thank everyone who has bought SHINRAI since then, recommended it to others, or left us with their impressions in the form of comments, direct messages or even reviews. We're truly grateful, especially for feedback, as it helps a lot with the development of future titles!

Speaking of which, we are actually working on two new projects at the moment. If you've been following us on social media, you might have even seen that we have finally started to reveal more about one of them! If you're curious, please head over to our new website to learn more:

http://gosatsu.com/

As of right now, you will only find teaser pages, but more information will be added soon.

From now on, you will also find our weekly blog posts there (posted every Saturday), which will talk about the development process and give occasional sneak peeks at what we are working on.

Since both projects are currently still in the earlier stages of development, we would like to once again encourage you to give us your feedback. What did you like about SHINRAI? What did bother you? Please let us know, so that we can improve our next visual novel accordingly!

Your input really matters to us and, right now, we're still a long way off from reaching a point where significant changes will become difficult. So please use your chance to voice your opinions now!

With that said, if you've gotten/are planning to get SHINRAI during the current summer sale, we hope that you will enjoy it! And we also hope that you'll be having an enjoyable summer in general, unlike these two...

Take care!

With 2017 starting, I thought it's about time for another little post here. Mainly to once again say thank you to all of you who have decided to give SHINRAI a chance. If you have bought it during the recent Winter sale, we truly hope that it offered you some enjoyable Holidays and a fun start into the new year!

If you have already finished it, please consider leaving us some feedback. You can do so either here or in the community hub's discussions thread, specifically created for this purpose. Or, if you find the time, we'd be even more delighted about a review. Those really help us out a lot!

I've said it before but I'll say it again, because this is very important to us:

Your feedback and comments are valued and very much appreciated. This was our first visual novel project and we still have a lot to learn. As we continue working on new projects, we are aiming to improve ourselves, so that we can provide better and more fun experiences in the future. So, whether you really enjoyed one aspect of our VN or rather disliked another, please let us know! That way, we will know what to keep, what to ditch and what to improve.

We have already begun work on new projects and will share more details on those in the coming months. By the time we can make official announcements, we will hopefully have our own website running. Until then, you can still check out our blog[gosatsuvns.tumblr.com] for weekly updates.

You can learn a bit more about what you can expect in the future in the New Year's post.

With that said, we would like to once again thank you for your support and ask you to please keep supporting us throughout 2017 as well! And, of course, we would like to wish all of you a Happy New Year! Hopefully, it will be a great one for you!

Until next time, take care!

It’s been a month now since SHINRAI's release, so I thought it’s time for a little post here. First of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has decided to give SHINRAI a try. I hope that you have enjoyed it or are still enjoying it, in case you have bought it just recently!

I would also like to give an even bigger thanks to those who went through the trouble of even giving us some feedback, whether it'd be in the form of simple comments or lengthy reviews. It is greatly appreciated and really helps us out a lot!

We naturally want to improve ourselves in future projects, so this feedback is very valuable to us. If you’d like to add to it, feel free to contact us whichever way you prefer. You can leave a comment here, post into the discussions section of our community hub, or contact us via any of the following social media pages: Twitter, Facebook[www.facebook.com], YouTube.

I will only use Steam announcements for bigger news, but we also have a developer’s blog on Tumblr[gosatsuvns.tumblr.com], where you’ll be able to read little updates in-between. I’ve been doing weekly blog posts there every Saturday for two years now, and I certainly don't intend to stop.

In the most recent posts, I’ve been talking about the feedback we have gotten so far, what we have learned from it, and what we are planning to improve upon in the future. I will also be talking some more about the development process and, eventually, about our next project (although it will still be a while until we can officially announce anything).

If you're curious about those kinds of things, please check it out. We are going to make an actual website in the near future, but for now, this blog will have to suffice for a little bit longer I'm afraid.

I guess that's about it. If you have any questions, don't be shy to ask!
You can also find us on our private Twitter accounts @Prismanga and @GospelDS (that's me).

Please take care and enjoy the rest of your day!