Monthly Round-up: August 2025

More romance VN parties!

Studio Élan is kindly hosting an event open to all romance-focused visual novels at the end of September, and we’re delighted to say we’ll be participating! As always, we whole-heartedly recommend folks check out these events, because the world of romance VNs is vast and beautiful ❤️

We’ve got merch

If you’re looking to get stickers, the Chapter Two announcement image as a poster, or a t-shirt to show your devotion to Cirrus, we are officially open for business! Cajsa is also officially selling the soundtrack for Obscura, please give it a look here.

Art progress

I can’t share any images this time without spoiling the surprise (and we all know you’re not supposed to spoil the surprise in Obscura ;3), but Mugi has begun work on the CGs for Francesco’s route, and they are gorgeous. She is also hard at work putting together the new backgrounds Francesco is gonna need, since he refuses to sit still and not explore everything in the marketplace.

Writing progress

Here’s where the news becomes mixed, unfortunately. On my side of the raccoon den, August was very, very busy with non-Obscura work. I had a lot of fun with that work, but it was sad to be away from my boys for so long. Things have simmered down a lot now, thank goodness, though I know I’ll be in another Work Vortex come spring.

On the bright side, I have finished the very first step of pre-production for Chapter Three: the ✨powerpoints✨. To explain as briefly as possible: when drafting the overarching story beats, I write the story in bullet point format, with each slide being a “scene” (as in a chunk of text that all shares the same goal, tone, or setting). Here’s what a slide from Keir’s second chapter looks like (with a mild spoiler warning for anyone who hasn’t played it).

Steam post imageIf I had to guess, Chapter One would have had ~5 slides to sum things up. Both of my Chapter Twos used 10 slides. Both Chapter Threes have 15 slides, so there’s definitely a lot of shenanigans planned!

On Tobi’s side of the raccoon den, she’s been through a few upheavals that means she needs to put down the pen for a while. She’s okay, but when working on Obscura becomes a point of stress instead of something we enjoy doing, that means it’s time to take a break. We’re so grateful to everyone who follows us for being so supportive, even reminding us to make sure we’re not working too hard. It’s hard to express through the medium of text, but the gratitude we feel for you all is absolutely overwhelming.

Everyone else is continuing their work on Francesco’s second chapter while Tobi rests, and we’re 100% behind her taking that break until she feels ready to start writing again.❤️

And that’s what happened to us in August. I’m looking forward to an extremely normal and boring September for all of us (cross your fingers!!), and also to enjoy all the eyecandy that’s bound to come our way in the Fall in Love Fest 👀Aren’t romance VNs the best?

Lots of love,

The Rotten Raccoons Team 💙🦝