Hey People! How was your day? We have some news for you guys, I hope you will like it.

Interview on Twitch

Were joining Thomas from UndesJeux on April 17th at 8:30 PM Paris for a live interview in French on Twitch! Dive into behind-the-scenes stories about our visual novels, game dev secrets, and whats coming next. Got questions? Drop them in chatwell tell you everything! Plus, catch Thomass latest projects and past streams on YouTube! Head over to UndesJeux to watch his content and subscribe for updates. See you there! Here's the link to Thomas' channel: https://www.twitch.tv/undesjeux

Spawn Festival

We were thrilled to see you at Spawn Festival! Discussing our games, exchanging ideas with fellow developers, and testing out so many incredible projects was an absolute pleasure. From indie gems to mind-blowing VR experiences, the variety of games to explore was unmatched! What makes Spawn truly special is how it blends creativity and community. Meeting creators face-to-face, diving into panel discussions, and even catching those quirky video game-themed performances made the event unforgettable. And as always, Spawns flawless organization made everything seamless. Cant wait to reunite next year for more innovation, inspiration, and maybe a few friendly competition wins!
(Photo credits: Grgory Brandel & Cline Levain)

What have we been up to?

We have the first alpha version of our new game! After months of brainstorming, coding, and pixel-pushing, weve reached a milestone worth celebrating. Our friends and fellow creators from our co-working space are diving into the games early world. Their feedback will be gold as we polish mechanics, squash bugs, and refine every detail! Exciting News! Were buzzing with joy to introduce you to the brilliant Cline Robert-Nicoud, a dynamic force in the world of dance in Bordeaux who will be collaborating with us as a creative consultant on our upcoming game! In the meantime, we highly encourage you to dive into Clines world! That's all for now! If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). I hope you guys are doing well. Thank you for following us on this adventure. Best, Ophlie, on behalf of the team.

[ 2025-04-16 14:04:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey, people! We have some news for you guys! Hope you had a good day.

What weve been up to?

After spending time giving some love to both Echoes and End of Lines, we were able to go back to work on our (still unannounced) next game. We're very excited to see it come together, with an Alpha version almost completed. Following our latest update, the new demo of End of Lines has been downloaded more than 1,000 times. However, we are ten positive reviews short of the 50 we need to be more visible in the Steam store. So, if you have played End of Lines and enjoyed the game, dont hesitate to leave a review! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ Were thrilled to announce that a demo for Echoes is out! We wanted to give players a chance to experience the game and bring more attention to this project. The demo features the entire first episode (out of five), allowing you to dive into the world of Echoes and get a feel for the story, gameplay, and atmosphere. Best of all, if you decide to continue your journey after playing the demo, your progress will be saved, so you can pick up right where you left off in the full game. Thanks to the demo, we are already starting to see a little more traction toward it. Almost 1000 downloads! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775220/Echoes/

Spring Sales

Spring is here, and so are the deals! You still have a few hours to take advantage of the Steam Spring Sale. Its the perfect time to explore new adventures and expand your collection. Dont miss out, it will be our last sale for a while! If you want to support us a bit more, you can also buy the bundle! You will have 37% off and dont worry, the bundle automatically detects games you have already purchased. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/

Spawn Festival

We are excited to announce that we will attend the Spawn Festivals third edition on Saturday, April 5th in Angoulme! The festival will feature about 30 indie studios with projects ranging from experimental games to games with a social or political message, along with a collection of curated games from our friend Camille. You will also be able to enjoy panels, conferences, and even video game-themed performances. And dont worry if you cant make itwell be sharing a full debrief, complete with photos, in our next newsletter. We cant wait to see you there!

Ask the Devs!

In this section, we answer your most frequently asked questions about our games, development process, and upcoming projects. Have something youd like to ask? Send us your questions on Discord, and we might feature them in the next newsletter. I would like to know what were your inspirations for Along the Edge story? Geoffroy mentioned in the web page that he was raised in France, rural country. [quote]Well theres a lot to say about that. Along the Edge was the first story I created on my own and I didnt know if I would have the privilge of writing more, so I stuffed a lot of the things I loved in there. I guess the main thing is that when we started working on this project, I was 36 years old and it was becoming more and more probable that I wouldnt have kids. The idea of transmission, heritage and what we leave behind when you dont have children was something that was on my mind a lot at this point in my life. Along the Edge helped me explore that. I also wanted to make a classic fantastique story. We have this sub-genre of literature in France, which is neither fantasy nor horror, but something in between, I never knew how to translate it accurately in English. It dates back to the 19th century. The main theme is that you have an unreliable narrator who experiences strange events, but you never know if there really was something supernatural going on or if its just the imagination of the narrator at work. It gave us an interesting way to frame the choices in the game, letting the player decide whether Daphn believes in the supernatural or not at all. I could talk at length about all of this, I hope this quick answer satisfies your curiosity. For the second part of your question, well, I indeed come from a very rural area in the center of France, la Creuse, which I am very attached to and thats not very well known, even in France. In fact, its one of the places that gets mentioned when a fellow French person needs an euphemism to say the middle of nowhere. That was the perfect setting for the story we wanted to tell, so I went there and took a lot of reference pictures for Nico. If you want a fun fact, the setting is never named directly in Along the Edge itself, but if you make the right choices in Across the Grooves, Frank tells Alice that Daphn is in fact in Creuse.[/quote] And how long does it take for Nico to create a drawing? [quote]Thank you for your questions. This is an easy one though: it depends! I think the fastest one took me 15 minutes and the longest ones would take me a full week to polish. Of course, thats extreme examples, most of the time I can safely rely on 3 pictures/day on average during the game production (that is when Im done with concept arts, research and references collection). Fun fact: the longest one was probably a key art for Seers Isle that we didnt use in the end because it was not good enough. Somehow, spending more time on a picture does not always make it better.[/quote] That's all for now! If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). I hope you guys are doing well. Thank you for following us on this adventure. Best, Ophlie, on behalf of the team.

[ 2025-03-20 14:45:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey People! How was your day? We have some news for you guys, I hope you will like it.

What weve been up to?

We are thrilled to announce the release of a big patch for the End of Lines! Countless hours of effort, passion, and dedication have gone into enhancing this experience, and we cant wait for you to explore it. So, whats new?

• We made some balancing with variables so that branches specific to Nora are easier to unlock.
• Your balance of resources will have a more significant impact on certain events.
• Managing expeditions during camping will also have more impact.
• New images and texts for one of our epilogues have been added.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ Weve also decided to reopen the demo. If you play it, you'll be able to save your progress for the final version of End of Lines! Dont hesitate to share your opinion or critique with us so we can improve our game in the future.

The Storytellers Festival

Were thrilled to announce that The Storytellers Festival has selected us and our game, End of Lines, for their 2025 lineup! We feel truly honored and are so grateful for the chance to participate in a festival that highlights the magic of storytelling, creativity, and innovation in games. A heartfelt thank you goes out to the festival organisers for believing in our work! To celebrate that, both End of Lines and its soundtrack are -50% off on Steam! Be sure to check out Two Half Studios to learn more about the festival and its amazing selection of games. Check out the Steam page for the Steam Sale here: https://store.steampowered.com/developer/TwoHalfStudios/sale/thestorytellersfestival2025

BlueSky

We are on BlueSky! Given the current political situation, we have decided to gradually move away from Twitter and explore new platforms. BlueSky is an exciting new space for us, one that better aligns with our values of open conversation and community-driven engagement. Change can be tough, yet we believe this shift will enable us to connect more meaningfully and positively, just like we did on Mastodon (feel free to join us there too!). While we will remain on Twitter for a bit longer, we invite you to embark on this new journey with us!

Q&A

Were excited to announce that well be hosting a Q&A session on our Discord on February 21 at 9 p.m. Paris time (CEST)! This is your chance to ask us anything about our work, including:

• The production process Behind-the-scenes insights into how we bring our games to life.
• End of Lines Dive deeper into the story, themes, and development of our game.
• The demo Have questions or feedback? Lets talk about it!!

Wed love to hear your thoughts, answer your burning questions, and chat with you in real-time! Dont miss this opportunity to connect with the team and fellow community members. You can already ask your questions on the text channel "ask the devs" so we can answer them on the day of the event!
And in the meantime, all our games are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). I hope you guys are doing well. Thank you for following us on this adventure. Best, Ophlie,

[ 2025-02-20 10:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam friends, the team and I are very happy to unveil this new patch for End of Lines! Please be aware that the detailed patch notes here below are spoiler heavy, so we recommend to stay clear if you don't want some major plot points to be revealed! Detailed patch notes: the tutorial text bubbles were updated for clarity, several variables were adjusted to achieve a better distribution of the "Lion", "Panther", and "Tahouri" routes, "supplies" variables were adjusted throughout the whole game, one of the endings was overhauled with new illustrations and texts in order to make it more satisfying for the players, namely: [spoiler]the variant of the "Forest" ending where Camille survived[/spoiler] . Of course, we'll keep monitoring the game and keep adjusting the balance as necessary. And please, don't hesitate to reach out to us you encounter any issue. Demo Update! We've also updated our demo, which is now available again on the store page. Saves are compatible between the demo and the main game, so you won't lose any progress if you jump into the full game after finishing the demo. Thank you and kind regards, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2025-02-17 15:58:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey People! Were back!! Did you miss us? How were your holidays? As for us, we took a little break for this period, so its good to get back to our co-working space. We do have some updates for you guys.

What weve been up to?

So, we have almost finished the first beta of our new games first chapter! Its a long and meticulous process but, nonetheless, important. We want to offer you the best experience for our game. Our musicians, Camille Marcos and Julien Ponsoda, have also started working on the music for the game and, it sounds amazing!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgKn33uIopM

Discord Server? Already?

Yeah, you heard it. Our server is out!! It seems I have overcome my difficulties with Discord. So, what can you find on it? Well, first of all, you can find us! You have a channel where you can ask us anything about the lore of our game or the production and the technique behind it. You also have channels where you can test your voice-acting skills with others, listen to music, discuss theories about the games, share memes, and share your art!! We want the community to interact with each other in a fun and safe space. Were also very curious to see your creativity. Its not perfect, but its working. So dont hold back and join us!! Join us on Discord! If you have some recommendations about the server dont hesitate to message us! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Ophlie, on behalf of the team.

[ 2025-01-17 09:39:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone!

As you can see, I'm writing for two months in advance since I'll be returning to my uni course in November and we will be on a pause for the holiday season. So, some parts are written by me, while others are by Nico or Geoffroy. So, some parts are written by me, while others are by Nico or Geoffroy.

Autumn Sale

Our games have an Autumn sale on Steam this season. End of lines is at -50%! You have until December 4 to dive into our beloved games at special prices! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/

New Year Resolutions?

MORE ACTIVITY ON SOCIALS Our first New Year resolution is to be more present and active on our socials. As you can guess now that I'm here, Geoffroy and Nico will be able to concentrate on their respective works and I will be concentrating on the communication parts. PATREON Our second resolution is to create a Patreon! Through it, we want to offer you exclusive artwork, tips, behind-the-scenes stories, early access to our games, betas, and even some prints and other surprises. With Patreon, we hope to secure a little bit of funding to support some of our projects. DISCORD Our third resolution is to create a Discord for the community. We want you guys to have a safe space where you can exchange with each other and us. Its not the most urgent project, and I am like a grandmother when it comes to setting up a Discord server but everything can be learned.

What have we been up to?

Geoffroy here, taking over for our usual "what have been up to?" section. Nico and I went for a bit of a road trip last week, down to the Basque country to greet and meet Wyllia Lapouge, who's directing a danse school in Bayonne. We were able to witness a lesson of contemporary dance, and were able to a lot of take of photography and video material.If you're wondering, yes, it has very much to do with our unannounced upcoming game. This month's exclusive artwork is one of Nico's studies following our trip.
One last thing before I hand over to Ophlie and wish you happy holidays: if you've been following Nova-box for a while, you must have noticed that our remake of Echoes, released in, ahem, "semi-secret" in May, was not a great success. If by chance you own this game, thank you a thousand times, I hope you liked it. Also, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave us a recommendation on this title. We are currently six short of being given a "positive" rating and that would greatly help us with the algorithm. Thank you in advance! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775220/Echoes/ That's all for this time! The whole team wishes you a very happy holiday season. And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Ophlie, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-11-29 10:29:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! As usual, weve missed quite a few monthly newsletters (sorry you should be used to that by now). But there is some new stuff coming around for you guys!

New Intern!

Hi everyone, Im the new intern at Nova-Box! My name is Ophlie, and I will be the one writing to you from now on. I'm thrilled to be joining the team and bringing something new to our communications. Youll be seeing more of me around the New Year!

What's new with End of Lines?

So whats happening with End of Lines? The avid readers of our newsletters are already aware of the challenges we've faced putting our game out there, in the public eye. Well, Nico and the team are putting together some brand-new content for you guys! I cant reveal any details just yet, but you can expect more information around December/January. Weve also decided to reopen our demo in the coming months. Steam seems to boost games with demos through its algorithm, and we're hoping it will have a similar effect on our game. If you play it, you'll be able to save your progress for the final version of End of Lines! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/

What have we been up to?

The start of the autumn term means welcome back to our co-working space in Bordeaux. We were thrilled to catch up with our friends from other studios after some well-deserved reconnecting with Mother Nature. As you can imagine, when were not taking care of our one-year-old baby (End of Lines), were in full creation mode with our next game or we're attending events.

HORIZON(S), Bordeaux Videogames Forum!

Our writer, Geoffroy, was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on how to manage the transition between different projects at HORIZON(S), a two-day event for game industry decision-makers. He was with Sabrina Alessandri of Tower Five from La Rochelle and David Duriot of LA POULE NOIRE from Angoulme. Now the question is, how does this relate to our studio? Well, you see, we have two creative directors, Geoffroy and Nico, who switch roles for each new project. For instance, Nico served as the creative director for End of Lines, while Geoffroy is currently leading our new project. This means we have shorter waiting times between productions, allowing for a smoother transition and providing our studio with greater artistic diversity.

To Hell With the Ugly

To Hell With the Ugly is a point-and-click adventure game based on the novel of the same name by Boris Vian. You play Rock Bailey, a young man who's strikingly handsome and rather shallow, who gets kidnapped after leaving a jazz club. Navigate through bar brawls and a police investigation to assist Rocky https://store.steampowered.com/app/1455450/To_Hell_With_The_Ugly/

Empire of the Ants

Empire of the Ants set out on an epic adventure into the microscopic world in this photorealistic strategy game. Play as a brave ant and lead your colony through the perils of the forest and its diverse wildlife. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287330/Empire_of_the_Ants/

The Six One Indie Showcase !

Hey, if you're on our socials, you might have seen that we were in the alumni section of the Six One Indie Showcase! We thank them again for that selection.

Let's conclude with our usual exclusive artwork!

And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Ophlie, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-10-25 08:51:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone!

End of Lines Sale

End of Lines, our 2023 interactive graphic novel about climate change is currently on sale on Steam. For the rest of the week, you can get it for half the price, our biggest discount yet. We still think End of Lines is one of our best works, and it pains us that it didn't find as large of an audience as our other titles, so we hope this exceptional sale might help attract some visibility it sorely lacks. And of course, if you already played an liked the game, any of the usual stuff: sharing, liking, telling your friends about it or leaving a positive recommendation on Steam would help immensely (and would be greatly appreciated). The message we tried to articulate with End of Lines is very close to our hearts, especially during a year where global average temperatures records are broken repeatedly (source: copernicus.eu). So if the game is languishing at the bottom of your wishlist, now is the great time to buy it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/

What have we been up to?

Now that Echoes is released (no, it didn't went well; we'll wait for the dust to settle and we'll talk about it in detail in a future newsletter), we're full steam ahead on our next game, taking advantage of the summer to finish pre-production. It's still too early to talk about it at length, but we can already reveal that it will be a new installment of the series we started with Along the Edge and Across the Grooves. As it's become customary for the studio for the last few years, we left the scorching temperatures of the summer in the city for a more pastoral setting, so here's a shot of Nico (with Pauline, a dancer) and I (Geoffroy, with Twiggy, a dog) at work from Carcans and la Creuse, respectively.
Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-07-31 08:10:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're very glad to announce that Echoes is now available on Steam! Dive into an intriguing story where murder mystery meets cosmic horror as you follow Ricky Fox's investigation set in a seemingly sleepy town of the American North-West, where each layer of lies you peels off reveals a more horrifying truth. Will our protagonist manage to crack the case without losing himself in the process? Get it now with the 15% launch discount: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775220/Echoes/ And if you already own one (or several) Nova-box games, you can complete your collection with an extra 10% off using this bundle link: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ Echoes is a remake of our very first foray into the realm of narrative games. For the few of those who remember the original version, thank you for sticking with us for more than a decade! We really hope you'll enjoy this heavily upgraded version of the story. All the best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-06-27 13:38:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Nous sommes trs heureux d'annoncer qu'Echoes est dsormais disponible! Plongez dans un univers intriguant o le polar rencontre l'horreur cosmique et suivez une enqute palpitante dans une petite ville d'apparence tranquille du nord-ouest amricain. Chaque mensonge que vous dvoilez au grand jour dissimule en ralit une vrit de plus en plus effroyable. Parviendrez-vous rsoudre le mystre sans vous perdre dans les mandres de la folie? Profitez ds maintenant du solde de lancement de 15%: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775220/Echoes/ Et si vous possdez dj un (ou plusieurs) jeux Nova-box, vous pouvez complter votre collection avec un solde supplmentaire de 10% en utilisant ce lien: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ Echoes est un remake de notre tout premier jeu narratif. Pour ceux d'entre vous qui se souviennent de la version d'origine, merci mille fois d'tre toujours l, plus de dix ans plus tard! Nous esprons de tout cur que vous apprcierez cette version profondment amliore d'Echoes. Amicalement, Geoffroy, au nom de toute l'quipe.

[ 2024-05-29 16:26:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! I know we promised you more regular updates, but I'm afraid March came and went with no news from us due to Nico being very busy with his teaching gigs and I (Geoffroy) battling a nasty pulmonary infection. So, here we are, fashionably late, but bearing important news, as you'll discover if you keep on scrolling towards the bottom end of this digital missive.

SPAWN! Festival 2024

A couple of weeks ago, we had the joy of going to Angoulme for the second edition of the Spawn festival, which showcases indie games that are either local to Nouvelle-Aquitaine, eco-responsible, progressive, or all of the above, which, as you can imagine, is right up our alley. As always, the hospitality of our peers from Angoulme was incredible, we had such a great time!
A wild writer is hiding somewhere in the picture, can you spot him? Photo credit: Capucine Chauffourier.

Announcing our next game: Echoes

The name "Echoes" may sound familiar to the ears of our most devoted readers, since it was indeed the first game we ever released as an independent studio, even before Along the Edge, back in 2013. Being released in the very early days of the iPhone AppStore, we were a bit sad to see this piece our history slowly withering away, sadly destined to one day become completely incompatible with the current version of the Apple hardware and software. It ended bothering us so much that, I (Geoffroy) started working on this side project on and off from September 2021, having a little bit of time to spare during the production of End of Lines. Fortunately, we had the foresight to prepare for an eventual PC release, so we already had high-resolution visual assets at hand. Less fortunately, the scripts for the game were completely incompatible after a decade of evolution of "Teckel", our in-house narrative game engine.
Also, diving back into the project, we quickly realized the gigantic gap of quality between our first attempt at a narrative game and our later, very obviously superior, work. So, we decided that we might as well take this opportunity to do justice to these characters we loved, and I re-wrote the totality of the text, dialogs, and choices from the ground up, keeping only the twists and turns of the original story (as imagined by Frdric "Ekmule" Lignac) as a guideline. After the release of End of Lines last year, Nico retouched the illustrations that were in the most dire need of an upgrade, and we asked our friends and regular collaborators Camille and Julien from Illustrason to expand and remaster the soundtrack and the sound effects of the game for good measure. As usual, Rachel translated this new version of the text into English and Alix made sure everything was free of any typos or mistakes. That brings us to today, proud and ready to unveil this heavily remade edition of Echoes. If you want learn more about the game, please, have a look at our Steam page, and please consider adding it to your wishlist, as an offering to the mighty algorithm gods, if nothing else. We'll appreciate it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1775220/Echoes/ The game is set to release soon (probably sooner than you think) for PC, Mac, Linux and the Nintendo Switch. As always, the game has been tested and optimized for the Steam Deck or any potato capable of running Windows 10 (as it is now required to launch Steam).

What have we been up to?

As you can imagine, Echoes has been taking up most of our attention recently, but we're also making progress on our next game. Stay tuned for more on that front soon. To conclude, here's our traditional monthly illustration. This one shows the evolution of the art style of Echoes from one episode to the next, following and depicting the gradual degradation of the narrator's psyche, one of the most original features of the game.
Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-04-24 14:01:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! While we're secretly working on our upcoming release (you'll get a sneak peak at the end of this newsletter), let's talk a bit about carbon emissions.

JYROS

Last year, Nova-box was one of the pilot studios in France to set up a tool for calculating greenhouse gas emissions for video games. This collaborative effort led to the deployment of the JYROS platform, now available to all. We've been striving to make low-tech games for over ten years, and we're aware of our environmental impact, but we've always refrained from communicating about it, because we didn't have any figures to back up our intentions, however virtuous they may be. The cost of a personalized carbon footprint was unfortunately prohibitive for a small structure like ours. We're delighted to now be able to share our figures with you:
Of course, we'd love to be able to compare these figures with the industry average, but it's difficult to find reliable, anonymized data at this stage. We'll be happy to update you when we have more data to share. Until then, we think we can agree that our consumption is indeed very low, and not at all representative of the cost of IT in general. To find out more, we invite you to visit the Jyros website: https://jyros-jeuvideo.com/ (The "resource" page contains numerous documents, guides and reports on the subject).

What have we been up to?

We're very glad to report that our next release has been submitted and validated by Steam. Hopefully, we'll be able to tell you a lot more soon. In the meantime, here's the soundtrack cover of our mysterious next project (though our most faithful followers might already have figured out what we've been working on *wink wink*).
Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-02-28 09:53:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello and Happy New Year 2024 everyone! Spring is in the air, and the Nova-box premises are bursting with color and activity. The seasons just don't seem to count for anything anymore, do they?

Steam Storyteller's Festival 2024

We're delighted to be part of the Steam Storyteller's Festival again this year. You can catch End of Lines with 30% off this week alongside a great selection of narrative gems. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/

Nova-box was featured in a French broadcast TV show!

Last Sunday, France 3 broadcast a program about ecology in the video game industry. We were delighted to be invited to express our views on the subject. You can watch the replay here (in French). On a more Nova-box-focused note, Geoffroy took part in the "La culture du carry" radio emission hosted by Julie Langlois on Radio Campus Besanon. You'll also hear some delightful musical extracts from Julien and Camille's work on Seers Isle, End of Lines and Across the Grooves. The podcast is available here (also in French).

What have we been up to?

As usual, we leave you with a mysterious screenshot of one of our current projects.
Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Nico, on behalf of the team.

[ 2024-01-31 10:23:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Despite a very mild (and particularly rainy) month of December in Bordeaux, the Nova-box premises have quietly gone into winter mood as everyone prepares to join their loved ones for the end of the year. Desks and instruments have been prepared for this short (but necessary) period of hibernation.

Dreamhack Beyond Indies / Winter Sale

We're delighted to announce that End of Lines was selected to be featured at the Dreamhack Beyond Indie 2023 Sales. This was a great opportunity to showcase our latest interactive graphic novel on Steam, from December 15th to 21st. End of Lines was on sale with 25% off for the occasion, but don't worry if you missed it since, right on the heels of this event, the Steam Winter Sale has just started. It will be the last time you'll be able to get our titles at these attractive prices for a while. As always, there's our nifty "complete your collection" bundle for you to get an extra 10% off on our game you don't already own. The link is here below. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/

Game Updates

As you may have noticed, all Nova-box games have recently been updated. We've added support for DualSense controllers (PlayStation 5). We've also taken the opportunity to push some minor bug fixes to End of Lines and Across the Grooves. All of this is detailed in the most recent patch notes of each game.

Servers migration

It's a bit technical and you won't notice any difference on your end since our games are fully offline experiences, but we're pretty proud that Nova-box development servers are now managed locally, thanks to our friends at Zaka Services, a small company in Bordeaux to whom we entrust our data management. Zaka Services are very much aligned with us on carbon reduction and sobriety measures. For example, they only use refurbished hardware for their servers. Here's a link to their website (in French): www.zaka-services.com

What have we been up to?

We're now fully committed to the pre-production of our next graphic novel, and can't wait to tell you all about it. We can't tell you much about it for now, but the story will revolve around a couple of iconic places. One of them is a strange cabaret tentatively called The Outpost (the name might change, but don't hesitate to tell us what you think of it). Here's the first concept art of this whimsical albeit a tad creepy place.
Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Nico, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-12-22 09:24:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Friends, here are the patch notes for v1.0.6 of End of Lines: Dual Sense Gamepad support. Your PS5 gamepads should now work correctly both via USB and Bluetooth. Fixed a minor bug text in Chapter 2, [spoiler] where both Rafik bonus and regular text were shown when choosing to rescue Inaya & Soan during the "Chapel" camp[/spoiler] . Thank you and kind regards, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-12-11 14:42:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Let's talk about some nice events we've attended and the yearly Black Friday stuff.

Black Friday / Autumn Sales

Firstly, all Nova-box games will be on sale on Steam from November 21 to 28! If you want to complete your collection, you can opt for the bundle for an extra 10% off plus the sale discount. The games you already own will be deducted from the price. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/

Hypermondes

We attended the Hypermonde literary festival at Mrignac last month. Nova-box's text-based narrative games are always in the spotlight there and we appreciate this extraordinary opportunity to meet and greet numerous authors from all over the world. Amongst my little discoveries this year, I was able to get dedicated copies of:

• Le Premier jour de paix by Elisa Beiram. An excellent futuristic novel. Its a bit like End of Lines but with some brighter sides (warning: with no interactivity, you're in for an incredible rollercoaster ride).
• L'Empire s'effondre by Sbastien Coville. The "speculative fiction" genre is known to often present insightful, sometimes disturbing, reflections of reality. I particularly appreciate the intelligence and accessibility of this one.

As always, many thanks to Fabrice Carr and the team for this event, we had a excellent time again this year!

Game Conf

We were also present at the Game Conf in Angoulme, where we were able to meet many other independent game developers and attend the Game Cup 2023.
We had the pleasure of running into a number of people from the indie scene, including Modiiie, who had done a series of live plays of our games in French. Many thanks to her.

Julien's Album

Julien Ponsoda, musician and composer from Illustrason, with whom we are blessed to work on all our productions, has just released a new album! You can discover his work here: https://julien-ponsoda.fanlink.to/my-favorite-things"

What have we been up to?

While we continue to make progress on Nova-box's next narrative projects, I (Nico) am doing some illustrations for the fabulous project from our neighbors and friends at Manufacture43: City Ambulance: Rescue Express (C.A.R.E). In particular, I worked on the portraits of the main protagonists: Jakub & Mishra.
Find out more on Steam and add the game to your wishlist! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2213710/City_Ambulance_Rescue_Express/ Thats all for now, and see you next month! And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Nico, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-11-24 10:31:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! This month, we're diving deep into the launch of End of Lines and its aftermath.

End of Lines is OUT!

Our latest interactive graphic novel was released on May 25th, 2023, just a few days after Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and at the very moment the press was receiving advance copies of Street Fighter 6 and Diablo 4 with only a few days for them to complete their reviews before their embargo was lifted (spoiler alert: it didn't go well for us). But let's start with the good news: we've had some very good feedback. We'd like to thank everyone who has supported us despite all the big releases coming one right after another this year. Here are a few samples of the reviews the game received over the web and in the press:

• "If you like visual novel-style games, don't pass up End of Lines. It's really great!", yunicia.fr (18/20),
• "Moving play of impressions, sublime in its sense of detail.", Les Inrockuptibles,
• "End of Lines is an experience that dares to carry a difficult theme perfectly suited to the visual novel theme.", Canard PC (8/10),
• I enjoyed End of Lines take on the consequences of neglecting the climate crisis, as shown via the intimate stories and daily struggles of individuals living those very consequences in the future. Its a warning!, Switchaboo (7/10),
• End of Lines gets down to the nitty-gritty, naming those responsible for a coming catastrophe and showing the ecological and human consequences in the clearest terms. The result leaves nobody unscathed, and is as unsettling for its climatic anxieties as for its human dramas., The Pixel Post,
• "End of Lines is a remarkable game both in terms of storytelling and direction, taking on all the strengths of the developers' previous games.", Loutre Perfide for veuillezparlapresente.com,
• End of Lines brings us a new visual novel in which we get a glimpse at a potential future that can hit us if we dont act on the effects of climate change and global warming before its too late., PS4blog.net (9/10).

A big "thanks" too to the content creators who helped give our humble creation greater visibility.

OK, shall we move on to the bad news?

Despite the good feedback, as you can imagine, the release of End of Lines was a bit of a disaster for the studio. The game was practically invisible on release and, as a result, to be honest, sales are clearly not up to expectations. For example, the steam page has reached a plateau of 28 reviews over the past few weeks, which is very low. Even if the majority are positive, this is unfortunately not enough to sustain an indie game. As a result, we've had to scale back our ambitions for future projects. We also had to (sadly) part ways with Julie, the wonderful artist who produced most of the backgrounds for End of Lines. If you'd like to help us out, you can continue to spread the word about the game and share your opinion on the Steam page if you haven't already done so. Naturally, we haven't given up at all. We're continuing to do our best to give End of Lines more visibility. Our launch event at the Librairie du Basilic bookshop gave us the opportunity to unveil the game with a glorious public reading by our partner Alix, co-author and proofreader of End of Lines.
We hope to continue our collaboration with booksellers, thanks to a little booklet we've produced that we can leave on the shelves.
If you are a bookseller, or know any booksellers who might be interested in this project, please write to us. On the technical side, a patch is on its way to correct a few bugs and rebalance variables. We've noticed that certain junctions are rarer than they should be.

Social Media

For reasons we won't go into here, but I'm sure you'll understand, we've decided to stop using the social network formerly known as Twitter for our studio communications. It's a difficult decision, as for several years this platform was our main tool for talking about our productions and for engaging with our community. As a result, we'll be publishing our newsletters much more regularly. We'd be very grateful if you could pass on the subscription link to those who might be interested in our news. To interact with us, you can find us here:

• on Mastodon: @novabox@mastodon.gamedev.place
• or on Bluesky (the account is handled by Geoffroy): @nova-box.com
• and why not my personal toot box? @Nicofouque@mastodon.art

What have we been up to?

While we're going through the trials and tribulations of releasing End of Lines, we've started to work on at least two projects that we're sure to announce shortly. In the meantime, here's a mysterious concept for one of them (we're keeping the other one exclusive to the subscribers of this newsletter so, please subscribe!).
Thats all for now, and see you next month! (we really mean it this time). And in the meantime, Seers Isle, Along the Edge, and Across the Grooves and End of Lines are available here on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). Best, Nico, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-10-17 13:24:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Friends, now that End of Lines has been released for a bit more than a month, we feel like we have enough insight to deploy a small balance patch. One of the endings of the game looks to be a bit too easy to achieve from what we intended in certain conditions, and therefore, overrepresented in players first play-throughs. This patch is aiming to correct that. Please be aware that the detailed patch notes here below are spoiler heavy, so we recommend to stay clear if you don't want some major plot points to be revealed! Detailed patch notes : Added a supplies debuff when [spoiler]choosing to leave Inaya and Soan behind in Chapter 2[/spoiler], Added a small supplies debuff when [spoiler] choosing to go through the locust swarm in Chapter 2 [/spoiler], Added a buff to a couple of "Lion" choices in chapter 1 through 3. Overall, the goal of these changes is [spoiler]to make it a bit more difficult to make Camille survive during Chapter 3 when you decide to leave Inaya and Soan early in the game[/spoiler]. Of course, we'll keep monitoring the game and keep adjusting the balance as necessary. Thank you and kind regards, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-07-10 09:40:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear friends, it has been brought to our attention that you might get a mention of Inaya and Soan in the text of Chapter 3 while they have already left the group. We just released a small patch to correct this issue. Thank you again and kind regards, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team. P.S.: I just pushed another tiny patch today (June 20th) to fix a small typo in the French text during Chapter 2. I'll add it as a post-scriptum here, I don't think it is worth spamming your feed with yet another tiny update (just know that we're patching the game and will continue to do so as long as these small issues are brought to our attention).

[ 2023-06-19 13:13:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear friends, first of all, thank you for following us during the launch of End of Lines! Your reception of the game has been very heartwarming to us. We corrected a batch of small issues, namely: - Fixed a duplicate sentence in the "Panther / Forest" epilogue, - Fixed an issue where the "Happy Event" achievement wasn't unlocking correctly on Steam, - Fixed a wrongly attributed dialog in Chapter 2, - Fixed a branching issue where the player could be shown the wrong variant of the "panther" epilogue. Don't hesitate to get in touch if you find anything amiss during your playthroughs, we'll keep updating the game as needed. Thank you again and kind regards, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team. P.S.: did you know that Sam can pet the dog in End of Lines?

[ 2023-06-01 15:47:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear friends, we're very proud to finally be able finally to share our new interactive graphic novel, End of Lines, with you! Embark now on a journey across the devastated landscapes of a post climate change Southern Europe with Camille, Nora, Sam, Rafik, and the people they'll meet on the trail! [previewyoutube=0M9QYfRScW0;full][/previewyoutube] We really hope this game will resonate with you and we can't wait to read your thoughts it in the review section! Cheers, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-05-25 12:58:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! It's official, after three years in the making, we're finally ready to release our next interactive graphic novel, End of Lines. Continue reading for an abundance of details.

Coming Thursday, May 25th

Mark your calendars: End of Lines will be available worldwide on PC/Mac/Linux via Steam and a selection of trustworthy online retailers across the Internet on Thursday, May 25th. In this new interactive graphic novel, you'll be following a family trying to survive in a post climate meltdown Europe. To achieve that, you'll have to manage their resources and the people who travel alongside them, while, of course, making choices that will shape their journey across the continent. In other words, we decided to explore one of the possible outcomes of an important contemporary issue in this game. Perhaps the greatest challenge of our time. We really hope it will resonate with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_FP8IPv9hs Of course. we have scheduled a release discount over on the Steam Store (If you haven't done so already, please be kind enough to add End of Lines to your wishlist it really helps with discovery algorithms and will let you know when the game is out). And for those who are wondering, well yes: the original soundtrack, which consists of nearly 2 hours of instrumental music and ambient sounds from the game, masterfully crafted by our friends Julien and Camille from Illustrason will be available as a DLC on Steam, as a downloadable album on Bandcamp, and on streaming platforms such as Spotify or Deezer.

Release party at la Librairie du Basilic in Bordeaux

The team will be at the Librairie du Basilic on Saturday, June 3rd from 2PM to 4PM (and possibly later). You'll be able to test the game, and meet and greet us. We're also planning a couple of surprises for the afternoon. The Librarie du Basilic is a very nice place, specialized in speculative fiction and fantasy literature, with a great selection of books and lovely people who will happily point you towards your next favorite author. And if you are itching to pay them a visit before the party, note that they've set up a demo of Seers Isle in the store. They also have some Steam keys for this game to sell from a limited run of beautiful ex libris we made back in 2018. The address: Librairie du Basilic 20 rue du Mirail, 33000 Bordeaux

What have we been up to?

Once again, I have to apologize for the lack of news these last few months, but as you may imagine, finishing the game has been quite a hectic endeavor for everyone involved, to say the least. Still a lot to do before we cross the finishing line, but we're definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at last. As always, let's conclude with this month's new illustration, the last you'll get for End of Lines. Soon, we'll be switching gears and we can't wait to tease you about our upcoming interactive graphic novels.
Thats all for now, and we hope we'll see you on release day! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-05-05 12:24:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear friends, We're so excited and proud to announce that End of Lines, our next interactive graphic novel, is finally launching on May 25th! Please check out our brand-new trailer below. [previewyoutube=I_FP8IPv9hs;full][/previewyoutube] We can't wait to finally share the result of these last three years of work with you all! Don't hesitate to spread the word and please add the game to your wishlist. See you at launch! Cheers, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2023-04-27 14:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! First of all, we would like extend our best holiday wishes to all of you, dear readers. In this month's issue, we're talking about the awards received at Indie X, our ongoing winter sale and the price adjustments that are coming up early next year. As always, we'll finish with an update on End of Lines production, along with a new illustration from the game, so keep on scrolling!

End of Lines won an award at Indie X 2022!

So, last month, we had the chance to take part in Indie X, the biggest indie games festival in Portugal, where End of Lines received a nomination for "Best Art Direction" and won the award for "Games for Good". We're very proud to have received both those distinctions. And if you missed it, our IndieX livestream is available for replay on Youtube, where we go in depth into the artistic statement and game development of End of Lines. Big thanks to Patricia Casaca who was a wonderful host! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWaHn6uI3RA

Price adjustments are coming in January

Let's do the classic "I have good news and bad news" routine, shall we? Let's get the "bad" news out of the way first: Steam adjusted the recommended prices conversion earlier this year, and we haven't applied them on our catalogue yet, but we're planning on doing it early next year, once the current Winter Sale ends. That means that the prices of our games will go up in certain regions. Also, as you may have noticed, two-digits inflation has made a nasty comeback in Europe. That means each sale we make returns less value than it did in the past. To give you an example, if we only needed to sell six copies of Across the Grooves to pay for a kebab for each member of our team in the past (these are not real-life numbers, just an example), we willnow need to sell seven or even eight copies of the game for same number of kebabs, because the price of kebabs went up with inflation, while the price of our games did not (yet). That's why we're also planning on updating the base price of our games from 12.99/$ to 13.99/$ on Steam and other resellers. We know that this may seem like a very peculiar decision, but we really hope you'll understand why we're trying to approach things differently.

Winter Sales

I can hear you asking me "okay, we get it" (and we really hope you do), "but what's the good news, then?" Well, the good news is that we're making our the biggest discount to date on our full back catalogue, with 35% off on all our titles. So if you're on the fence about diving into a Nova-box game, now would be a great time to do so. On top of that, you can get an extra 10% off with our permanent "complete your collection" bundle on Steam. Follow the nifty link here below, it will point you in the right direction: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15195/Novabox_Collection/

TL;DR

So, to sum it up: the base price of our games will go up 1/$ next month to counter inflation, but: we're currently running our biggest sale to date, with 35% off across the catalogue.

What have we been up to?

We're currently in the midst of our "friends & family" closed beta, and the first waves of feedback we've received are quite encouraging. We're very grateful to our testers for their time. Thanks to them we will have a lot of adjustments and improvements to implement into the game next month, once the beta session is concluded. On the art side, Nico and Julie are still upgrading all the illustrations from placeholders to finished art pieces, and they will be doing that for the next couple of months, since there's a lot of images to behold in End of Lines (we've passed the 1000 visual assets for the first time, and by a good margin). All in all, we're still on track for an early-ish 2023 release, and we'll keep you posted once we know more, of course. Thats all for now, see you next month! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-12-23 11:08:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Dear Steam friends, just a quick announcement to forewarn you we'll be retiring End of Lines demo on Monday, December 19th. If you haven't played it yet, now would be the time to do so. We would like to thank everyone who downloaded and enjoyed the demo, and we hope we will see you at launch! We encourage you to add the game to your wishlist to stay in the loop: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ We wish everyone a great holiday season, cheers! Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-12-12 15:13:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

We just updated End of Lines demo here on Steam! This demo covers the first chapter of the story. Get acquainted with the cast and start a journey across a post-climate meltdown Southern Europe in search of a place to settle.
What's changed : Several bug fixes, optimizations, and small tweaks to the story and the art, A completely new soundtrack: the music team completed the final recordings with live musicians, and you can now enjoy the music in its release worthy state, in hi-fidelity. The demo will be available to play until November 15th 2022, so don't miss out of your chance to try the first chapter of our upcoming interactive graphic novel! And as always, if you haven't done so already, we encourage you to add End of Lines to your wishlist. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ Enjoy! Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-10-28 12:34:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! This month, we're talking about the Indie X festival and the new demo for End of Lines that you can try out on Steam. Have a look below for the details on the new demo, as well as a look at new art from the game.

Indie X Online Festival 2022

We're very happy to take part in the Indie X Festival this year! End of Lines was selected in the top 50 finalists out of more 500 entries, which is quite an achievement. We won't attend the physical festival in Lisbon, however, we'll be part of the online part of the festival with a special Q&A live stream on November 7th at 2PM CET. We'll relay the news on our social channels so please keep your eyes peeled. In the mean time, you can go and visit the Indie X Online festival website, lots of great games are attending! Also, the festival comes with a special event on Steam. To celebrate, we decided to update our demo and to make it public for the duration of the festival, starting right now!

Try End of Lines updated demo on Steam now

To properly celebrate our participation in the Indie X festival, the demo of our upcoming interactive novel End of Lines will be available on Steam starting right now until November 15th. The demo showcases the first chapter of the game. We made several tweaks to the art and to the story, but the most striking upgrade is the music and sound design which went through final recordings with live musicians since our last demo during June's Steam Next Fest. We really hope you will enjoy it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/

What have we been up to?

Since our last issue, we made a lot of progress on End of Lines and crossed a big milestone: the game is now playable in its entirety from start to finish in all variations of the story. We still have some adjustments to make on the texts and the scripts, but we're quickly approaching the "beta" state, to the joy of the team. On the art side, Nico and Julie are now busy on upgrading all the illustrations from placeholder images to release-ready art. We also had the joy to welcome a new art intern last week: Liannesoa Farge, who will be with us until the end of the year. You can check out her portfolio on Artstation. Thats all for now, see you next month! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-10-28 12:13:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Looks like summer's come and gone in a heartbeat! In this month's issue, we'll talk about End of Lines (and its lateness) and the upcoming events we'll be attending.

End of Lines is late (again)

Let's get the the bad news out the way first: as we were telling you last time, we've accumulated a fair amount of lateness. Unfortunately, it means that we may not find a release frame for 2022. As you might know, releasing a small indie game is quite akin to crossing the Strait of Gibraltar on a small sailboat. You have to navigate around big tankers and other large boats while being extra careful not to be crushed by the mastodons surrounding you. Since we're quickly approaching the holiday season, it might not be advisable to release our tiny and delicate vessel of a game with all the AAA titles that usually get the attention of everyone at this time of the year, so we'll take advantage of this extra time to polish End of Lines further. We're still considering our options, but the most likely scenario is that we're going to aim for a February or March 2023 release spot, to give the End of Lines its best chance to get some attention from the press, the influencers, and most and foremost the players. We really hope you won't be too disappointed if you've been waiting for our next game, and we, as a team, would like to extend our apologies for that state of affairs. On the other hand, we're really excited to be able to devote this extra time to make the best game we can, and hope you will enjoy it once we eventually release it. In any case, we'll keep you posted about any further development.

Events around Bordeaux this Fall

Mark your calendars! If you're in the Bordeaux area on the weekend of September 24/25th, you will be able to test End of Lines on the second edition of the Hypermondes Festival at the Multimedia Library of Mrignac. It is a free Sci-Fi convention and we warmly recommend you to check it out. I (Geoffroy) will also have the honor to participate on a panel about video games and utopia during the event (on Sunday, 09/25 at 11:50 AM). All relevant information is available over there, on the event's website: http://hypermondes.fr/
Geoffroy (left) and Nico (right) showing End of Lines during the Union St. Jean playtest in June. Later in the month, Nico and I will also be present at the GameConf in Angoulme, where I'll participate in a panel about self-funding. If you're an attending member of the industry, don't hesitate to say hi to us, and if you're not, chances are the recording of my panel will be made available after the event. If that's the case, I'll give you the link in a future issue of this newsletter.

What have we been up to?

As you might guess, we've been hard at work on End of Lines all summer, and we've made tremendous progress. The French text is complete, English localization is almost done. We can already tell you that End of Lines will be the longest game in our catalogue, text-wise: almost twice the size of Seers Isle and a good quarter longer than Across the Grooves. On the Art side, the storyboard is almost complete and we should officially be in the "beta" phase at the end of the month. Still a lot to do, but we're finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! If you're wondering what our storyboards look like, here's a sample here below:
Thats all for now, see you next month! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-09-08 16:30:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! The Steam Next Fest is now in full swing and we're very happy with the warm welcome End of Lines has received so far. If you haven't had the chance to check out the entire first chapter of the game yet, dont worry, theres still time, so please do go and download and play the free demo on our Steam page! Thank you so much to everyone who has played the demo so far, and to everyone who has given us feedback, it means so much to us. If you haven't done so yet, don't hesitate to reach us on our Steam Community Forums or via Twitter, we'll be glad to answer any questions you may have about our new story. On Tuesday, our friend and streamer extraordinaire AceTheSoul hosted a special broadcast of the game here on Steam and on Twitch, including doing a first playthrough of the demo with his lovely guests and followed this up with a Q&A session with the dev team: Nico (author, art director and illustrator) and I, Geoffroy (co-author). In case you missed the livestream, we've scheduled a rerun on Friday, June 17th at 2PM CEST / 8AM EDT which will be broadcast here on the End of Lines Steam page. AceTheSoul is the voice actor who lent his voice to Camille for our teaser video and he had a blast voicing our characters with his guests (and let me tell you that Giana made an incredible child voice impression for Sam). Please go and follow the wonderful AceTheSoul on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/acethesoul As always, wishlisting End of Lines and following us on Steam are the best ways you can support us and the development before launch. Wed really appreciate it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ See you on stream, and take care, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team. And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: https://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox

[ 2022-06-16 13:57:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

This afternoon, until 4:00PM CET, our Art director, Nico, will be live on Steam, creating a new image for the game. You can take this opportunity to ask him anything in the chat!

[ 2022-06-16 11:36:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! We are very happy to announce that Nova-box will be participating in the Steam Next Fest for the very first time! This summers Steam Next Fest begins on June 13th and runs until June 20th. During this week the first ever demo of End of Lines, our next interactive graphic novel about a family trying to survive in a post-climate meltdown world, will be made available for everyone on our Steam page. Were so excited for you to be able to play for yourselves for the first time. The demo consists of the games introduction and the first chapter, out of five that will make up the full game. Were so proud of End of Lines, but wed love your feedback too! Please do reach out to us on our Steam Community Forums or via Twitter, if you have any questions or feedback for us. [previewyoutube=ua5m8v4UoHE;full][/previewyoutube] Also, on Tuesday 14th at 11 AM, Pacific Time / 20 PM CET (Paris) Time, we invite you to join us on a special broadcast: our friend and streamer AceTheSoul will play the demo live with his guests, followed up by a Q&A with the dev team: Nico (author, art director and illustrator) and I, Geoffroy (co-author). AceTheSoul is also the voice actor who lent his voice to Camille for our teaser video here above! We hope you can join us on the livestream, and were excited to chat with you about End of Lines! As always, wishlisting End of Lines and following us on Steam are the best ways you can support us and the development before launch. Wed really appreciate it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ See you on stream, and take care, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team. And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox

[ 2022-06-13 17:00:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Do you remember that time when I promised you more frequent newsletters? Well, it turns out I skipped March, sorry about that. A classic case of "too much to do and too little time to do it", I'm afraid. I'll try to do better next month (but no promises). Since last time, we've updated all our games to make sure they play great on the new Steam Deck device, and we've also made progress on End of Lines development (you'll get an update at the end of this newsletter, as always). Also, we took part in a couple of events, online of course, but also IRL for a change!

Nova-box is Steam Deck ready

If you own one of our games on Steam, you might have already seen the news pop up in your library's news feed: we've made all our catalog compatible with the device requirements for the Steam Deck.. We really believe this new handheld console is a great fit for our games, giving you another way to play them on the go or in the comfort of your favorite reading nook. In terms of features, you won't see any big changes, as most of the upgrades took place under the hood. We took this opportunity to upgrade to the long term support version of Unity 2019 which should provide some optimizations. We also support the new "Dynamic Cloud Save" feature on Steam, which means saves are synchronized automatically over the internet whenever you put the Steam Deck to sleep, and synchronize back when it wakes up.
Seers Isle running on the Steam Deck. Our other games play great as well.

End of Lines was featured in a pair of online events

First, we took part in the "Earth Appreciation Day" Sale on Steam as an upcoming game. We were very glad to be part of this, alongside great ecologically aware titles. As you may imagine, it aligns with our ethos in general and with End of Lines in particular, and the fact that it helped our wishlists number is a nice cherry on the top.
End of Lines was also featured in the "Mini Indie Showcase" hosted by Six One Indie during the Pax East. You can watch the replay here below. There are some great upcoming titles to discover there too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdAq_B2eAjI

Demo at the Flora Tristan Library

Our friend Leslie Tabourdeau invited us to talk about End of Lines at the Flora Tristan Library in Bordeaux a couple of weeks ago. We were, of course, happy to oblige. We hosted a demo session and talked about the game alongside a team of students from the Epitech computer school, who were working on a non-profit project with the aim to help detect and chart ocean pollution. It was a joy to have a chat with young professionals trying to make a difference. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

What have we been up to?

If you're wondering, yes, most of our attention has been focused on End of Lines. We're still late, but we managed to reduce our lateness quite a bit without crunching so far. Nico is currently working on an updated feedback system / iconography. If all goes well, you might see big cats on the top of the screen on the next iteration of the game. Meanwhile, the rest of the text is progressing rapidly towards completion. Hopefully we'll have a first version by the end of the month. English translation and music/sound design just started too, and it's real a pleasure to see how Rachel, Camille and Julien were enthusiastic about the project and eager to start working on it! Thats all for now, see you next month! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-04-28 09:30:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! So, it's official: last month we finally announced "End of Lines", our next interactive graphic novel!

End of Lines

So, what is "End of Lines" exactly? Well, first off, it's an interactive graphic novel, like its predecessors: a novel size adventure, illustrated with hundreds of hand-painted pictures, where your choices will decide the fate of our protagonists, a family of travelers wandering northward in a post climate meltdown Southern Europe, in search of a hospitable place to settle. This time around, Nico, in addition to his usual role of artistic director and illustrator, also takes the helm of "creative director" (like on "Seers Isle"), with the full support of the rest of the team, of course. He really wanted to use our creative output to speak out about climate change, to explore the way it might affect the next generations if we continue on our path towards self-annihilation. It is quite a change of pace from our usual mysticism, occultism, and identity exploration, and we really hope you will enjoy this new endeavor!
Hereabove, the main cast of "End of Lines" takes a moment of respite in a flooded village of the Galician coast. Handing the pen over to Nico, here's what he has to say about the game, in his own words: [quote]"I've been busy with this project for a while. Mlanie and I were working on concept arts while producing Across the Grooves and I was already writing some first drafts. I'm very happy to be able to start sharing this with you. Like many people of my generation, eco-anxiety is part of my life. I know it's not very original, but with this project, I hope to do something not only entertaining, but also, maybe, a bit useful. At least as "useful" as a work of fiction can be... It's also a very personal universe that I'm trying to build, based on meaningful personal experiences, with the simple objective of sharing these emotions. And I hope it will be good enough."[/quote]

"Nuit de la lecture"

The opportunities for public events have been rather less frequent with the pandemic, but we had the opportunity to present our games during 2022 edition of "La Nuit de la Lecture" ("the night of reading") in the public media library of Mrignac, near Bordeaux. We had the pleasure of having a lot of people showing up to discover interactive fiction via our games. Big thanks to Baptiste Normand and the rest of the team at the library for their hospitality, we had a great time!

What have we been up to?

As you can imagine, we're currently working full time, all steam ahead, on End of Lines. Nico and Alix are busy writing the last chapter while Julie is working on the storyboards of chapter 3 (out of 5). For my part, I give a hand wherever I can while working on text and scripts integration. We're on a tight schedule, but we should be ready for our release date later this year without over-exhausting ourselves. Thats all for now, see you next month! Please consider adding End of Lines to your wishlist if you haven't done so yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1658960/End_of_Lines/ If you want to subscribe to our mailing list, you can register here: http://www.nova-box.com/signup You'll get extra-fresh updates about our projects and our whereabouts once a month, nestled in the coziness of your own inbox (we'll never send spam, and you can unsubscribe anytime). And if you want to hear from us more often, you can also follow us on social networks: http://twitter.com/novabox http://facebook.com/novabox.studio https://instagram.com/novabox Best, Geoffroy, on behalf of the team.

[ 2022-02-24 13:33:56 CET ] [ Original post ]