[ We published this at 6.27PM (har har, Alexis) on Saturday 17th August on our website - but we wanted to share the feels and what's next on Steam, too! Happy anniversary, BOOK OF HOURS. ]

ONE YEAR AGO TODAY

On August 17th 2023, just before six oclock in the evening, nervous glasses of wine in our trembling hands, cats winding demandingly round our trembling ankles, Lottie and I clicked the big green LAUNCH button for BOOK OF HOURS. (I believe we placed both our hands on the mouse.) In the great tradition of software launches everywhere, nothing at all happened. The BOOK OF HOURS Steam forum went berserk. The Weather Factory subreddit went insane. Our social media accounts were instantly submerged in a battering vortex of good-natured but anguished queries. Meanwhile Lottie and I tried every channel we knew to contact our Steam rep and find out why our game hadnt launched. (The GOG version had launched on time, but you probably know that the bulk of a small devs PC sales usually come through Steam, and thats where the vortex was centred.) The thing is and this is absolutely central to the indie dev experience all this vortex and berserkness business manifested as me and Lottie sitting in our living room typing quickly and saying things like erk. There wasnt even any background music, unless you count the cats complaining about our lack of attention. My job is this: all day I sit in front of a screen in a room with my wife and I type (if Im on a writing break, I sit somewhere sunnier with nicer coffee and type on my own). Then occasionally I type something different from usual, and that immediately causes tens of thousands of people to play our game, and/or send me emails about how our game isnt working. Any software developer will be familiar with this. Even when I worked at bigger companies, launches were often anticlimactic. You make a deal of it with bunting and countdowns and sparkling drinks in flimsy plastic cups, and then it goes quiet and someone comes back from the toilet and says oh did we launch? But all over the world there is a ripple of change. The launch was fine in the end. Our Perpetual Edition offer (any and all expansions free if you buy at launch) meant we had to do something a bit non-standard, the non-standard thing gunged up the launch process, and our famously affable Steam rep, though theoretically away at the time, got back in contact to sort it out. We launched, a not quite half an hour late. By then, the degree of desperate enthusiasm showed us that the launch was likely to go okay.
And lo, it was so. BOOK OF HOURS has been the most successful game of both our careers. Not in a dramatic and overwhelming sort of way what we do is, and will always be, too niche but its sold a little more than Cultist Simulator, which itself sold a little more than SUNLESS SEA, and the Steam review % is much than either of those. This makes sense if you build a following, and get better at making games, you do a little better each time but its never something you can count on, especially in the fervid rainforest which is game development. So if you bought a copy whether youve been following us since the early days, or you just stumbled across us last week then thank you! Without your support, Weather Factory would be a rain-haunted shell. And thanks to your support, we likely have the resources to make a third game of which more shortly.

SO THE MOST SUCCESSFUL GAME OF YOUR CAREER IS THE NICE ONE

Remember the origin story of BOOK OF HOURS? Back in 2019, I was working on the GHOUL and PRIEST expansions for Cultist Simulator. At that point Id already been working for two years on this cult-themed body-horror-heavy game where you play a manipulative monomaniac, and both those expansions are particularly gruesome. So in a melancholy moment I tweeted this:
It got a lot more engagement than Id expected and before we knew it we found wed sort of announced our next game before wed known what it was ourselves. But we went ahead and for the first time in my career I made a game which contained no cannibalism nor allied trades. It was a bit of a departure and Im relieved it worked out so well. HOURS is not quite a certified horror-free game. You can find manskin parchment if you poke around the house, there were some pretty nasty things going on with the Cucurbit Prison, and of course some of the occult books were written by people who these days would merit their own soberly narrated Netflix documentary. But its clearly the kindest game of my career. The tone throughout is eerie rather than grisly, and the worst thing you-as-protagonist can do is forget to feed the cat for a bit. (Well yes there are the endings where you can unleash theomachic conflict or convince the Sun to start drinking blood again, but thats all another History.) Ive really enjoyed the quieter tone, and its been good discipline for me as a writer to work without some of my habitual tools. But I dont want to leave those tools in the box forever. So Cultist was sour, HOURS was sweet, Game Three will be sweet and sour. More on that, as I said, in a bit.

SO WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO IN THE YEAR SINCE LAUNCH?

The first few months were post-launch support. BOOK OF HOURS was in better shape coming out of the gate than Cultist Simulator. This was as I hoped we had a nice long beta period and a shared codebase but HOURS is quite an intricate machine and there were lots of things that needed tidying up. And weve added a lot of stuff too: the crafting helper panel, the zoom-to-cursor feature that I finally got working properly, the order form system, layers and layers of optimisation, all that good stuff. The secret panels in a few rooms of the house that you can find only with a sharp eye or a lucky click. And the feature almost no-one has discovered, where whatever you put in the thirteenth niche will appear in the next game. And the weird sub-feature of that which I think no-one at all has discovered yet. Oh and the Hush House Advent Calendar, which I put together very hastily because I wanted to do something nice for my Christmas-obsessed wife, and which as a result was a little buggy and in particular contained perhaps the most notorious bug ever to haunt these halls:
(if youre interested, I did a whole post on the cause of that and of another dozen hauntings, here.) Anyway since then, its been localisation and the GIGANTIC EXPANSION.

TELL US FUN HORROR STORIES ABOUT LOCALISATION, AK

Were about to release full Russian and Chinese localisation (theyve been in beta a few months now), which is you know Hofstadters Law? It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadters Law. Localisation is always more work than we think. Obviously the translators do the bulk of the work, but some of that work means asking me questions which take, um, considerable attention [table equalcells=1] [tr] [th]Since Shell is a rather obscure entity, could you please clarify which word should be used here (assuming it is the same Shell in both cases) should we use the word for a sea-shell or an egg-shell? Or even crab-shell, since the description of Wist malady implies it is related to Carapace Cross?[/th] [th]I would like to imply both the casing of an insect and the outer surface of an egg, but if that ambiguity isnt possible in Russian, insect is the preferred implication[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]What fountain is that? Is it a fountain spring, your regular garden-variety fountain, or a drinking fountain (just kidding on that last one)?[/th] [th]A fountain spring. This is the Spring referred to in the 1932 letter from Teresa in the hidden papers, which the Long of Noon used to drink from in order to be forgotten. I said fountain rather than spring only for reasons of prosody so translate freely in Russian[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Sorry for asking this so late we have found its Greek etymon calypto- (hidden, covered), while calyptra also refers to hoodlike structure in plant. So considering the relationship between the Calyptra and the Chancel, whether we should translate it into a botanical term, or shouldnt do so? By the way, we temporarily translate it as , root cap. We try to make it sounds like root and cap, and the description of Trees flowers used lies heavy, so we guess root or underground may be a part of Calyptras imago.[/th] [th]The Russian translators just asked about this and here was my answer: Calyptra is from the Greek meaning covering or veil, particularly a womans veil; I think I also referenced the botanical term which derives from that. I imagine the moth genus has the same etymology. Some authorities in the game use the term to refer to a law or principle that conceals knowledge, others to the entities that enforce that law theres a synecdochic effect and authorities disagree on how the term should be used. The confusion about number, and about whether an article should be used, reflects this. I think a botanical term is the best approximation. But can you give me a quick summary of how youre translating Chancel and also Haustorium? these are all similar co-opted terms and there is probably a useful parallel in approach somewhere. (I assume in Chinese there wont be the same problem of deciding number / capitalisation!)[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Ivory usually has two meanings: the white color of bleached bones a variety of dentin of elephants and walruses In BoH there seems to have three kinds of Ivory: the Grails Name (we have a special translation for it), for the Ivory Dove and angthing connect with him(like the Obliviate), and the others(like Silent Typewriter). On the whole we translate the second kind as , and the third as . If the above details are correct, how should we translate the ivory towers and Carapace-spires of horn and ivory in endings? , for it happens in Port Noon, or , for its connection with horn?[/th] [th]I think the simplest answer is (2). More details: Ivory tower is a specific and widely recognised idiom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower Horn and ivory is a specific reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_of_horn_and_ivory that players have recognised elsewhere the White Door and the Stag Door in the Mansus can be interpreted as an ivory gate and a horn gate.[/th] [/tr] [/table] Now, not all the questions are this complicated, but there are literally hundreds of questions in all, and few were questions youd want to answer before a second cup of coffee. My hat is off to Dove Archive and Riotloc (our Chinese and Russian translators respectively) for the intense and sophisticated effort they put into navigating the labyrinth of lore. And then theres the technical and the UI side: the problems of presenting Chinese characters in a way that works with the logo on the menu screen, the many Russian texts that tend to be longer than English labels and creep over the edges of things, the dozens of items I accidentally hardcoded and had to rip out and dynamify..icise, the week Lottie spent just putting together book covers for Russian and Chinese characters, and the Gordian mare that resulted from keeping card ordering rules semi-consistent across all three languages
Were tidying up now, finally. Japanese should be along later; depending on all the usual boring business reasons well make a decision on what other languages to localise into; and we do plan to release Steam Workshop / localisation modding support for people to do their own translations.

OOH, MODDING?

Dont get excited. My answer on game modding support remains maybe, someday, but not a priority right now. But we do want to offer, specifically, modding support for languages, so that will be along in a while.

WHAT ABOUT THAT EXPANSION?

Okay, now were talking. HOUSE OF LIGHT, the expansion Ive been working on since the beginning of the year, is nearly out. Its an absolute chonker. Here are the headline features: FOOD: Combine Sustenance and Cooking Ingredients at the three Kitchen workstations to create dozens of new dishes. Youll need Kitchenware items to find all the recipes. WRITING-CASE: Youll receive this at the end of the first Spring season after youve replied to St Rhonwen. Youll be able to use the calling-cards left by satisfied visitors to invite those visitors back to the House. SALONS: Place food and drink in one of the six Salon rooms, and then use the bell to begin a Salon. Do it right and youll be rewarded with sparkling conversation and lessons. MANUSCRIPTS: Use Paper, Ink, and a Skill to write a Manuscript based on that skills, and satisfy your Visitors needs for more specific knowledge. Lessons from Salons will help you improve those Skills and write more useful Manuscripts. FURTHER STORIES: Once youve completed an Incident, follow it up in the Tree of Wisdoms. Visitors will need more specific help here perhaps a book on a specific topic, or a specific book. THE INSTITUTE: Look for the lighthouse, out at sea. When your Visitors are ready, use it to establish the true heirs to the Curia of the Isle, unlocking a new kind of ending. The Salons, Further Stories and Institute are, as a one-time lawyer of mine would say, compendious; and honestly even the Food absorbed a frankly insane larder-load of effort. So theres more content (and new art) in HOUSE OF LIGHT than in all the Cultist Simulator expansions put together.
Because its such an absolute beast, and because Ive now been working on BOOK OF HOURS, on and off, for five years, there wont be another expansion any time soon. I think we will probably go back and do at least one more (working name HOUSE OF HUES) but if so itll be after a break. And when I say break, I mean a few months of pre-production on Game Three.

OBVIOUSLY YOU CANT TELL US ABOUT GAME THREE.

Reverse psychology huh. Well you got me. Heres a little.

• Three will be set in the Secret Histories world again. There are clues about it in the Lighthouse Institute endings in HOUSE OF LIGHT.
• It is unmistakably the most ambitious thing Lottie and I have yet done. Its also the most traditional thing weve done, although its really not very traditional.
• Its something that many players, over many years, have vocally hoped for.
• At least two characters in Three are among the most beloved, or most provoking, fan favourites.
• At least two other characters in Three are fervently discussed Secret Histories characters who have made at most fleeting in-game appearances. One of those characters is located in the first person in Three.
• The working title of Game Three is the name of a beloved book from the Secret Histories.
• It contains at least one carnival.

Once were through the support aftermath of localisation and HOUSE OF LIGHT, well begin pre-production: the process of answering questions like what will this look like, will it actually work and do we have enough money to make it. And when we come out of the other end of that, well have more to tell you.