Hello and Happy New Year, everyone,

This first Dev Log of Chapter 8 will be a bit longer than the usual ones.

A word of warning: if you haven\'t played Chapter 7, the latter part of this Dev log contains slight spoilers, so you might stop reading this Dev Log until you have played it.\nThe spoilers won\'t be anything major, though.\nUp to you. :-)

Overall, I\'m pretty happy with how the release of Chapter 7 went. We missed a few minor bugs, like textlines showing up when they shouldn\'t, but no bugs in the game logic (as far as I\'m aware).\nThe current version is v0.7.0.3, which is live on Steam.\nDecember on Steam also went pretty well, so thank you to everyone who bought the game here and/or helped with a review.

As I mentioned before, I started working on Chapter 8.\nThe progress wasn\'t swift due to the holidays and all the distractions throughout that time, though.\nOne thing I decided to change is how the code for CH8 is organized.\nUntil CH7, every Chapter has one script file with (almost) all necessary stuff for that Chapter in it.\nThose files end up almost 8000 lines long (CH6), which wasn\'t a problem until now.\nTechnically, it doesn\'t really matter, but when translations come in, it gets annoying.\nThe tl-files tend to get significantly longer than the script files. Up to almost 20,000 lines per file. And when you start translating a Chapter, you have that huge wall of text in front of you.\nSo I decided to change the structure of the script files a little and have one file for each scene.\nThat should make translating the game a little easier for me... let\'s see if the amount of additional files will drive me crazy instead :-D

I hope that the new approach will also help to keep the branching of the story manageable.\nThose of you who have already played CH7 know that it ends at different spots, depending on your choices.\nThis branching will also run through Chapter 8 and a bigger part of Chapter 9.\nHaving every branch in one file like before will be one hell of a search-and-find mission in the code.

Speaking of branching, one of the paths in Chapter 8 will be lfheimr if you accepted Titania\'s offer.\nIt will be the biggest part in Chapter 8 and will take up the most dev time.\nIt won\'t be like Chapter 5, where you hardly see any of the other 3 LI\'s, but those 3 will have significantly less screen time compared to lfheimr.\nI\'m not entirely happy with that, but it\'s either that or a development time of 1 year for Chapter 8.\nIt\'s the price I have to pay for a branching storyline.\n\nI still want to make sure that the non-lfheimr path still has a few memorable \"moments\" in it.

Okay, this is getting ass-long, and I\'m sure it triggers quite a few questions on your side.\nFeel free to post them in the comments, and I\'ll try to answer them in a later Dev Log or another Q&A session.\n\nThe numbers for CH8 as of now:\n33 static renders\n0 animations\n479 lines in the script file\n\nHave a nice start to the week, guys.\n\nCheers,\nCeo

Hey everyone,\n\nI survived Christmas!\nAnd I didn\'t become insane... at least not any more than I was before. That\'s a win in my books.

I spent quite a lot of time with the family, especially my parents. The chances were pretty high that I wouldn\'t be able to earlier this year (some people may remember the reason from the dev logs from the first half of the year).\nOverall, the year could\'ve gone better, but also a lot worse.\nI managed to put out Chapter 7 before the end of the year, which was very important for me to achieve.\nI don\'t want those long dev cycles, and the ~6 months of Chapter 7 felt borderline too long. I\'d prefer them to be shorter. And I\'m not even talking about Chapter 6.\n

I spent a bit of time planning Chapter 8 throughout Christmas. The usual stuff I do at the start of a dev cycle... scenes and story points I have/want to include, possible additional side scenes, and so on.\nI\'m still in the process of doing that (and writing the first scenes), so more details will have to wait for the first \"official\" Dev log of Chapter 8, early next year.\n

I want to say thank you for all your support, for all the nice conversations on Discord, for all the reviews you guys put on Steam to help me out, and for all your help spreading the word in general.\nI appreciate all of that a lot, and I consider myself extremely lucky that there are so many people out there who like what I\'m doing.\n\nStay safe out there and have a great start to the new year.\n\nCheers,\nCeo

- a few small fixes to minor bugs and typos in Chapter 7\n- several fixes for the german translation

Hello everyone,

Chapter 7 of The Neverwhere Tales Book 1 is here.

The story continues directly after the... explosive events at the end of Chapter 6 and begins to unravel questions that have lingered far too long. Secrets can only stay hidden for so long.

Chapter 7 pulls you deeper into the aftermath of loss, fractured loyalties, and truths long forgotten. Old wounds are reopened, alliances are tested, and the line between myth and reality grows thinner as hidden forces begin to stir.

Expect emotionally charged conversations, difficult decisions, and revelations that reshape how you see familiar characters - and yourself.

And once certain truths are spoken, there is no turning back.\n

Chapter 7 by the numbers:

• 2,082 new static renders

  [/*]

• 27 new animations

  [/*]

• 7,479 new lines added to the script

  [/*]

\nGerman was added as a new language. It can be found in the new (and temporary) menu for the language selection.\nPlease keep in mind that it is tagged as \"BETA\" for a reason.\nIt still needs more proofreading and polish and I hope to finish all that in the next several days.\nIf you find any mistakes, weird translations, or bugs, please post them in the discussion board or on Discord.

Have a nice weekend and Happy Holidays, if you happen to celebrate them.\nCheers,\nCeo

Bugfix for Helena\'s Chapter 2 line in the Chinese (both) versions

added localization for Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

Hello everyone,\n\nwe finished the work on the translation to Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.\nI\'ll release an update to Chapter 6 with those languages on December 5th in the late afternoon/early evening, Central European timezone.\nThat means, it will probably be night/early morning of Dec 6th for most of you guys.\n\nI want to run a few more tests on my test branch for this build on Friday and there will be another \"thing\" on Friday which I can\'t talk about yet. I want to combine both events.\n\nSetting up the translation was quite a lot of work. As of now, the game consists of more than 190000 words so my translator had a lot of work to do, and the game itself wasn\'t really set up to support different languages, despite having French as a second language.

Adding Chinese is a pretty high financial risk for me because it was a good chunk of my income up until now and it will cost me in the future too.\nI hope it will be worth it.

\nAs a side note, the beta is going pretty well and I don\'t see anything that could put a release on Dec 19th at risk.\n\nCheers,\nCeo

Hey everyone,

\nI uploaded the Beta version yesterday, and we\'ve been running our tests since then.\nI still have a few things to finish, like setting up Gallery renders, Steam achievements, and a few more animations for the end of the chapter, but I\'ll do that in the Beta phase.

Also, I\'ve been working on providing more translations for the game. I already had a French translation, but that one was kinda hacked in at some points, mostly because I didn\'t know better back then.\nI had to correct those mistakes so it won\'t get worse with every new language I add.

The next language that will be added is Simplified Chinese.\nIt\'s almost ready, and I hope to release it within the next 2 weeks.

\nSpeaking of release, the date for the [u]release of Chapter 7 will be December 19th.[/u]\nOf course, that\'s subject to change if something completely unexpected happens.\n

I still need a few more reviews before December 5th, when the holiday season & sales will start. \nFor visibility on Steam, reviews (and especially recent reviews) play a big role. If you haven\'t written a review and can spare the time to write a short review, I\'d appreciate it a lot. Every review helps with visibility, and every feedback is welcome for the further development of the game. Thanks to everyone in advance, and especially to those who have already put up a review!

Have a nice Sunday, guys. \nCheers, Ceo

Hey everyone,

We\'re in November, we just survived Halloween (I, at least), and Christmas is just around the corner.\nAdditionally, my full-time job has been taking quite a bit more time than usual lately, but that should hopefully improve over the next several weeks.\nAnd during all this busy time, I\'m trying to get this new Chapter done.\nIn general, I\'m pretty satisfied with the progress, and I am still on schedule with the plan I had set for myself.\n\nRight now, I\'m working on the two chapter endings, with the first being almost done.\nI\'ll start working on the second one (which will be longer and more \"complicated\" than the other one) this weekend or early next week.\n\nI still won\'t give a release date because I want to make sure I can meet it once I communicate one.\nAnd working alone on this also means that if something unexpected happens, the development progress can take a pretty huge hit.

That said, I don\'t expect to post another \"full\" Dev Log before release, and the next thing you\'ll hear from me (if everything goes as planned...) will be the announcement of the Beta status.

\nDecember will be a pretty important month for the game, between the Steam Winter Sale and Chapter 7 being close to release. \nFor visibility on Steam, reviews (and especially recent reviews) play a big role.\nIf you haven\'t written a review and can spare the time to write a short review, I\'d appreciate it a lot.\nEvery review helps with visibility, and every feedback is welcome for the further development of the game.\nThanks to everyone in advance!

As of now, the game consists of 1869 static renders and 24 animations.\nThe length is now about the same as Chapter 5.

Have a nice time, guys.\nCheers,\nCeo

Preview renders from the past month of development:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/3f8c9917186b3189628ceea3b3e1bed57dd2efa8.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/2f5bfa49bada2fe9268e76d34058d2f6d373767a.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/562ac856ac3a9e4ccdcacba0df10bdd28d168874.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/80d4214ace4d657d34eb2d4c215571946c33c164.png\"][/img]

Hey everyone,

As promised, the October Dev Log is on time.\nOf course, there\'s a little less to write about when the last Dev Log was only 2 weeks ago, but I\'ll still try my best to waste your time with nonsense. :-D

Jokes aside, I\'m currently working on one of the biggest scenes of this Chapter.\nThis scene has kept me busy for the majority of the past 2 weeks and will continue to do so for the next week.\nIt\'s already at ~260 renders, and I\'ll probably need another 100 at least to get it done, but it\'s a very important scene for Elea\'s character arc, so I\'ll do my best to get it right.

\nWhen I\'m done with Elea\'s scene, there\'s \"only\" one medium-sized scene left to do before I can start the work on the Chapter endings.\nYes, plural, as this Chapter will have two different endings. Those two paths will merge again later in Chapter 8.\nOne of those paths is something I\'ve been looking forward to working on since I started this project. \nI can\'t wait to finally get to it.\nMore on that with the next Dev Log when I hopefully start working on the endings.\n\nAs of today, Chapter 7 contains 1321 renders, 9 animations, and the length of the script file is somewhere between Chapter 3 and 4.

Have a nice time, guys.\nCheers,\nCeo

\nPreview renders:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/a67509357cc5356e378636d69b761daed5a61950.png\"][/img]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/9e303bf27b06c515001c8a92dc42d81c28b566c7.png\"][/img]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/a620a39e42a8739893f18fb5a1050d3f50af5859.png\"][/img]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/95787642651774bb14df74fc29dc11c3390bcd70.png\"][/img]

Hey everyone,

\nLater than I wanted to do, the September Dev Log.\nTo be honest, I forgot to post it after coming back from vacation. Sorry for that and for being late now.

One of the reasons why I forgot is that I almost instantly went back to development after coming back.\nThe good thing is, the October Dev Log will be here on time, so it\'s just half a month until the next news. Yay... I guess?!

Anyway... the vacation was great and I had the chance to disconnect a little from all the daily routine stuff and recharge my batteries.\nAs usual, the mind still wanders back to the story from time to time, and I still wrote down some dialogue and notes during vacation.\nOne of the first things I did when coming back was take those notes and ideas into my scripts and game notes so I don\'t forget about them.

After that, I got back into my usual schedule of setting up static renders and creating the script for Chapter 7.\nI also created the new internal test build last week and ran a few tests.

\nThe plan for this week is to complete the scene I\'m currently working on and then move on to one of the two remaining scenes before the chapter-ending scene.\nMore on that in the next Dev Log.\n\nChapter 7 currently consists of 1008 static renders and 8 animations (most of the planned animations are at the chapter ending).

Have a nice time, guys.\nCheers,\nCeo

\nPreview renders:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/67fd4d84f3b06ee95b65ae49f6bab66c8eaca8f5.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/d80275bf56f9e01eb6a7d2dbd82a1581c53115be.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/9d16a936cd5c209648ffa9e431ef3341da229195.png\"][/img][img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/e6eb1391af8dffc9d16025fdd38ac915260b18d2.png\"][/img]\n

Hey everyone,

\nA few days later than usual, but the Dev Log for August is finally here.

The progress is going as planned... mostly. Mostly, because I already did a few animations that weren\'t planned, but I came up with an idea for them when coding the scene and went with it.\nThat\'s my usual approach, though. If I come up with something throughout development, I add (or change) it. Of course, only as long as the result is worth the time invested (in my opinion...).\nIf I add every idea I come up with, I\'d never finish anything...\n\nI also did a 2nd session of Q&A in July, which you can find on my Discord server (it\'s too long to add it to this Dev log).

As of now (August, 8th), Chapter 7 consists 715 static renders, 8 animations, and is roughly at 50% of the length of Chapter 3 (30% of Chapter 6 but it\'s also planned to be smaller in general).

September Dev Log will also be a fews days later than usual because I\'ll be on vacation with the family.

Have a nice time, guys.\nCheers,\nCeo

\nPreview renders:

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/2bd3b358ad1e0f619d10d538591f48920119e133.png\"][/img]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/2923019030469d164f4909d2130930e1f68dbdf8.png\"][/img]

[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/44739838/9481c607f6a640a67ccf5cad8ecc302cdc70a3f9.png\"][/img]

Hey everyone,

this is the first Dev Log for Chapter 7.
Development of the new chapter started in early June after the Steam release of Chapter 6.
As usual, the start of the development cycle contains a lot of planning, like which scenes to include, when, and so on.
After that was done, I started working on the first scenes (you can see a few preview renders of them below).
The plan is that Chapter 7 doesn't take as long as Chapter 6 to develop, but also to be smaller.
And to have it ready before the end of the year.

Mind you, that's the current plan. Since I'm doing this all alone, there's still the risk of development going slower due to life (as happened earlier this year).

As of now, Chapter 7 contains 355 static renders and 1609 lines in the script file.
No animations yet as most of them are planned for the 2nd half/end of the Chapter and there will be fewer in general compared to Chapter 6.

Cheers,
Ceo

Preview renders:

Hello everyone,

I released the Chapter 6 update a few minutes ago.
Your Steam client should update automatically (you might need to restart it before).

Chapter 6, called "Crossroads", is the biggest Chapter to date, although that heavily depends on your choices before.
The main focus of this Chapter is the personal stories of Kaija, Fiona, and Elea since they had barely any screentime in Chapter 5. So if you ignore those 3, Chapter 6 can feel very short.

The final numbers for Chapter 6:
2735 new static renders
113 new animations
7831 lines in the script file

Due to some events beyond my control, the development time of this Chapter took a bit longer than I expected.
I hope (and plan for) that Chapter 7 will take less time than Chapter 6.
More on that in future Dev Updates.

Have a nice weekend.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

The thing most of you're looking for first:
The release date of Chapter 6 on Steam is set to May 30th, 2025.

I just sent out the beta build to my testers.
It contains all the content for Chapter 6 and is only missing a few images for the Gallery and one animation for the ending of the Chapter.
I'll work on these while my testers will... well... test.
Additionally, I still need to set up the Steam achievements, which is quite a bit of work, too.

Overall, I don't expect game-breaking stuff to pop up during the Beta, and I'm pretty positive about the release date.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

I'll keep this one short because I want to use the time to get the new update done.
The progress has been pretty good in the past month, and right now
I'm working on the final parts of Chapter 6.
Once that is done, I'll set up the Beta build, which the beta testers will then test.
When the build is ready and delivered, I'll announce the release date of the Steam update (probably ~4 weeks after Beta).

So you can expect another Event post from me this month.

Cheers,
Ceo

Preview renders:

Hey everyone,

April is already here, and sadly, the development of Chapter 6 is still in progress.
I'm getting closer to finishing Chapter 6, but to be honest, I hoped to be at least in Beta by now.
The events of February and March didn't help, of course.
The good news is that I'm kinda back on track and hopefully can wrap up Chapter 6 quickly.

I created my last test build this week, which will be the last build before Beta and contains roughly 90% of the planned content.
To put it into numbers, that means 2240 static renders, 96 animations, and the script file has almost reached the size of Chapter 5 (~6400 lines vs ~6800).

I hope to get all remaining work done in April so I can move into Beta at the end of the month.
At least, that's the plan for now.
With a bit of luck, the next announcement here will be the Beta state.


Cheers,
Ceo

P.S. preview renders...

Hey everyone,

February was a shit month in several ways.
First, I caught the flu, which knocked me out for more than a week, and then we had a very critical health issue in the closest family circle. Sadly, the last one is still ongoing.
In short, progression wasn't as good as I wanted it to be and what I'm used to.
It sucks even more because I have roughly 4-5 weeks of work remaining and wanted to get that done until end of March. Right now, it looks more like April... if life spares me with more crap.

I'm sorry, that I don't have better news, but sometimes life just keeps throwing wrenches at you.
Be assured, that every free minute I have goes into finishing that damn Chapter.

As of now, Chapter 6 contains 1988 static renders and 54 animations.

As usual, I'll attach a few preview renders done in the past month.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

It's time for the February Dev Log.

I finally finished Kaija's scene, which is the longest of the Chapter (and one of the longest of the whole game), and moved on to the next scenes.
The work on those went pretty well and I was able to move on to the next longer schene (Fiona) before the end of January.
So now I'm working on Fiona's scene for Chapter 6 which will keep me busy for a while too.
It's not as long as Kaija's scene but still pretty big.
I plan to finish that scene mid to end of February and after that, it's Elea's scene (also a longer scene) and the Chapter finale (shorter than the previous Chapter endings).

As of now, Chapter 6 contains 1775 static renders, 47 animations, and is script-wise between the length of Chapters 4 and 5.

Last but not least, in preparation for the Steam Visual Novel Fest in March, we set up a new bundle which you can find here:Beyond Boundaries - The FourWorld Adventure
As usual, I'll attach a few preview renders done in the past month.

Have a good start to your week, guys.

Cheers,
Ceo

Happy New Year everyone.

I failed to post my next Dev Log before the end of the year, sorry for that.
December was pretty busy with all the holiday stuff going on and I put every available minute into developing the next chapter.
But I'm now (finally...) back to my normal working schedule.

Both PCs were pretty much rendering all through the holidays which kept my office nice and warm at sub-tropical temperatures (read: way too warm!).
They're still busy rendering the remaining images and animations for the scene I was working on but once they're done I can build my next internal test build and then finally move on to the next scenes.

I have a post-winter sale running for those who missed the platform sale due to being busy with their family (how dare you?). :-)

The current version of Chapter 6 contains 1316 renders and 42 animations.

Have a good start to the new year.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hello everyone,

Christmas is upon us and the Steam Winter Sale started yesterday (in case you didn't notice :-D).
The discount is already live and with the Winter Sale we started a new bundle called Sexiest "Urban Fantasy bundle."

The bundle is also live already and can be foundhere:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/48325/Sexiest_Urban_Fantasy/

Thanks to Droid Productions for creating that awesome trailer and to Moonlight and Highborn Tiger for joining this bundle.

Hope you guys have a Merry Christmas.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

December is here and that means another month passed by.
The work with 2 PCs is still a bit tricky for me and as a result I'm looking into options to make it easier.
The main focus is on getting and setting up a NAS that provides the files for rendering to both PCs so I don't have to copy them by hand.
Other than that, the 2nd PC proved to be useful for rendering the animations and I was able to continue the work on the main PC.

In general, it made working on the game a lot easier because it means less planning and organizing when to pose, when to render, and so on.
Everything that will take longer to render, gets passed over to the 2nd PC and can be rendered there.

As of now, Chapter 6 contains already 980 static renders and 14 animations.

December is usually a very busy time with family stuff but I'll try to squeeze in as much time as possible for the work on the game.
I'll try to come up with a new Dev Log before the end of the year.
Until then, have a good time and a Merry Christmas.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

Time for the November development update.
Despite having a few health issues (I caught a cold that's still bugging me a little bit) in the past several days, the progress on Chapter 6 is still acceptable (to me at least).

Until now I got 638 static renders and 4 new animations for Chapter 6 done.
The scene I'm currently working on is one of the longest in Chapter 6 so it will keep me busy the next several days. It will also raise the animation count significantly.

That will also be the first time where I can work with both PCs having one for setting up renders/animations and the other one to render them.
While my available time is usually the limiting factor on progress, when it comes to animations it's usually render speed because rendering them tends to block the PC for several days.

With the money from the Steam release, I was able to set up a second PC so I don't have to decide between rendering and posing new renders.
I'll see how that turns out later this month.

To wrap up this Dev Log, I'll attach a few preview renders from the current development.

Cheers,
Ceo

Hey everyone,

I'm proud to announce that The Neverwhere Tales joined a bundle with three other great, story-focused AVNs: Glowing Stones: Heroes' Awakening, Color of My Sound, and Leaving DNA.

The Exhilarating Stories bundle is now 10% off and set to "Complete the Bundle" so you only pay for the games you don't own.
Plus, each game is individually 20% off for a limited time, making this the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in fantasy, crime, and sci-fi adventures.

You can find the new bundle here:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46178/Exhilarating_Stories/

Hello everyone,

It's been 4 weeks since the release of The Neverwhere Tales - Book 1 and I want to use this chance to thank everyone who bought it for their support.
I'll try to keep track of questions and discussions in the Steam forums but since that is all new to me I still need to establish a workflow to check the discussions.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to post them in the discussions.
I'll try to answer everything as long as it's not going into spoiler territory.

I want to post Dev Logs here regularly but haven't decided on the interval or a format.
For now, I'll start with monthly and see how that works out.

The work on Chapter 6 started in early September, so this is the progress of roughly 1 month of development.
As of now, there are 332 new renders done, 2 new animations, and 1106 lines in the script file.
To give you some context, Chapter 5 had ~2400 renders, 59 animations, and 6803 lines.
That doesn't necessarily mean Chapter 6 will be as big as Chapter 5 but it should give you a rough idea.

Below you'll find a few preview renders from Chapter 6.

Have a nice weekend.

minor bug fixes for Medb's path in Chapter 5

Hey everyone,

the Early Access of The Neverwhere Tales - Book 1 is finally here on Steam.

That means, you'll get access to 5 Chapters with:

• Over 7000 renders in full HD quality
• Over 150 animations
• A story with over 135000 words
• An image gallery
• A scene replay gallery
• A gallery for cinematics
• Achievement functionality with 57 achievements