Hi everyone. Duhop here, lead developer for Alex's Journey to the Grave. I have to apologize for our recent lack of updates and communication. Im sorry to say that was because development of the game has essentially been on hold for the past couple of months, following the news that one of our team members had passed away. I wont get into the specifics of that right nowplans are in the works for us to preserve their memory as best we can, and I want to make sure we can take our time to do that properly. The real purpose of this devlog is to break the silence, and usher in a new era in the development of Alexs Journey to the Grave. Im doubtful that its still possible for our small team to finish the game by Q4 of 2025 now, as we had originally projected, but were still gonna try our damn hardest. After recovering from the initial heartbreak, I personally dont think Ive ever been more motivated to finish AJG than I am right now. Its hard to put into words, but my perspective on the game has shifted dramatically after what happened. There are some new directions Ive set my mind on; some scenes I only vaguely considered before that I now see as absolutely necessary, and some big alterations to the philosophy for how I want the game to interact with its players. Anyway, the direction I want to take things feels as though it has solidified with some serious emotional motivation behind it, and that has lit a whole new fire inside of me. I think I will be much more open about discussing writing, story planning, and directing like that in future devlogs, but Ill still make sure to mark and tag those parts for anyone who wants to avoid spoilers. That reminds mewe'll be posting devlogs every single month from now on (as long as nothing else cataclysmic ends up going down), as well as weekly social media posts. The social media posts have been happening for a while now, actually. (Check our Instagram!) And finally, although we did slow down and take some long breaks over the past two months, we werent at a complete standstill. Here is a taste of some art weve finished/been working on since the last update:

Recognize this place? Maybe if you played our first game ;D

What do you think is out there?
Thank you so much for taking the time to check in with us. I look forward to bringing you more updates soon! -Duhop

[ 2025-05-12 20:50:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're proud to present the extra-polished demo for Alex's Journey to the Grave in this year's Steam Visual Novel Fest!

Hello everyone, Duhop from Violet Horizons here. We've been hard at work for ages, and I'm super, super excited to be able to participate in the Steam VNFest! A new update for the demo has just been released, fixing every one of the small number of issues we've found since it first released. You can read up on the changes here, if you're interested! I was already incredibly proud of how well the demo came together, and now it's only gotten better. I hope the love and attention we've given it will ensure a fantastic experience for players during the fest! If you do happen to find anything that doesn't seem quite right in your playthrough, please do let us know. Whether that's on the Steam forums, social media, or on our discord, we will be grateful for the intel! Thank you so much for reading, and I sincerely hope you enjoy the demo if you give it a go! As a parting gift, here's a cute chibi Flora with cat:

[ 2025-03-04 01:47:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! In preparation for the Steam Visual Novel Fest, we've pushed an update to the demo to make sure it's extra polished up and ready to be scrutinized. Special thanks goes to all the streamers who played the demo in the past few days after our Keymailer campaign! Tuning into their streams is what ended up helping us find some of the last few hidden little typos and bugs that we're fixing in this patch. You can find and watch their VODs here, so go check out their reactions to the demo and give them some love! Now for the informational part:

AJG Demo 2.1 Changelog

Programming:

- Updated to a newer version of Ren'Py. - Fixed several incompatability issues that came up. (Shoutout to renpytom for fixing one of these on the engine side!!) - Fixed the line "And I'm... being hugged." getting skipped past automatically after 2 seconds.

Writing:

- Fixed typos: "actuall" to "actually", "from all side" to "from all sides", "lifegaurds" to "lifeguards". - Added em dashes to the font and switched from hyphens to em dashes where appropriate.

Art:

- Fixed calendar length in Tombstone's room. - Updated Flora's room with better details and lighting. - Made cute chibi art of Flora and cat.

Thank you so much for reading!

[ 2025-03-04 00:34:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Alex's Journey to the Grave is finally going to hit the public eye this Monday, November 4th, in the form of a free demo covering Act 1 of the 6 that will be in the final game! Here's the store page for the demo! Act 1 is 15,000 words or around 1.5 hours long for the average reader. It tells the story of how our two main characters met and had their fates intertwined. A dark room, an online chat, a new perspective, a bright smile, a warm embrace... and a growing, inescapable fear. I'm extremely proud of how polished the demo has turned out, and I believe it will definitely catch the attention of anyone within the target audience. If you have any interest in Alex's Journey to the Grave at all, please give it a play through! I've opened up some threads for feedback here on the Steam forums, or more directly you can join our Discord community and discuss the game there: https://discord.gg/9XQVquY4U8 See you on Monday!!!

[ 2024-11-02 21:35:40 CET ] [ Original post ]