[h2] Happy 5th anniversary Heart of the Woods!! [/h2]

5 years ago today, a pair of paranormal vloggers ventured into the woods (via Steam and itch.io)... Thank you to those who've been with us since then and to those who've ventured into the woods afterwards! Here's a brand new illustration of Morgan and Abby by adirosa



Our Heart of the Woods merch including keychains, a tshirt, and physical copies are currently on sale on our merch store!

We also have a new wallpaper featuring Morgan illustrated by caps, as well as an exclusive sneak peek for Patrons posted in our Discord server~

Last but not least, here's a new set of bloopers from our voice acting patch!

[previewyoutube=AJvfvhKZcrY;full][/previewyoutube]

[h2]follow us on...[/h2]
Discord - Tumblr - Newsletter

Hello, everyone!

Heart of the Woods 2.1.5 has just been released, which fixes all known compatibility issues with the Steam Deck!

It also fixes a few minor issues that were either reported, or were found in testing.

As always, thank you for continuing to support Studio lan!

Karen/ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa
[h2]Changelog for 2.1.5:[/h2]
On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 7.3.5.606.

• Fixed all known UI layout issues that were affecting the Steam Deck when the game was run from the Steam client in SteamOS 3 / Holo.
• Fixed an issue that could potentially cause videos to not play in certain very specific circumstances.
• Made various other internal refactors and improvements.

Hello, everyone!

We've just released a fairly big update for Heart of the Woods!

In fact, we released four whole versions in rapid succession just now 2.1.3, 2.1.2, 2.1.1.1, and 2.1.1! ( More on this below.)

Our apologies for the large delay in getting these versions out various external factors beyond our control prevented us from properly releasing these updates, despite them being feature-complete for the longest time.

The main highlights of this release mostly have to do with our brand new controller UI and navigation support, which can be enabled and configured from within the game's preference pane, as well as native Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) support on macOS!

All that being said, we thank you all for remaining patient, and as always, for supporting Studio lan across these many years!

If for some reason you want to downgrade the game to an earlier version, you can now do this using Steam's "Betas" tab, accessible via right-clicking on the game in Steam and selecting "Properties".

Karen/ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa
[h2]Changelog for 2.1.3:[/h2]
This is the most recent digital version that combines Heart of the Woods 2.1.2 with changes that were made in 2.1.1.1 and 2.1.1 (both of which chronologically were finalised after 2.1.2 due to external factors, despite what the version numbers may indicate).

This version includes all changes listed in this changelog.

On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 7.3.5.606.

• Merged all changes below.
• Made the UI more clearly indicate when a scrollbar or slider is in a selected state.
• Fixed an issue introduced in 2.1.1.1 where the "Welcome to the music room." string would not be localised.
• Heart of the Woods now officially supports Ren'Py SDK version targets 8.1.3.23091805 7.3.5.606.

• The Studio lan bootlogo has been completely recreated from the ground up using new internal tools, but this time with brand new high-resolution assets!
• Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) is now natively supported on macOS, without any need for Apple's Rosetta 2 x86_64 translation layer!
• Updated names in the credits screen and attribution in the guest art screen.
• Further clarified and improved wording in the README.
• Heart of the Woods now officially supports Ren'Py SDK version targets 8.1.0.23051307 7.3.5.606.

• Improved wording in the music room.
• Made non-user-facing minor internal changes.

• Added a brand new controller UI! It can be enabled and configured from within the game's preference pane.
  • Our new controller buttons (which will be used in all mainline lan games going forward) are slightly modified versions of Nicolae (Xelu) Berbece's controller buttons, which are CC0-licensed ( public domain).
  • You can obtain a fresh copy of the original unmodified assets here: https://thoseawesomeguys.com/prompts/
  • If you'd like to use the exact files and/or naming scheme found in our games, feel free to do so.
• Controller support has been completely reworked, making the game fully controller (and keyboard) navigable for both normal gameplay and UI navigation! More keyboard controls have also been added!
  • Please check the help screen for a full list of controls.
• The controller UI is now enabled by default on Steam Deck and Steam Big Picture.
• The large text size option is now enabled by default on the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch.
• A new version of the Studio lan bootlogo has been created, using new internal tools that allow for both higher quality and framerates.
• The game now supports arbitrarily high framerates for super smooth animations!
• Fully reworked various view layouts in the preference pane for easier UI navigation.
• Added a patch API and content compatibility validator that runs at boot for certain user-installed patches and mods.
• Added a loose file validator that runs at boot to check for certain leftover user-installed loose files that are known to cause issues.
• Added the "changeTaraCustomShirt()" console command, which lets users change Tara custom shirts easily.
  • Example: changeTaraCustomShirt("minute") will change Tara's custom shirt to the specified "minute" custom shirt.
  • changeTaraCustomShirt("off") or simply changeTaraCustomShirt() will remove the custom shirt and restore the usual default behaviour of Tara's shirts that change according to the current in-game moon phase.
• Added a proper bundle identifier: com.vnstudioelan.heartofthewoods
  • This will be our standardised bundle identifier format going forward for all of our games.
• Added all missing Info.plist keys to the macOS app bundle.
• Added compatibility with older Ren'Py SDK runtime versions, tested all the way down to 7.3.5.606! ( Older versions than this may work, but are untested.)
  • Ren'Py SDKs patched with the modern Steamworks API are compatible, too! ( With this Python 3 script provided by Ren'Py: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/renpy/steam-deck-guide/main/update_renpy_steam.py)

• Fixed a crash that would occur if the user performed specific actions on older versions of the game that could result in the incorrect font path being written to persistent save data.
• Fixed an issue where certain users would end up with incorrect font size values written to their persistent save data.
• The current version of the game is now shown in the top left corner of the preference pane.
• Clarified and improved wording in the README.
• Re-centred and re-aligned certain UI elements that were previously incorrectly aligned.
• Adjusted and improved padding on UI elements.
• Fixed an issue where the dynamically changing UI tint colour (based on the current character PoV) would sometimes be inconsistently updated, leaving certain elements in the wrong colour. All UI elements are now correctly updated. No more carrots! This is now a carrot-free household!! ()
• Fixed an issue where the fairy sitting on the ledge of the main menu buttons would sometimes be incorrectly aligned, especially in non-English languages.
• Sped up some UI transitions.
• Recreated many rasterised UI assets at a factor of @4x for a better experience on high-resolution and HiDPI / Retina displays.
• Fixed an issue where the auto mode delay value can sometimes default to an incorrect value of 0 (instead of 15), leading to auto mode effectively not working.
• Made many internal improvements to how trophies are handled.
• Made the state of UI elements in the first boot accessibility onboarding flow more clear to the user.
• Improved text legibility of many UI elements.
• Fixed an issue where the menu UI focus would constantly be lost every time the user navigates to another extras page.
• Restored missing snowflake UI indicators.
• Restored missing UI element alpha dimming in menus, improving legibility in many cases.
• Improved appearance of the "Now Playing" view.
• Allow keyboard / gamepad cancel button to work as expected in all applicable areas.
• Made many improvements to the save screen / load screen UI layout.
• Save screen / load screen pages now properly end at the correct maximum page value bounds, instead of continuing on forever.
• The save screen / load screen pages now wrap around when you hit each end.
• Disabled the autosave pages in the save screen to prevent players from accidentally overwriting their autosaves.
• Fixed the date formats used in save data.
• Fixed an issue where the quick menu would be visible during chapter cards.
• Made all scroll views no longer draggable, as this was somehow causing gamepad navigation to break(!?)
• Made it easier to tell when sliders, scrollbars, and certain buttons are being hovered over or selected.
• Made the game more resilient against crashes if given broken save data.
• Fixed incorrect UI element alignment for the individual character voice volume sliders.
• Improved wording to better communicate the on/off status of the "SUSTAIN VOICE PLAYBACK" and "WAIT FOR VOICE" preferences.
• Fast-skipping will now always show a confirmation prompt.
• Help text has been improved, with many more controls now correctly documented.
• Improved developer console layout.
• Fixed an issue where the bold version of Source Han Sans / would erroneously be used instead of the regular version.
• Fixed an issue where the bootlogo audio could possibly end up being muted in certain cases.
• Fixed an issue where the font size selector in the preference pane would sometimes not work correctly.
• Fixed an issue where certain UI elements in certain states would be more translucent than intended.
• Improved the appearance of the accessibility self-voicing overlay.
• Improved wording of the CG gallery help text.
• Improved wording of the camera overlay help text.
• Fixed Abby's UI colours being incorrect. ( Granted, due to the Carrot Bug, the broken colours were never actually visible to begin with.)
• Fixed an issue where some scroll views in the preference pane would sometimes be cut off prematurely.
• Fixed an issue that would occur when calculating the amount of pages to generate for the CG and guest art galleries.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the extras screen navbar to behave incorrectly when returning from the CG viewer.
• Removed an extraneous newline in the credits screen.
• Updated credits.

• MelanieKit warning screens are now fully localisable.
• Toast notifications are now fully localisable.
• Removed quick menu layout behaviour that was once added to work around an issue that used to be needed for the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed an issue where the "SUSTAIN VOICE PLAYBACK" and "WAIT FOR VOICE" preferences would not correctly show the on/off status in the Traditional Chinese (), Simplified Chinese (), and German (Deutsch) localisations.
• Fixed an issue where chapter names would not be localised in certain cases where they should have been.
• Fixed an issue where the fairy in the main menu would sometimes be misaligned when using a non-English language.
• Fixed an issue where certain strings may not have been fully localisable.

• Added a missing transition in Scene 1-3.
• Added a missing transition in Scene 1-7.

• Heart of the Woods (as well as all mainline lan Ren'Py games going forward) no longer excludes plaintext scripts from the build archives! (There was never much of a point in doing so anyway, considering that unrpyc exists ;P)
• Made various internal improvements to the codebase, including large-scale refactoring again.
• Added the ability to open the README, game data root directory, and game root directory from within the game itself. Look inside MelanieKit for the relevant URL schemes.
• Tara custom shirts use a completely new naming scheme now ("tara_shirt_custom_NAME_left/right"), so if your mod adds new Tara custom shirts, you will need to adapt accordingly.
• changeActiveCharacterPoVAndUpdateUITintColour(characterName) is the new method of triggering a PoV switch. The old method as well as its associated dependencies have been completely removed.
• The leftover/unused translation buttons from early UI prototypes ( and the demo) have been removed, as well as their underlying UI assets.
• Unused raster image UI assets have been removed.

• Fixed a crash that would occur when attempting to enter the Extras menu on non-PC builds.
• Fixed textbox layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed NVL box layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed quick menu layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed font size issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed preference pane layout issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed UI element rendering issues on non-PC builds.
• Fixed an issue where the extras menu would not be localised correctly on non-PC builds.
• Disabled self-voicing on all non-PC builds due to the AX TTS backend not working correctly on non-PC builds.
• Integrated all other changes and improvements made in Heart of the Woods 2.1.1, 2.1, 2.0.4, and 2.0.3.

We just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund disc-based physical copies of our first three visual novels, "Highway Blossoms," "Heart of the Woods," and "Please Be Happy." We're also printing the artbook and soundtrack too! The game copies are disc-based and compatible with PC/Mac/Linux.

The games are available in two versions: the Webstore Editions and Classic Editions. The Classic editions come in a DVD-sized case, and the Webstore editions come in a CD-sized case and have a reversible cover with a new illustration. There's also a special postcard and sticker sheet exclusive to the campaign, illustrated by some special guest artists.

The campaign will run for 4 weeks starting from today, meaning you have until April 9th to order! After the campaign ends, the games, books, and soundtracks will be available on our webstore and at IRL events. The sticker sheet and postcard will be sent to the vault, forever exclusive to this campaign.

Please give it a look if you're interested, and thanks for your support!

Hello, everyone!

Right on the heels of Heart of the Woods' 4th anniversary, we've just released a major update to Heart of the Woods!

Heart of the Woods 2.1 fixes many long-standing issues of varying severity, vastly improves controller support, and even adds native support for ARM Linux (arm64 / AArch64, armv7) notably including Asahi Linux (arm64e / Apple Silicon)!

To go along with the 4th anniversary, we also have a new short story and artwork featuring Tara and Morgan! You can see them in our Patreon post here: https://patreon.com/posts/78737674

As always, thank you all for supporting Studio lan across these many years!

Karen/ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa

[h2]Changelog for 2.1:[/h2]
Note regarding native Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) Mach-O slices on macOS: Ren'Py unfortunately does not support this configuration upstream yet, and attempts at building it manually have failed due to toolchain issues.

For the time being, Apple's Rosetta 2 x86_64 translation layer (which will be installed automatically) will still be required to play Heart of the Woods.
[h3]New features[/h3]

• Added a detailed README found in the game directory please give it a read!
• Added a macOS DMG background. It is also available as bonus content in the game directory.
• Added native support for ARM Linux (arm64 / AArch64, armv7) notably including Asahi Linux (arm64e / Apple Silicon)!
  • Note for ARM Linux users: You will not be able to earn Steam achievements/trophies while running native ARM Linux builds of the game, as Valve currently only provides an x86_64 version of the Steamworks dynamic library for Linux (libsteam_api.so).
    • If you run the x86_64 build of the game via a translation layer such as Box64 or FEX, Steam achievements/trophies should work as expected.
• Vastly improved controller support as well as general keybinds for both controller and keyboard. The list below is incomplete and only lists what's changed a full list of all bindings can be found in the Help menu.
  • Controller: Added a new configurable preference that allows you to set your preferred confirmation button. Available options are:
    • A / Cross / Bottom Button ( Default)
    • B / Circle / Right Button
  • Controller: Submenus can now be exited by pressing your configured cancel button (which is whatever the opposite of your configured confirm button is).
  • Controller: Scrollable views can now be scrolled using the right stick.
  • Controller: Pressing L1 / Left Shoulder and R1 / Right Shoulder buttons now changes pages in the save screen, load screen, gallery, and CG viewer.
  • Controller: In the gallery CG viewer, pressing X / Square / Left Button now toggles the zoom.
  • Controller: In normal gameplay, pressing X / Square / Left Button now toggles auto mode.
  • Controller: Pressing R1 / Right Shoulder button now toggles the skip functionality.
  • Controller: Pressing R2 / Right Trigger button now rolls forward the dialogue, instead of acting as a second confirm button.
  • Controller, Keyboard: The gallery CG viewer can now be moved using the right stick on the controller, and the arrow keys on the keyboard.
  • Controller, Keyboard: Fixed an issue where some keyboard and controller bindings were erroneously left active in the ED video player, which could result in it severely breaking if accidentally pressed.
  • Keyboard: Pressing Escape now exits the gallery CG viewer, as well as the Extras submenus.
  • Keyboard: Pressing the [ ] keys now changes pages in the save screen, load screen, gallery, and CG viewer.
  • Keyboard: Pressing Z now toggles the zoom in the gallery CG viewer.
  • Keyboard: Pressing H now also hides the UI in the gallery CG viewer, just as it does in normal gameplay.
  • Keyboard: Pressing L now opens the history/log screen.
  • Keyboard: Pressing K now toggles auto mode.
  • Keyboard: Pressing F6 now opens the save screen.
  • Keyboard: Pressing F7 now opens the load screen.
  • Keyboard: Pressing ` now opens the developer console.
• Updated the Help screen to be more complete.
  • Controller bindings are now always displayed for easier reference.
  • Clarified and localised all controller button names.
  • Completely reworded many of the binding descriptions.
  • Added all new bindings introduced in 2.1, in addition to documenting existing ones that were previously not included.
• Updated credits screen.
• Re-encoded all videos using the VP9 (libvpx-vp9) codec, muxed into MKV containers. Audio quality in videos have also been improved, as we now use lossless FLAC audio tracks for your listening pleasure.
• Made improvements to the Studio lan bootlogo.
• Made changes to how Unified builds are generated to facilitate for easier conversion between Unified and macOS Standalone builds.
• Improved the UX for the first boot accessibility onboarding flow.
• Updated the developer console UI.
• Added proper padding for the zoom button in the gallery CG viewer.
• Added proper padding for the "Skip Credits" button in the ED video player.
• Added missing transitions to some scenes.
• Updated the text shown in the gallery CG viewer to reflect the new keybinds.
• Modified the behaviour of all scrollable views to also allow dragging.
• Updated all outdated Twitter usernames in the Guest Art gallery, and corrected all capitalisation.
• Completely re-rendered most name plates.
• Updated some UI assets.
• Updated all fonts to the latest versions.
• Restored a train whistle that plays when players step off of the train to Eysenfeld.
• Restored menu item hover and click sounds.

• Completely rewrote Steam achievement/trophy functionality. Issues fixed by this change are listed below.
  • Fixed all known issues related to difficulties earning achievements/trophies.
  • Fixed an issue where achievement/trophy state could desynchronise between local persistent save data and Steam.
• Completely rewrote procedural forest generation functionality. Issues fixed by this change are listed below.
  • Rendering errors no longer occur when characters move through the forest.
  • Fixed an issue where it would be possible to spawn into a completely empty forest if a very specific chain of actions were made by the player.
  • Fixed an issue where some trees would erroneously render multiple times.
  • Fixed an issue where some procedural forests may spawn with less trees than intended.
  • Fixed an issue where a race condition could occur while generating a procedural forest.
  • Improved performance by removing unnecessary draw calls.
• Completely changed how fonts work. This fully fixes the rendering of bold, italics, and bold italics which were all previously rendered incorrectly.
• Use the correct name for Source Han Sans / .
• Use the correct name for OpenDyslexic.
• Fixed an issue where the animated snowflakes shown in menus would sometimes erroneously appear in the incorrect position for a few frames.
• Fixed an issue where some character facial expressions would not display correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the outdoors train whistle would play when players are actually indoors.
• Fixed an issue where the second train CG variant would not be unlocked in the gallery. ( Start a new game to unlock it.)
• Fixed a rendering issue that would occur for a few frames while transitioning away from the ED videos.
• Fixed a rendering issue that would occur where some UI elements would incorrectly render behind the NVL UI.
• Fixed a rendering issue that would occur where the PoV switching animation would incorrectly render behind the NVL UI.
• Fixed all known issues with missing voice lines.
• Fixed all text formatting tags that were erroneously left open.
• Fixed some text formatting issues.
• Fixed some minor typos.
• Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur while entering the guest art gallery.
• Fixed an issue where the images in the gallery CG viewer could not be dragged when zoomed in.
• Fixed an issue where an empty page would be shown in the guest art gallery.
• Fixed an issue in the Help screen where an incorrect font would sometimes be used after changing languages.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong font would sometimes show in some of the Extras submenus.
• Fixed an issue where the text scrolling animation would render incorrectly when using the OpenDyslexic font.
• Fixed an issue where the line spacing would incorrectly render too tightly when using the OpenDyslexic font.
• Fixed an inconsistency where menu elements for the Extras screen were not centered.
• Fixed an issue where the Help menu would always open scrolled all the way at the bottom.
• Fixed a text rendering issue with the CG "You, Me, and the Snowflakes" in the gallery.
• Fixed an issue where the developer console would not be able to be opened using the standard ` key.
• Fixed an issue where the gentle screenshake effect used in the train CG would sometimes not work.
• Fixed an issue where the graphical buttons in the extras menu were not consistently aligned correctly.
• Fixed an issue where some background images would not correctly fill the screen due to using the wrong dAR.
• Fixed the alignment of the right and left buttons shown in the gallery CG viewer.
• Fixed all incorrect image paths.
• Fixed an issue where the history/log screen would open scrolled all the way to the top.
• Fixed an issue where the first boot accessibility onboarding flow would render slightly incorrectly when choosing to enable or disable image descriptions.

• Fixed an issue where some strings and dialogue in the Traditional Chinese (), Simplified Chinese (), German (Deutsch), and Spanish (Espaol) would erroneously display completely empty.
  • This also fixes an issue where some preference categories would appear to be missing from the preference pane.
• Fixed all known lines that would erroneously still appear in English despite having another localisation enabled.
• Fixed all known issues regarding missing text in the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed all known issues regarding text rendering errors in the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Added missing localised name plates for Traditional Chinese (), Simplified Chinese (), and German (Deutsch).
• Fixed an issue where the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () localisations would always display entirely with a bold font weight.
• Fixed an issue where the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () localisations was erroneously missing all bold text tags.
• Fixed an issue where the names shown in the PoV switcher would not be translated when using the Traditional Chinese () or Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed an issue where the font picker would erroneously remain enabled when using the Traditional Chinese () localisation, which does not support changing the font.
• Fixed an issue where the name of some CGs in the gallery would not display correctly when using the Traditional Chinese () or Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed an issue where the error handler would not render correctly when using the Traditional Chinese () or Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed an issue where the "Calibrate" button would display in English when using the Traditional Chinese () or Simplified Chinese () localisations.
• Fixed an issue where changing the font to Traditional Chinese () or Simplified Chinese () and then back to English, German (Deutsch), or Spanish (Espaol) would result in the incorrect font being used until either PT Sans or OpenDyslexic was chosen again from the font preference pane.
• Fixed an issue in one location where the Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () would attempt to reference an old font that no longer ships with the game.
• Fixed an issue where the names shown in the translated name plates for Traditional Chinese () and Simplified Chinese () would be inconsistent with how they were translated in the actual game text.
• Fixed an issue where some instances of italicised text would not render correctly when using the Spanish (Espaol) localisation.
• Fixed an issue where menu elements for the Extras screen would draw over the menu header when using the Spanish (Espaol) localisation.
• Fixed an issue where some preference pane tooltip strings in the Spanish (Espaol) localisation were missing newlines, resulting in the line being too long and cutting into other UI elements.
• Fixed a UI layout issue in the Help screen when using some localisations that have longer strings for the bindings.

• Improved the presentation of the title logo scene across the aerial shot of Eysenfeld shown at the end of Scene 1-1.
• Fixed an issue where the title logo scene would persist for longer than intended.
• Fixed some rendering issues that would occur while transitioning between Scene 1-1 and 1-2.
• Fixed an issue in Scene 1-4 that would erroneously alter the behaviour of all procedural forests generated afterwards while the game is still open.
• Fixed an issue in Scene 1-8 where the incorrect transition would play.
• Fixed missing fade transitions in Scene 3-1.
• Fixed an issue where a certain character would be wearing the wrong clothing in a scene.

• Wondering where some defines went? They've probably been moved inside MorganKit.
• Rearranged many assets internally and removed all erroneously duplicated assets.
• Removed unused font assets.
• Changed the way how unused, non-canonical cut content content is stored. This means that you can no longer view cut content the old way.
  • To get around this, you can set the console variable showNonCanonicalCutContent = 1 while ingame. Please note that this is an unsupported configuration!
• Made various internal improvements to the codebase, including large-scale refactoring.

Minor Update - Version 2.0.4

Hello everyone! We have a minor update to fix some previous issues.

Changelog for 2.0.4:
Updated to Ren'Py 8.0.3.22090809 SDK
Created proper iconsets and updated the game icon across all locations
Corrected previously-incorrect DPI values
Fixed broken ( incorrectly encoded) strings in the German translation
Restored missing lines in the German translation
Restored missing localised game name in the Traditional Chinese translation
Removed persistent save data that was previously erroneously included gallery items should now no longer be all unlocked from the beginning
Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur while entering the gallery screen
Fixed an issue where the default text size used during the accessibility onboarding would be too large

Thank you for your support across these many years.

- adirosa

Two years later...!
Thank you all so, so much for your support over the last two years. We really couldn't ask for more!
Some of you have already noticed, but now that it's official and actually available to all players...


[h2]We've added achievements![/h2]

We've added 12 achievements to the game! Thank you all so much for playing: we hope the addition of achievements will motivate you to play through the game, recommend it to a friend, or just rack up some more numbers on your profile.


[h2]New merch![/h2]
Our store has added a lot of new merchandise over the last couple years. If you've ever wanted a cool tote, shirt, or stickers, why not get one that represents gay ghosts and wintery wonderlands?


[h2]Fixes![/h2]
Sorry. It's really fixed now. Thank you everyone who's submitted VA issues to us: we think we've FINALLY nailed them all down!

And that's it for this update. Thank you, everyone, for all the love, support, and kindness. We hope you've had a safe year. We'll have more news soon, especially regarding consoles, but for now... Enjoy the achievements! Take care!


PS: I Told You So! , our dubiously canon chibi spinoff, was updated last year! Check it out if you're hungry for more HOTW content. Also, it's moddable, so have fun with that.

Yes, it should've been called "Art of the Woods."

Regardless, we're happy to announce that the Heart of the Woods Official Artbook is now available for purchase. It collects all of the beautiful art from the game, as well as commentary from us and some recollections. It also includes three short stories that were originally written for our Patreon, and that come with illustrations by minute and adirosa. I'm biased, but it's a really pretty book, and I hope you'll check it out.

Grab it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412330

Hey gamers,

We're super excited to say that we pushed the button, and the voice acting update for Heart of the Woods is now live! Super big thanks to our amazing cast and crew, as well as our Kickstarter backers who made this all possible!

Maddie Raines - Allie Goodell
Abigal - Heidi Tabing
Tara Bryck - Stephanie "Teffi" Arata
Morgan Fischer - Kira Bucklan
Evelyn Fischer - Tara Langella
Fairy Queen - Emaline Tuck
Fairies - Anairis Quinones, Lisa Reimold, Tina Kim
Casting - Studio Coattails
Direction - Wyatt Abernathie
Engineering - Lisa Reimold, Nikki Kaelar

We hope you guys enjoy this update as much as we do. It's been a dream come true being able to do this.

Hakui Project

Hey everyone,

We're excited to announce that, courtesy of our friends at Hakui Project, Heart of the Woods is now available in Simplified Chinese! They're the same folks who translated our other game, Highway Blossoms.

This is a text-only translation, and doesn't/won't affect the voice acting. You can enable it from the Options menu anytime! If you notice any issues or typos, please feel free to post 'em in the Discussion section and we'll fix them in a patch sometime.

Also, for anyone wondering about the voice acting update: it's currently in beta testing, and rather close to the end. The actual timing of the release will depend on some other stuff, but we're crossing our fingers that it'll happen sometime next month.

We'll post our next update when that happens. Until then, take care!

Hey everyone,

We're super excited to premiere our new voice acting trailer, introducing the English voice cast of Heart of the Woods! Check it out:

[previewyoutube=DGUdYUHlDfE;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]










Maddie Raines - Allie Goodell
Abigail - Heidi Tabing
Tara Bryck - Stephanie Arata
Morgan - Kira Buckland
Evelyn - Tara Langella
Fairy Queen - Emaline Tuck
Fairies - Lisa Reimold; Pickle131; Anairis Quinones

We're currently holding a crowdfunding campaign to fund the voice acting, as well as offer a bunch of merchandise for the game (most of it exclusive to the campaign). If it's successful, we'll be delivering the VA as a free update to the game, most likely early next year. Details and more can be found in the description for the Youtube video! We're also hoping to add a couple touch-ups to the game at the same time, like some minor art fixes and other stuff. We hope you like what you hear - we couldn't be happier with our cast!

Version 1.2 "Fairy Lake" is now Live!
A full changelog is at the bottom of this post.



Happy Friday! Technically. It's Friday somewhere.

As always, thank you everyone so much for your support. Big news!! We have, almost definitely, fingers crossed very tightly, fixed the rather big issue of the "Sad Story" patch. As such, we removed the Anti-Patch files from the build, and hope the game will run smoothly~. A big thank you goes to Kevin Turner for helping us debug and fix this issue! If you're still experiencing a bit of a problem, it's most likely the system requirements of the animations and transitions, so we recommend disabling transitions in the options for the duration of the segment.

In addition to that, we've touched up some bits and pieces of dialogue. A scene in Chapter 5 erroneously didn't check for some flags, so there was some repeated information/dialogue, another scene in Chapter 3 saved as Chapter 4, ho-hum-drum!

Now, the fun part! We've added a couple new screens to our Extras menu, "Notes" and "Credits". We've left a couple sentiments from our team members in the Notes section, and the Credits screen will let you scroll and appreciate all the wonderful humans who made Heart of the Woods what it is today. Thank you Adirosa for the beautiful designs, as always!

Have a great weekend!

Changes

• Removed the Anti-Patch. Abigail's Story should now display correctly for all users, but if you're still experiencing performance hiccups, we recommend disabling transitions in the Options.
  
• Added two new screens to the Extras Menu: "Notes" and "Credits"
  

• Flag checks for some dialogue. No more repetition of events!
  
• Save Name fixes to show the correct chapter in a couple scenes
  
• The first screen of Abigail's Story doesn't try to generate a 20,005 x 57,880 texture - which was causing the "hiccups" (sweat emoji)
  

Version 1.1 "A Sad Story" is now live!

A full changelog is at the bottom of this post.


by @huixci


by @pentagonfruit


by @vividgrim

Wow.

It's been a week since release, and we're still blown away by all of your love, support, and feedback. Thank you all so much! For those of you who have already completed the game, those of you still playing, and those of you yet to even start it... Thank you. We love seeing your posts on social media, from your playthroughs, to your image edits, to your keymashing.

For us, this is just the first step in a long journey of bringing magic, love, and lan to the world.

On to the patch notes!

Changes

• Per the title, in Chapter Four "In The Past Now" we received numerous bug reports just before Abigail is about to tell a story. We've moved some in-line image manipulation to the init phase, which should help some people experiencing crashes. If not, we've also added a file in the game directory called "Abigails Story Anti-Patch". If you're still experiencing crashes, we recommend DELETING this file and trying again. All image manipulation is removed and instead replaced with panning images of what it was supposed to look like.
  
• Added more text to the help menu. Right-Clicking on the skip button will fast-skip to the next Chapter or Choice, and this information was omitted from the screen. Replays ahoy!
  

• SO. MANY. TYPOS. Thank you everyone for your numerous reports. We've gone through and hopefully fixed all of them (fingers crossed).
  
• In Chapter Five, there was a missed POV switch between Morgan and Maddie. The POV colors now switch to Maddie as intended.
  
• Typos, again. There were a lot of them!
  

After over 2 years of development, were excited to be able to finally share Heart of the Woods with you!

This marks Studio lans first-ever full release as a studio. After releasing our free demo last year, we hope youll look forward to experiencing the full version of this thrilling, heartwarming, and utterly enchanting adventure from start to finish. Your feedback on the demo was invaluable, and we put our all into making sure that the final release was as refined and polished as possible.

Thank you all for your continued support. We try to say this as often as we can, but we honestly couldnt make it this far without all of you. Please enjoy Heart of the Woods, and please look forward to Studio lans continued work in the future!

Version 1.2 is now live!
A full changelog is at the bottom of this post


art by @vividgrim

For the past 3 months, we've been overwhelmed again and again by your love, support, and feedback. Thank you all so much for giving our demo a try; We hope its made you excited for the full game.

We've been working hard to bring the full version out to you all very soon; In the meantime, we've also been working with Indienova, a Chinese translation group. Thanks to them, Version 1.2 now features a full Chinese translation! A big applause to them, and a special shoutout to our GUI artist @adirosette for painstakingly translating/exporting all our GUI to its translated counterpart. Whew!

A couple of backgrounds have been updated too. The pink lake clearing is no longer a placeholder made by our programmer (me), and the church background should look a bit more frosty and touched up.

We've touched up a lot of screens and features to give a smoother experience as well. Even if you can't read Chinese, we hope you'll appreciate the love and effort that went into this translation. And if you're learning the language, be sure to check out the Q. Translate button in the quick menu now! It'll translate your current line right before your very eyes.

Onto the changelog!

Changes

• Menus now have a soft dissolve effect in the main menu
  
• Option to choose your language at the start of the game
  
• A Q. Translate button in the quick menu, to switch between English and Chinese
  
• New Lake Clearing background
  
• Revised Chapel background
  
• Chapter card and Save/Load thumbs have been updated
  

• The main menu image shows up properly behind the game menus during the title screen
  
• A few game menu transitions have been fixed
  

Version 1.0.1 is now live!

A full changelog is at the bottom of this post


First of all, thank you to everyone who has played the demo so far. Your support means the world to us, and your feedback has been extremely helpful.


Also, thank you to all the amazing artists who drew fan-art for us! We're really honored. You should check out more of their art in their respective twitter pages.



by llullabye


by Ringotan


by yoku


We hope this new version will allow the demo to be enjoyed by everyone. We've fixed some big issues (namely, the accessibility options!) and touched up on some little ones, too.
As always, let us know if you have any other questions, comments, concerns, or if you come across any issues! Thank you once again to everyone for your continued support.


Here's a list of changes with this version:

Changes

• Mac and Linux versions are now live!
• New, longer transitions between scenes.
• A small effect has been added to all the sprites when changing expressions.
• The key visual has been updated to a newer version.
• And a few polishing touches have been added on scenes to match the text
  better, make the sound nicer, make sprite movements gentler, etc~

• Typpo Typo correction.
• The history screen now starts at the newest entry, instead of the oldest.
• The Music Room has been fixed (Try it out and enjoy the wonderful music!).
• All accessibility options have been vastly improved (Thank you Adi!). There shouldn't be any more issues of text overflow and cutoff.