Hello from Halftone Studios. Maybe some of you are Familiar Travels fans, fans of Gillpanda, general itch.io viewers, gooners, the philosophically minded and everyone in between. I want to write to you with an update for the studio, and a call to action for those interested in voicing their opinion.
TL;DR
Back from a long hiatus Halftone Studios is working on a new, small scale visual novel and want you to comment things you liked about Familiar Travels, or your thoughts in general.
A small update to the state of the studio, generally everyone has moved on to pursue their own things. I (Rose, studio founder, creator, co-writer and developer of Familiar Travels) am currently the only one operating this discord account and studio matters. Moving forward I'm going to be publishing small scale games, expanding my skills, getting into writing and hopefully bringing people some more of the creative content in familiar travels.
So, new game.
I am wanting to make another visual novel, a few people have heard of the name discussed "Bad End" it will tackle similar themes to Familiar Travels of identity, philosophy, growth. I'm an older woman now and I have different things I want to show people, but it's important for me to be in better touch with you all.
In the interest of transparency, Familiar Travels was an amazing outlet for me to learn to discover things about myself, as someone with ASPD I find/found relating to people very difficult and making this game was a way to share some of my experiences with you all through the vanir, and the cast of the game.
I want to create something in that similar vein, with similar systems (map travel, a day system, etc.) but of a smaller scale. Are there things you want to see? Let me know.
I found working with others an incredible experience, but I hold a lot of guilt for trying to make something, bringing people along, and ultimately failing (with hyperdimensional basement crawler as an example) So I plan to completely write and program this game before approaching artists or anybody else for this project.
Sorry if this is disorganized, I'm writing this to gauge interest in those following on Itch, and what you'd like to see explored/expanded on in future titles.
FAQ
Where discord?
No official discord for Halftone Studios, the studio lead was passed to my good friend Kal who is going to do their own thing from there.
Who are you?
I am Rose, writer for Familiar Travels, owner of the Po character, had many names over the years so you may know me as Kaeso, extc, or a number of others.
Just put the fries in the bag..
ok.
(Feel free to ask any more questions and I will update the post accordingly)
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I feel like the map system is definitely something that is unique in FT, I'd love to see it return again. I would however suggest adding a little icon to each location to indicate the important characters located there for that day, which would make it easier to find them instead of having to scour the whole map in hopes of ending up where they are. Having some more sprite variation would also be nice, though I know that a lot of VNs don't have too many so I won't complain there. If you are going to be doing smaller scale stuff though, maybe first downsize the cast? That way each character feels just as fleshed out as in FT even if there's only 2-3 main characters (for routes, assuming your games have multiple) outside the protagonist. I look forward to your future work!
Dang Familiar Travels was probably the first game I backed and sorta beta tested for and I can say I wasn't disappointed. I loved getting to know the characters and the very emotional connections the end of each characters routes gave. Without spoiling Nil is a stand out as well as TsiTsi. Glad you're still willing to make content and look forward to anything you make in the future.
i loved familiar travels, and honestly more of your creative work is extremely welcome! no questions, just good wishes and good luck for the future!
Aw thank you so much!