Scarlet Hollow News

Hey folks!

First thing's first, we know you've all been incredibly patient with us as we've tackled the MOUNTAIN of work that is Episode 5. We don't have any firm updates for you at the moment, other than it currently being our primary focus as a studio. For those of you who might have missed updates on its development earlier this year, it's currently shaping up to be about the size of Episodes 2, 3, and 4 combined, and a hell of a lot more complicated than any of our prior work, so we're taking our time and making sure that we do it right while also shifting into a more sustainable development cycle for us as human beings.

We founded Black Tabby Games in March of 2021, and since then, I don't think a week's gone by where we haven't worked at least 60 hours a piece. While we love our work, that ferocity has taken a toll on our overall health, so we're working to scale that back to a healthier 50.

That said, as we get deeper into the year, you can expect more regular updates in terms of sharing new art and spoiler-free/spoiler-lite progress.

Anyways, LudoNarraCon is finally upon us, and boy do we have a MOUNTAIN of things for y'all.

First thing's first, Scarlet Hollow and Slay the Princess are each going to be 20% off, starting at 1pm EST on May 9th. So if you've been itching to pick one of them up, now's the time, and you can also pick up both game's bundled together for an extra discount here: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/33452/The_Black_Tabby_Games_Collection/ If you already own one of either Scarlet Hollow or Slay the Princess, I'd suggest buying the other through the bundle, since you'll still be able to apply the extra discount there.

At 7pm Eastern on Thursday May 9th, we'll be doing a retrospective Twitch stream where we'll play through the ORIGINAL demo cut of Slay the Princess as well as the first episode of Scarlet Hollow. This'll be broadcast on http://twitch.tv/black_tabby_games/

On Friday May 10th, we've got 2 panels that will be broadcast on the LudoNarraCon Steam page.

At 4pm Eastern, I'll be doing a fireside chat with Meredith Gran where we talk about narrative design.

At 8pm Eastern on the 10th, Abby and I are on a panel moderated by Patrick Klepek (formerly Vice, now Remap Radio) alongside Ben Gelinas (Times * Galaxy, formerly Bioware + Remedy) and Gareth Damian Martin (Citizen Sleeper.) The topic of this panel is balancing storytelling with player choice.

On Sunday, May 12th, at 1pm Eastern, we'll be doing an art stream, specifically going through some of the process of how Abby makes assets for our games! This one'll be simulcast on both Twitch and our Steam page!

All the best, and can't wait to share more updates with you all!
Tony and Abby

Hey folks!

We're still in the thick of development for Episode 5, but we wanted to give y'all some updates on how it's going! Moving forward, we're going to be sharing more regular progress updates on our Discord server, where we've just started a running thread. If you want to find this thread, it's under the #the-corkboard forum in the Scarlet Hollow section of the server, and it's titled "Progress Update Thread." I'll also be sharing those updates as follow-up comments on this Steam post moving forward as well. You can join the server here: discord.gg/blacktabbygames

And here's a direct link to the progress thread: https://discord.com/channels/745361420106858607/1196853604238250196

Here's Abby's first post there on how it's going:

"I've been back to work on the script for quite some time now, and things are progressing very well!

I feel so solid about what's been done so far. I'm working on one of the toughest parts of any episode, the part where you go around and talk to people, where the variations in individual storylines really come into play. Some characters have just a few variations requiring different versions of the same scene to be written three or four times, while others have more than ten, and of course we want to make sure that we aren't just showing variation for variation's sake-- we also want to make sure that the scenes all have their own points of interest, which requires a little extra care and attention. But I'm most of the way done with all of them at this point! Just a few more scenes to go :zombiethumbsup:

This is also the part of working on Scarlet Hollow where Tony doesn't have much to do, so he's working on the script for the Pristine Cut and I've been doing Slay the Princess art (and sometimes editing) as a cool down in the evenings!

I'll be sure to keep everyone updated with some regularity so we can all keep track of how things are going!"

To give some extra details here, the script for Episode 5 was about half-way finished by the time Abby had to shift into full-time art work for Slay the Princess. Like pretty much all of our studio's major content launches (i.e. finished episodes and full games), we had to take some time off following StP's release to deal with burnout, and Abby also had to deal with the sudden death of her father.

We're fully back into the swing of things now. One of our top priorities with Scarlet Hollow has always been to go the extra mile when it comes to giving weight to your decisions, and we're at the point in the narrative where there are a *lot* of intersecting variations.

It's also generally been the case that the beginnings of episodes demand more time and effort relative to their lengths than their middles and ends, so the rest of the script should be much smoother sailing from here!

Still feeling great about releasing Episode 5 this year, and in the meantime, a huge thanks to everyone for your patience and support!

Best,
Tony

Hey there!

It's October, and we wanted to celebrate with not one, but two new sets of limited edition Scarlet Hollow merch, both of which are crowdfunding right now on our online store.

The first is the final (for now) in our set of AU posters, this time taking place in a coffeeshop AU. We might have a couple of extra ideas for posters kicking around for before the release of Episode 5 though!



And the second is yet another set of charms — this time it's Kaneeka and [REDACTED].



In other news, we're rocketing towards Slay the Princess' release on October 20th. It's shaping up into something we're extremely proud of, and we can't wait until we can finally share it with you. If you haven't had the chance to do so, you can wishlist it on Steam to get notified as soon as it's out — there'll be an extra launch discount available to owners of Scarlet Hollow (and to folks who want to buy both games at once)

After that release, we'll spend a couple of weeks polishing out any bugs, then another couple of weeks taking a well-earned rest, and then we'll get right into working on what's left of Episode 5, which is also shaping up into something we're extremely proud of, and unsurprisingly, into something ~even bigger~ than Episode 4. We're taking the choices you've made in your playthroughs very seriously, and we can't wait to show you some really cool branching.

As always, thank you so much for your support for both of our games! We wouldn't have been able to come this far without you.

Best,
Abby and Tony

Finally, a way for you to keep your good friends Wayne and Avery with you at all times. Avery brought you a cutting, and Wayne left his horrendous odor at home. instead smelling of delightful seasoned cherry wood! This unlikely pair is eager to grace your keychain with their particular kind of charm, in charm form, no less.

Just like last time, these charms are going as a pair, and we've got 285 of them before they're gone — forever! The last campaign we did sold out in just a couple of days, so if you want 'em it's probably best to act fast! You can check out the campaign here: https://go.topatoco.com/products/ah-sh-charms02

Look at em! So small! So cute!

We don't have any new development updates since last time — we're in the home stretch for Slay the Princess right now (wishlist and play the demo if you haven't already!) And we're about half-way done with the script for Episode 5.

If you want all the latest updates for both of our titles, the best places to get them are our discord and newsletter. Links for those:

Discord: discord.gg/blacktabbygames
Newsletter: bit.ly/blacktabbynews

Note: our discord server has an automatic filter that will auto-kick accounts that are under 5 hours old — so if you're making your first account to join, bear with it and check back then.

As always, thanks so much for your patience and support. Both of our games mean a lot to us, and we're so happy you're all along for the ride.

Best,
Tony and Abby

Made the character creation flow accessible to players who require screenreaders. Self-voicing will now describe the flow for each screen, as well as tell the player what traits they've hovered.

A couple of minor bug fixes for menu logic as well