As we near the end of another year, it’s time for me to do a few quick updates on what I’ve been working on. A few things finally got finished earlier this year, specifically:
The Last Respite was revealed and released in both ebook and paperback formats
Previous ebooks have been published to other storefronts and made available in paperback through Draft2Digital
Eldritch Academy and some of its related games were part of the Fall in Love Festival on Steam
If anyone has enjoyed these stories, I’d love to see feedback or reviews about what you liked. Feedback helps me figure out what people enjoyed about my stories, and some storefronts (like Steam) use reviews as part of the algorithm for determining what to promote to users.
Life as Designed, the romance and coming-of-age story featuring Cho Fukuda, is now available for purchase!
Cho Fukuda has spent much of her adult life as a freelance costume designer, to the point that she feels like she’s been typecast. Her motivation to work on projects that all feel the same flounders until she ends up botching a commission, leaving her with no leads and the feeling that she’s made a mistake with her life. With Cho out of a job for the time being, she and her girlfriend will soon have to explore how their love will adjust to this new challenge.
The biggest update to Eldritch Academy is now live! This release brings us to the end (at least for now) of the long journey that started in 2013 (pre-production) and 2019 (v1 release).
For those who have not been following the project on Twitter and other sites, Eldritch Academy v3 (internally known as EA-R, or the “Eldritch Academy Revision”) is a major update to all aspects of Eldritch Academy. The highlights are:
Redone character and event art
New, custom music
Reworked UI
Script revisions, including a few new scenes and the removal of “filler” scenes
A proper (non-experimental) Android version
I hope that this version of the game allows both new and returning players to really enjoy discovering the secrets of Solana Academy and befriending Yue’s classmates. If you don’t already own the game, maybe now is the time to check it out!
Aside from support for any remaining bugs, this will likely be the last major update to Eldritch Academy. However, the story doesn’t have to end with this game, as many new stories in the Nightshade universe have been announced or released since 2019. For instance:
If you liked the story of Eldritch Academy and want to see the continuation, you can roll right into its sequel, “Eldritch University”.
If you want to see more of the main characters of Eldritch Academy, the upcoming game “Life as Designed” will focus on Cho, Akomi, Kagami, and Yue as they adapt to their adult lives, ten years after Eldritch Academy.
If you want to see more romance between women in the Nightshade universe, you can play the spin-off games “Blooming Nightshade” and “Flowering Nightshade”, both of them expanded versions of games initially created for the “Yuri Game Jam” (2017~2018/2019~2020).
If you enjoy the Nightshade universe and its themes of a mundane world crossed with elements of the supernatural, there are a number of ebooks set in the same universe. In particular, “Shireishi” and “Those That Linger: GhostSense” have similar themes to Eldritch Academy, featuring students coming up against supernatural threats.
Thank you for your interest in this nearly decade-long journey to create Eldritch Academy and Eldritch University, and I hope you enjoyed it! I hope that I can continue to share more stories in the Nightshade universe, so be sure to keep an eye out for those future stories!
Kasumi Kawamura just wants to get through university while rekindling her relationship with her girlfriend. But not long after she arrives at school, a strange epidemic starts to infect the city, causing the afflicted to have terrible nightmares and lose the motivation to live their lives. Coinciding with the appearance of this “Nightmare Syndrome”, an old wound that Kasumi thought healed starts to burn and cause frightening visions to those around her. Caught in the center of this situation, Kasumi and her friends try desperately to find a solution. Yet all the while, Kasumi wonders if she might be to blame…
This game is a sequel to Eldritch Academy. It is recommended, but not required, to play that game first. (That game is also on sale on itch.io to celebrate the release of Eldritch University.)
Jackkel Dragon's Workshop 