From award-winning graphic novelist Abby Howard, Scarlet Hollow is a horror visual novel and adventure game where your choices deeply matter. Hand-drawn backgrounds and sprites work together with a complex relationship system to bring to life an immersive world of charming (and terrifying) characters. Who lives, who dies, and the fate of an entire town rests on your shoulders.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Episode 3 is releasing on March 7th!
about 2 years ago
– Thu, Feb 17, 2022 at 11:40:41 AM
Hi again, everyone!
We're nearing Episode 3's completion, so we finally have a release date for y'all: March 7th. We've got a new trailer, too, and you can check it out below:
We both feel pretty strongly that this new chapter is the best Scarlet Hollow has been to date, and we can't wait to share with you. Sorry it took a little longer than expected-- because we always want to be as a transparent as possible with y'all, we wanted to explain why there was a bit of a delay:
First up, Episode 3 is huge. Like, as much content as Episodes 1 and 2 put together huge. There's close to 200,000 words of new content (of which you'll maybe see about 1/4-1/3 in a given playthrough) and over 1,500 new art assets. For reference, Episodes 1 and 2 were each about 100,000 words of content, bringing the total for all three to around 400k. For further reference, the Lord of the Rings (all of it) is 481,000 words long.
Next, the less fun— back in December, we both got (thankfully mild) Covid cases staggered about a week apart and then we both got the flu (again, staggered about a week apart.) At the time, we didn't think it would have such a heavy impact on our ability to work, but we wanted to prioritize our health during that that time, and we unfortunately lost about a month of productivity to being sick and taking turns taking care of each other.
We also moved to a completely new city in the fall, and that kind of giant move took a lot more time and energy than we thought it would!
And finally, the lead up to Episode 2's release was a horrendous crunch (about 3 weeks of 14-16 hours a day, making up for time lost to stress during the mess that was living in the US in the Fall and Winter of 2020.) For this episode, we wanted to make sure to give ourselves some extra time and padding upfront so we wouldn't have to deal with similar crunch again (which also means we'll be able to do more bug testing before release).
Thank you all again for your patience and support as we continue to make Scarlet Hollow the story we want it to be, and we hope you feel that Episode 3 is worth the wait— we certainly think it is!
All the best,
~Tony and Abby
Episode 3 Update and Vote for Scarlet Hollow in the GDWC!
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Jan 21, 2022 at 09:46:13 AM
Episode 3 is currently chugging along, and should hopefully be ready at the end of February or early March. Our development cycle was a little derailed for a couple of weeks by (thankfully mild) covid, but we're closing in on the final act of the Episode right now. The release version should be quite a bit more content than either previous Episode, though some of that content will, of course, be spread across multiple playthroughs.
In case you're not following us on Twitter, here's some of the art from Episode 3 we've been showing off!
And if you're ever looking for other folks to chat with about the game, we've got a pretty active Discord server that we'd love to have you in!
As always, thank you so much for your ongoing support — it means the world to us to be able to make this project and share it with the world.
All the best,
~Abby and Tony
New content for Episodes 1 and 2, HD Wallpapers, and Episode 3 Progress
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 04:08:52 PM
Hey, folks! Just popping in to share some updates about Scarlet Hollow and to deliver some lovely 4K wallpapers.
In case you missed it, back in October we put out a couple major content patches for the first two episodes to help buff some of the game's most underpicked traits, as well as add some additional scenes that had to be cut for the initial releases. For the most part, these buffs focus on:
Powerful Build— we were a little overcautious when we first wrote content for Powerful Build. A lot of that caution came from not wanting the player to feel too powerful in the face of some of the more horrific things lurking in Scarlet Hollow, but ultimately, that led to an experience that felt more like a "hand-eye coordination" trait than a being a tank of a human being.
Street Smart— When we said no door could hold you, we meant it! Street Smart can now *actually* get into the forbidden wings in Episode 1. They also get quite a few more options in the mines and Episode 2 in general.
Book Smart— the research scene in the library should be this trait's moment to shine, and we've added in an entire extra book for them to read with important town lore, as well as five extra entries to the cryptid compendium exclusively for Book Smart players.
Hot — in its first iteration, Hot's main strengths were in its subtleties, namely, that players taking the trait got a *huge* bonus to their relationship scores with every NPC, making it much easier to get other people to like you even if you're a jerk to them. Not a lot of folks noticed this difference though, so on top of those bonuses, we've added quite a bit of extra flirting content for the trait. You don't need Hot to pursue romance in Scarlet Hollow, but it certainly is going to let things heat up quicker!
On top of buffing these traits, October's patches edited some content in the mines to make the story flow better.
A small taste of some of the update's new art
For folks who grabbed the HD Wallpapers through BackerKit, they're finally available! You can check your BackerKit account for the download.
Wallpapers are available in 4k, 2k, and 1080p, so you'll be able to see them with more detail than ever before! All of the art in Scarlet Hollow is drawn and edited natively in 8k, so the UHD wallpapers aren't just scaled up copies of what's already in the game.
We're winding down most items you can purchase from our BackerKit store, but these wallpapers will also be available moving forward on our Patreon for the $5 tier and up. The next pack (the Episode 3 pack) will be available early next year, soon after the release.
And lastly, an Episode 3 progress report! Things are coming along very nicely— the script's been finished, and we're currently going through the process of adding it to Ren'py and putting together the art, music, and sound design. We should still be on target for a release in late January/Early February, but as is always the case, we're going to make sure the Episode is up to our standards before releasing it out into the world.
Soon, Reeseheads. Soon.
We're doing some *very* cool stuff in it though, narratively, musically, and artistically, and we're so excited to share what we've been working on. In case you missed the preview on Twitter, here's a taste of what's to come:
As always, thank you so much for your support! Can't wait for what's next!
~Tony and Abby
Episode 2 Player Choices Breakdown and General Update!
over 2 years ago
– Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 03:00:19 AM
Hiya, everyone!
We hope you're having a lovely start to your fall season. A few weeks ago we sent out a survey to Scarlet Hollow players to collect data on the choices in Episode 2, and the results are in! You can check out both the results and our analysis by heading over to this link.
While we're here, we also wanted to give a brief update on our progress with Episode 3. The script is almost done and we're going to start putting it into the engine next week, and work on the art is going to ramp up towards the end of the month. As it stands right now, we're probably looking at a late-January/early-February release, but as always, we're going to prioritize quality over committing to a firm release date.
Both Episode 2 and Episode 3 have taken a little longer than we anticipated, but pretty much all of that extra time boils down to life events catching us off-guard (running the Kickstarter/covid stuff/moving to a new country, etc.) All of that is finally settling down, and we feel pretty comfortable aiming for an October/Halloween release date for Episode 4 next year!
In terms of other fulfillment: pins, sticker sheets, and signed postcards have all been shipped-- if you missed those rewards during the Kickstarter or would like to buy more (or pick up a Scarlet Hollow shirt) you can do so by heading over to our online store.
The fancier, hand-illustrated postcards are still in the works, and we're hoping to put those together in the downtime between Episode 3's release and beginning work on Episode 4. Original art tiers that either depict your OC with a character of your choice or with the whole cast will be tackled closer to the release of the full game, so that you can make an informed choice if you're in the first bucket, and to avoid spoilers if you're in the latter pool of backers.
If you've backed at a tier that gets either your likeness or your gravestone into the game, we'll be reaching out to your over the next couple of weeks, and we'll be putting together the first batch of HD backgrounds as well.
As always, thank you so much for your enthusiastic support, and we can't wait until we're able to start sharing art from Episode 3!
~Tony and Abby
Vote now! Scarlet Hollow is up for a GDWC fan favorite award!
over 2 years ago
– Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 05:58:18 PM
Thanks again for your continued support! Episode 3's script is coming along really nicely, and we're excited to share more of Scarlet Hollow's story with you :D
