Hug of Death

Hi Reddit! 

Lovely to see a sudden burst of attention! Unfortunately we've run out of bandwidth on our concept demos. We are looking into higher bandwidth solutions but probably won't have them implemented until tomorrow. Our bandwidth refreshes daily though so please do come back tomorrow if you've been unable to access either demo. We will update this post if we find a solution sooner. 

 Apologies, Hallows

 Edit: Upgraded our Bandwidth so you should all be able to play our demos now!

Merry Christmas from Dusky Hallows Studio

Wishing you all the best~

December Update

A piece of artwork I started a very long time ago and finally finished.

Duski here, this is just a little update on the development.

Now that we've created two concept demos, we would like to create a much larger and in depth demo. We will have the full cast of main characters involved, and we'll be updating it as we add sex scenes. As the game grows we'll also be adding more features like saving/loading and a gallery for unlocked scenes.

GUI for the main menu

I've been busy drawing the background for the watchhouse too, which will feature in the next demo and serve as something of a communal area when the player is not watching Carmen in the cellar. Here the player can interact with other characters and advance side stories within the narrative.

And finally, Markus' Sprite is done!

A little portrait of Crow~

Don't forget to visit our Patreon, which now has some freebies, and hi-res versions of art from the demos! It would mean a lot if you could help support us to keep making the game.

-Duski

Demo 2 and Patreon!

It's been a busy month for us so let's get right down to it. We have another concept demo live and ready to play right now. Stop reading this and click here to play!

Screenshots from the latest demo, seriously go play. We can wait.

Everything that we want to say about the demo can be found on the new page (you can find it in the menu if you ever get lost). These demos take a lot of time and energy to produce, so we've made the decision to begin crowdfunding now rather than later. More funding means more content for you and less distractions for us. 

Support us on Patreon

Carmen is very appreciative of Patreon donations.

Crow's Sprites

I have another sprite to show you, this time it's our cute orc character, Crow. She'll be featured in the next scene, which we will be releasing soon. This time we'll be able to showcase something fun and X-rated!

Lore Post - The Gardens

The Gardens, Vengeance, and the Sanguine Rose

If one were so fortunate as to receive an invitation to the home of the High General Carmen Valentine, and then further led through the East Wing of Crescent Hall - the wing ordinarily reserved for guests of high prestige - one may arrive at a cosy study. Unlike many of the rooms within the manor, the study is tall rather than wide. Tall enough, in fact, to accommodate one mezzanine floor right above another, each adorned with dark wooden bookshelves and black marble busts of contorted figures. The room is scarcely lit by the outside world. The only natural light permitted to enter is through two thin windows placed above the second floor. When Carmen first moved in, she had the windows swapped for stained glass depictions of the Sanguine Rose House coat of arms. The rest of the room is lit by an assortment of candles, and the ground floor by a roaring black granite fireplace, polished to a mirror-like sheen. Above the fireplace, towering over all three floors of the study, a portrait featuring the general naked, standing resolutely upon the ash of The Gardens. In her hand she holds the banner of the Sanguine Rose. Lady Valentine titled the painting herself. Carved on a plaque in the gilt frame: Vengeance.

The field depicted in the painting is one of the thousands burned prior to Carmen's birth, during the previous war between Greater Hirane and Amarinthia. The Gardens, once the food source for most of Amarinthia, was razed in the waning years of the war, and the resulting starvation brought about the swift conclusion to a conflict which had already claimed tens of thousands of lives. The Cardinals of Greater Hirane disbanded the Amarinthian monarchy and set up their own body of officials to govern each of the kingdom's former territories. House Sanguine Rose, the only noble house of the gardens to succeed in defending their fields and food stores from the attack, struck a deal with their would-be oppressors. In exchange for aiding with the food shortage, they were granted governance over The Gardens. Trading valuable crop for scorched land seemed a foolish move at the time, but the Lord of the house was planting the seeds for his revenge, and his daughter Anastasia would bring them to fruition.

Concept Demo Available!

Hallows here with some excellent news. For those of us who have been following this blog and for those of you just joining us here, we now have something of a playable concept demo! Click Here, or at the top where it says 'Concept Demo'. This is a single short scene featuring Carmen and Roman, but it illustrates some of what we're trying to do here, so please check it out.

Any feedback at all will be welcome, especially if there's anything you would like to see in the next scene we produce. Until next time.

Duski's amazing (non-canonical) concept art.

And Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Smut, Already in Progress.

We know this is what you came to see.

Hallows here, and today we'd like to introduce you to the mischievous and delightfully unashamed Crow. Duski and I debated exposing her to you before our official 'Meet the Cast' megapost, but we're quite certain that Crow wouldn't pass up and opportunity to be ogled by an unsuspecting public, so we present her to you as a pleasant surprise for all involved. Take your time getting acquainted, we can wait.

... No seriously, she's a bit of an exhibitionist and we promised her lots of attention. Take your time.

Alrighty then, for those of you who've read our first post you'll be pleased to know that Crow is one of Roman's allies, and while the majority of scenes within the game will be focused on Carmen we'll be sure to include paths which reveal some of the more lustful aspects of Crow's personality. For those of you who haven't read our first post, Roman is our protagonist and player character, and we'll be catching up with him later in this post. If you'd like to see more of Crow and learn a bit about her 'escapades' then follow this blog and/or Duski's Hentai Foundry & The Sanguine Rose Tumblr. Our next post is planned to introduce the entire cast in more detail, and if you've enjoyed any of what's displayed here so far then you definitely don't want to miss that.

1 click = one cum load for starving crows everywhere (-love, duski)

What is Sanguine Rose? Come on, just scroll down to the first post, Crow will still be here when you get back. Anyway, Sanguine Rose is an erotic novel being developed by myself (Hallows) and our artist, Duski. Together we are Dusky Hallow Studio. The game is being developed in Flash and has a high focus on player decisions. This isn't a game with good or bad endings, just dozens of personalized endings, and every path the player can take will contain at least some form of erotic material. No ten minute wait before getting to the good stuff, no being penalized for making an arbitrarily incorrect decision. You get out what you put in. We'll be talking more about this in a later post.

Since last time I've rewritten the majority of the code so that it's more accessible to me farther down the line. It's one thing to hastily throw proof of concepts on top of each other but at some point it has to be taken apart and cleaned up so that we don't face game breaking glitches later on. It's also good practice to maintain tidy code, and I'd hate to deliver anything sloppy (not that kind of sloppy anyway).

Duski on the other hand, well, I shouldn't have to tell any of you what Duski has been up to. Most of you come from Hentai Foundry so you know exactly what her current workload looks like. Behind the scenes however she's been doing something that is - frankly - unforgivable: Drawing characters fully clothed. You're right to be shocked, but it's true. Apparently one of the finer aspects of erotic works is that characters should start our mostly if not fully clothed, and then remove them later. The concept is lost on me but I'm sure we'll see them in their birthday suits soon enough. Let's have a look:

Roman; Now available in Boyband form.

As you can see, Roman now has a full body and a host of expressions ranging from mildly perturbed to peacefully napping (arm gestures are still in the works, Rome wasn't built in a day). Roman is your window into the world of Sanguine Rose; your choices decide his future.

And since she hasn't been mentioned at all this post, I'll let Carmen Valentine see you out. Until next time!

Introductions - Dusky Hallow Studio

Hello! I'm Duski and I'm the artist for Sanguine Rose. Together with Hallows, who is the programmer for this project, we are the studio: Dusky Hallow. We're fresh out of the pre-production stage and it's high time we started letting you know exactly what it is we're doing.

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 What is Sanguine Rose? 

Sanguine Rose is an erotic/adult visual novel, similar to an Eroge. You play as Roman, a mercenary tasked with the capture and delivery of the enemy's High General, a woman named Carmen Valentine.

Not only is Carmen a skilled soldier, but also a terrifyingly charismatic hedonist. Upon waking captured by your party she will immediately attempt to escape by playing head games with Roman and the other mercenaries. Roman, meanwhile, will respond almost entirely to player direction, with a wide array of choices available to make. Will you attempt to seduce Carmen, or will you succumb to her will? Can you keep her from escaping while she turns your team against you, or you against them? 

We are aiming to have a beta version of the game available to play before we start looking for funding. If you would like to support this project or have any questions for us, please follow this blog or our tumblr(nsfw). Duski also has more art available at her Hentai Foundry account(very nsfw).

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We've both done a lot of work the past few months to get the game to a point where I can start making art and he can start coding the game. We've written a story line and developed characters that already feel so real and fun, with lots of interesting lore and backstories surrounding them. As of today I've made a start on things like the sprites for Carmen:

This is just a small selection of what is probably hundreds of different emotions she can portray

(I'll be creating a character page on this blog soon so that you can be introduced to our cast.~)

Hallows here, we're aiming to have Sanguine Rose meet a high standard in terms of player decisions, so that your actions really matter. Without spoiling too much, our goal is to have Sanguine Rose play out as an almost totally different game based on player decisions. It's been difficult finding a way to record player choices in a way that they have a lot of control over the story line, but the system is coming together and the majority of work from here on in is physical asset creation. Watch this space to see those assets as they're made, as well as a few other treats from the pre-production stage that we plan on sharing.

The characters of Sanguine Rose will play a huge role in the choices the player is presented with, but the focal characters will be Carmen and Roman. It's been a lot of fun designing the whole cast and we're looking forward to showing you them all, but before we get to that, let's meet Roman.

Roman of Clearbourne is a mercenary caught in a war he has no stake in. Regardless, he's taken on an impossible mission that could turn the tide of the war: Capturing the High General, Carmen Valentine. Whether this was a wise move is entirely up to you. 

We could talk for hours about the cast but it's just about time to wrap up. Next time we'll walk you through more of the cast in detail, and maybe have a sneak peak at what they'll be doing in game.

Goals for the future

Short term, we're aiming to get something playable out on the web for free. This will cover most of the general interactions between Carmen and Roman in the first location we plan to showcase. Long term we'd like to expand cast interactions so that more of the cast are included in the sexual aspects of the game, and then we'd like to cover more locations. We're very open to user feedback on what you would like to see possible in Sanguine Rose, so don't be afraid to message us if you'd like to see something specific within the game.

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We plan on updating this blog as frequently as possible with updates on the game so stick around!