- Monthly Round-up: August 2026 - 7 September 2026
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! Wowie did the back half of August fly by! Things are starting to stabilize here in our lovely raccoon den once again as work resumes for everyone and we settle into the final third of the year (which is full of things we're looking forward to). And here's the skinny on what we've been doing this month.Events We had such a good time last year that we had to come back for the Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival this year! It's wonderful seeing all the different facets of the romance VN being celebrated, and now I get to do my favourite thing and dive into the demos section to see what upcoming titles I can test out. There's still a little time left for the fest, so enjoy it!OBSCURA is discounted 25% for the event, and we're bundling up with our friend's game Knight Case Files to enjoy the festival even more. If you've played the demo and were wait…
- Monthly Round-up: July 2026 - 12 August 2026
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! Contra to what I've been constantly saying about July being vacation season here in Sweden, August is actually my vacation time, so you're getting this update after I finally got access to a computer once again! Still, while I've spent the first part of August running around ancient cities and wearing out the soles of my shoes, July has been plenty of fun for us! Art Mugi’s artistic efforts have been nothing short of heroic in July, pushing forward both with the secret project and the NPC silhouettes. She and Nekome have been figuring out the ideal workflow for the two of them while building out the Mouse Hole cast (since they’re important, have strong personalities, and have reasons to have similar looks, it seems like a reasonable place to start!) and while there’s been some stumbles as Nekome gets a handle on the art style and communication…
- Embrace the Unknown - 2 July 2026
I did say we were going to talk about this more! Rotten Raccoons is pleased to share that we've been invited to team up with ten other gorgeous indie romance VNs for the month of July. The eleven games in the collection each explore embracing the unknown. As the marketplace proves, the unknown can be alluring, can be thrilling, and can be dangerous. And for many, it can also become home. So, what new and strange worlds and people will you embrace?
- Monthly Round-up: June 2026 - 1 July 2026
Hello, hello to our beautiful raccoon friends! It’s been a glorious June (if a bit hot for a bit there!) with plenty to celebrate. So let’s talk about what’s happened here in the raccoon den, and what’s going to happen in the coming month! Events & Sales First off, at time of posting we’re in the middle of our annual Summer Sale! OBSCURA is on sale with a 25% discount, which some of you may have spotted is our biggest discount to date (compared to the 20% previously). If you’ve only played the demo and are looking to pick up the game, this is a pretty good time to get that done!We’re also taking part in a little summer cross-promotion event hosted by DEADline Studios: Embrace the Unknown. The games taking part are romances with darker themes/aesthetics, monstrous LIs, or unknown worlds, so you can probably guess why we were invited to participate. I am champing at the bit to play all th…
- Monthly Round-up: May 2026 - 5 June 2026
Whew, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! We’ve all made it through May, which I would consider a massive success! What a beautiful, bananas month. I’ll be up front and say that this month’s update is very small, on account of everyone being crazy busy. Just for myself, I spent all month doing research, writing my magister thesis, catching a cold, and doing some international travel to attend a wedding. A really cool and fun time! But OBSCURA did get put on the back burner this month for me because of that.So, what can we share about the merry month of May? Tobi is once again the raccoon of the month, as she was able to get a ton of good work done before the back half of May swallowed her whole with a major personal obligation. Cirrus’ script skeleton is looking extremely good, and while I’m not about to make any definitive predictions it does look like she’ll be entering the fleshy sta…
- Monthly Round-up: April 2026 - 6 May 2026
Hello, hello, my beautiful raccoon friends! It’s May, the sun is shining, the weather is warming up, and we just got off a wonderful long weekend! It’s been a busy month, though unfortunately not as much for raccoon-y reasons as we’d like. Still, let’s look at the progress we’ve made! Happenings So, the most important news of the day is that we’re taking part in two events this month! The Otome Games Celebration has started at time of posting, which is a celebration of a major branch of romance VNs with female MCs (or optionally-female MCs, like our Vesper!) and (mostly) male LIs. Immediately after that, to the second, the Storyteller’s Fest kicks off! It highlights great narrative-focused games, and we’re as thrilled as ever to be included. Obscura is going to be on sale for both events on Steam and Itch, so if you were looking for a moment to pick up the game on a discount, you’ve got…
- Monthly Round-up: March 2026 - 2 April 2026
Hello, my beautiful raccoon friends! April is here and it is… cloudy! At least for this social media raccoon. Still, we can safely say that spring is here and it’s lovely. The update for this month is pretty short, for a couple of reasons, but there’s definitely stuff you’re going to want to hear about! The Raccoon Jamboree In March we got the team to meet up in person and spend some time together! There was some incredible food and generally fun times, plus we did our big post-Chapter Two debrief and some Chapter Three planning. Getting to tell the team my devious plans for Keir and Oleander was a blast, and there are some things we’re planning for Cirrus’ third chapter that got everyone extremely excited. While a lot of the stuff we talked about has to remain behind closed doors for the time being, there is one important thing we can share.When talking about Chapter Two, Cajsa and Mug…
- Monthly Round-up: February 2026 - 2 March 2026
It’s been one heck of a February, hasn’t it? Something about it being the shortest month just makes it seem even more action-packed! So let’s talk about what happened this month, my beautiful raccoon friends! Francesco Chapter Two came out! Did you enjoy your date with Francesco? We hope so! The big headline this month was finishing beta testing and getting Francesco’s second chapter released for Valentine’s Day, as well as getting out a small patch to fix some bugs (oops!) and add a few more things the info broker can talk about with you. There are probably still things that can be tidied up here and there, but unless there’s something game-breaking that comes up in the future, we can assume version 2.5.1 will be the final update we push for a little while as we turn our attention to Chapter Three.And we wanna say a huge thank you to everyone who has played this new chapter and seen wh…
- Version 2.5.1 update - 24 February 2026
Hello! It was very nice not to have any massive bugs in the 2.5 release (Francesco really deserves the best!), but a few bugs did sneak through the process, so here's what's fixed in the new version. One of the bad endings wasn't coded properly, it is now in the game and unlockable. You may also notice the endings are slightly re-ordered on the Endings page. One of the CGs didn't unlock properly in the gallery. It should now unlock as intended. Some incorrect dialogue showing up in certain circumstances at the smoke lounge. A handful of typos and grammatical errors have been fixed. This update also contains seven new entries that the information broker will discuss, mostly reflecting the new Chapter 2 content.
- Francesco Chapter Two is Here! - 14 February 2026
Are you ready for a once-in-a-lifetime date with Francesco Sarri? Some of the fun you'll find in this new chapter of the Obscura story:34k words of new story with everyone's favourite sweetheart, Francesco4 new CGs courtesy of our master artist Mugi!More chances to explore the fun side of the marketAt least one thrilling escape sequenceA new achievement for Francesco and Oleander!We hope this chapter answers some questions and lives up to the wait.Love, The Rotten Raccoons Team 🦝🩵
- Monthly Round-up: January 2026 - 3 February 2026
Hello, my beautiful raccoon friends! After a relatively low-key but productive December, we started 2026 at an absolute sprint. With the script mostly complete, all four of us creatives were blasting through the last major chunk of work we needed to do at a crazy pace (and Yamiochi, the business raccoon, was busy making her own plans 👀). And our beta test for Francesco’s second chapter has just started, so we are so close to getting the new chapter into your hands!Audio Cajsa’s putting the finishing touches on the audio for Francesco’s second chapter, which includes a bunch of variations on tracks, a new track for a setpiece scene of the chapter, and tons of new ambiances to make the new places you visit in the market feel that bit more tactile. I also wanna add a reminder here that Cajsa’s music for Obscura is available to buy on Steam, as well as Bandcamp! Art I need you all to under…
- Monthly Round-up: December 2025 - 7 January 2026
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! 2026 is here!! And while we weren’t able to accomplish everything we set out to do last year, we’re entering this new one full of ambition and optimism!December is typically a pretty quiet month for us, and this is no exception. Things are absolutely getting done, but we all make an effort to take a break for the end of the year holidays. You may have also picked up on some extremely subtle clues on Tumblr that I, your favourite (and only) social media raccoon, had to do a lot of travelling and a lot of it went at least a little wrong. So there isn’t a huge amount to chat about. But there’s also not nothing, so let’s look! Music Cajsa has been working hard on getting the music for good ol’ Francesco ready to go! Like all the other characters’ second chapters, Francesco is getting some new music to cover distinct moments in Chapter Two and they…
- Monthly Round-up: November 2025 - 1 December 2025
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! November has been and gone and I don’t know about you, but it was a gloomy one here in Sweden. But right now the sun is shining (even if it’s gonna be setting by 16.00 🫠) and it’s a very special day for us!That’s right!! It’s the birthday of everyone’s favourite grump! Don’t mind him, he’s just sharpening his knife. And in the spirit of Keir, let’s get to work!Happenings When we Rotten Raccoons are wearing our publisher hat we go by the name Kaguya Project, and we’re super excited to announce that we’ve published our first game under that label!! Knight Case Files is a huge labour of love led primarily by a solo developer that’s got so much effort put into it. The art’s ornately retro, there’s partial voice acting for the whole cast, the story and worldbuilding have been constructed with so much love; we’ve been honoured to be able to help bri…
- Monthly Round-up: October 2025 - 6 November 2025
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! October was gone in an absolute flash, holy moly. I hope your season was spooky and your ween was hallowed as we barrel forward into the gloom of November! I do like the November gloom, but I am sick of the clock changing every winter and suddenly pulling sunset an hour earlier. But let’s talk about some good stuff instead!HappeningsWhen we raccoons are wearing our publishing hats we call ourselves the Kaguya Project, and this month we hit a major milestone for the first game we’re working with, Knight Case Files! We hope to share some fun news about that soon, because hot damn we’re excited about this game. We are also selling some merch under the Kaguya Project name, so if you’re interested in merch, here’s a link to that! We’re hoping to update the shop a little to add something more in the near future.Also, as you may have seen above, today…
- Monthly Round-up: September 2025 - 6 October 2025
Hello, hello my beautiful raccoon friends! October is on us already, somehow, and we are enjoying the cooler days and opportunities to get warm and cosy. Sorry the delay on this post, for some reason the Scheduling Gods decided that everything important was going to happen in the first week of October and things were busy for all of us. We’re gonna start today’s round-up a little different from our usual order, since there’s some important news we should share first! Tobi’s back!You may remember in last month’s round-up that Tobi needed to take a break from Obscura for a little while in order to handle some personal business that required her time and attention. Well, good news: she’s back in the saddle and eager to get Francesco’s second chapter wrapped and out the door! We’re so grateful to everyone who left supportive messages and reminded us that our health comes first when we poste…
- Monthly Round-up: August 2025 - 3 September 2025
Hello, hello, my beautiful raccoon friends! There is a lot going on right now, so let’s chat about how August went (it was certainly a month!).More romance VN parties!Studio Élan is kindly hosting an event open to all romance-focused visual novels at the end of September, and we’re delighted to say we’ll be participating! As always, we whole-heartedly recommend folks check out these events, because the world of romance VNs is vast and beautiful ❤️We’ve got merchIf you’re looking to get stickers, the Chapter Two announcement image as a poster, or a t-shirt to show your devotion to Cirrus, we are officially open for business! Cajsa is also officially selling the soundtrack for Obscura, please give it a look here. Art progressI can’t share any images this time without spoiling the surprise (and we all know you’re not supposed to spoil the surprise in Obscura ;3), but Mugi has begun work on…
- Monthly Round-up: July 2025 - 6 August 2025
Hello, hello, my beautiful raccoon friends! I’ve said it for three July round-ups before \, and I’ll say it a fourth time: July is typically the month when Swedes take their summer vacations! But despite us getting chances for rest and relaxation, we’ve also gotten a lot done this month. So let’s go over what’s been happening.Thank you for 200k downloads!The wildest thing on our list of happenings was definitely doing the math and realising that between Obscura and its demo, if you add up the downloads on Steam and Itch.io we have hit over 200k downloads! In our first July round-up we were absolutely blown away by getting 7000 downloads, so as you might imagine we’re pretty tickled by this new milestone. Thank you, everyone who has supported us this far. We literally could not have reached 200k downloads without you.Oleander Chapter TwoYou may have possibly heard about this already, but…
- The OBSCURA soundtrack is here! - 18 July 2025
Thanks to the amazing work of Cajsa Larsson, the composer for OBSCURA, the game's soundtrack is now available to purchase here on Steam! It currently has 30 minutes of original music, arranged for the album format. Cajsa's work on OBSCURA has been invaluable for creating the world of the marketplace, both with immersive ambiances and with mood-setting music. If you've enjoyed her music in the game, we encourage you to show her some love!Love,The Rotten Raccoons Team 💙🦝
- Oleander Chapter Two is Out! - 7 July 2025
Are you ready to see what Oleander’s story has to offer?Alongside 35k of new narrative content, this update has an NPC to talk to who has 10k of background information about the world and characters to share—if you know how to ask for it—and another art update that’s given us a new sprite system for Oleander (with a new look I think some of you will be very happy about) and a bunch of new backgrounds to flesh out the world. There are also some typos erased and bugs fixed. With any luck, this is the end of our achievement bug woes!We’re so excited and grateful to all of you for being with us as we tell the story of Vesper’s journey. We hope this addition to the story takes you on a wild roller coaster ride.Oh, and since we’re celebrating Oleander, the merchant gadfly, let’s share some more fun news. Our merch shop is officially open for business! We’re starting with a small collection of…
- Oleander Chapter 2 Coming Out July 7 (June 2025 Round-up) - 1 July 2025
Goddamn it’s been an exciting month! We have been knuckling down on getting Oleander’s second chapter ready for release all month, and it has been extremely fulfilling. It’s July and we’re so excited!! So, let’s talk about what’s happening.If you’ve already purchased Chapter 2: Oleander’s second chapter will be available to you for free. On Steam the game should update automatically, while on Itchio you can download the fresh build once it’s ready. You’ll be looking for version 2.1.0. If you haven’t already purchased Chapter 2: We are keeping the game’s price the same for this release. You can buy the game now and get Oleander’s second chapter when it comes out, or wait for the update to buy the game. So, what have we been doing? A lot. Mugi revised Oleander’s sprites to give him more flexibility and variety in his posing, and she’s gifted us with many beautiful backgrounds. Some of the…
