- Fall in Love Visual Novel Steam Festival is live! - 1 September 2026
Fall in love with visual novels from September 1-9 in the Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival!Highway Blossoms is currently taking part in the Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival, a Steam festival dedicated to romance visual novels from around the world, hosted by yours truly! From September 1-9 you can find over 200 visual novels in the festival, ranging from discounted games, new demos, and more~Several of our visual novels are on sale for the event! And you can try out the demos for our upcoming games as well~
- 10 Year Anniversary Announcements - 17 June 2026
Ten years ago today, we embarked on a trip that would change our lives…Our first game, Highway Blossoms, was released a decade ago today. It's older than Studio Élan is, and has gone through a number of changes since that day. Amber and Marina's story has found an audience around the globe, taking their journey much further than we could've ever imagined. To this day, new people continue to discover the game and join our community through it, for which we'll always be grateful.If you haven't had the chance to play the game yet, both the base game and the sequel DLC Next Exit are on sale on Steam for 75% off! We're also holding a special sale on our webstore, where you can get a physical copy in either the Classic or Webstore editions for half off! We also have a limited number of a special bundle available, featuring your choice of game style, the soundtrack, artbook, a commemorative po…
- Valentine's Sale! - 6 February 2026
Highway Blossoms is currently on sale on Steam alongside its DLC! The base game and all of its DLC, such as the soundtracks and the artbook, are 69% off. That means the sequel side story Next Exit is only $3!A few of our other yuri visual novels are also on sale right now for Valentine's Day.
- Our magical girl yuri visual novel is now released! - 30 September 2025
Fight crime, be gay—do things the magical girl way!Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery is out now! After several years of development, you can finally follow the married pair of magical girls Sherri and Kealey on one last adventure before their powers fade away for good.Sherri and Kealey Cohen, now a married couple in their late 20s, left the title of magical girls behind them over a decade ago. Now on the verge of losing their powers and entering a life of true normalcy, a string of unexplainable murders forces them to come out of retirement for one last adventure. Together with Nina, their old friend, and Ruby, a new protégé, Sherri and Kealey will have to face a mystery connected both to their past and future. How will you guide your new protégé? Will you be able to save the city from a killer, or will you lose it all?Lock & Key: A Magical Girl Mystery features multiple ways the story…
- Fall in Love Visual Novel Festival has started! - 24 September 2025
The first Fall in Love Visual Novel festival has started! Enjoy 200+ romance-themed visual novels from over 100 visual novel developers, hosted by us!Highway Blossoms and its DLC is on sale as part of the festival.Our other yuri games are also in the festival, with some being on sale! Try out some of the demos available~
- Highway Blossoms 1.3.1 and 1.3 — Now in French! - 10 August 2025
Hello, everyone!Highway Blossoms 1.3.1 and 1.3 have just been released, with a brand new complete French localisation! Massive thank you to the French translation team — Kinxil, Asazuna, and Nono!These updates also fix a few minor issues that were either reported by the community, or were found in testing.We’ve also optimised and reduced the game’s install size by 98 MB (6%) with no quality loss!As always, thank you all for continuing to support Studio Élan…!〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo)A message from Kinxil, our French translatorJe suis très heureux de partager avec vous la traduction française d’un jeu que j’affectionne tout particulièrement, Highway Blossoms (incluant le DLC Next Exit et ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)).C’est mon premier projet de traduction et, n’étant pas du métier, il comporte probablement son lot d’approximations. Mais il a été fait avec amour, promis !J’espère que vous apprécierez auta…
- Our next yuri visual novel is out now! - 16 June 2025
Find unexpected love in the depths of grief...Our next yuri visual novel, A Tithe in Blood, is out now on Steam!As a reserved and unassuming university student in snow-bitten Hokkaido, the personal tragedy which visited Honoka Asakawa leads her to experimenting in a magical art thought long-lost — blood magic. Unexpectedly able to visit the sealed world of Meiji-era Sapporo, Honoka's quickly taken under the wing of the cheerful and bright Lady Yasue, a powerful mage who's remained in this gilded cage for a century.As their feelings for each other develop, the true repercussions of Honoka's first steps into the secret world of magic and mages are only just starting to play out, eventually leading to catastrophic consequences.Features:Original story of approximately 70,000 wordsConcept and writing by SurikoCharacter designs and art by KobutaFully original soundtrack by Claire DeLucaFully…
- Steam Spring Sale! - 13 March 2025
Today marks the beginning of the Steam Spring Sale, so all of our yuri gaymes are on sale! This includes all of the DLC for Highway Blossoms, including the sequel side story Next Exit: https://store.steampowered.com/app/490270/Highway_Blossoms_Next_Exit/ As well as our other titles like Heart of the Woods, Please Be Happy, and more: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/30453/Studio_lan_Yuri_Game_Bundle/ We also recently released a brand new demo for one of our upcoming yuri visual novels, Our Home, My Keeper, so check it out if you want to see what we're working on! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3092190/Our_Home_My_Keeper/ follow us on... Discord - Tumblr - Newsletter - Bluesky
- Highway Blossoms 1.2.5 — Maintenance Update - 28 July 2024
Hello, everyone! Highway Blossoms 1.2.5 has just been released, which fixes a few minor issues. As always, thank you for continuing to support Studio Élan! 〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa Changelog for 1.2.5: On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 〜 7.5.3.22090809. Certain trophies will no longer unlock simply by opening the preference pane. You have to unlock them the intended way now. Made a certain Goofball Mode feature easier to find in the UI. Merged changes and improvements made in common code shared with other Studio Élan games. Improved graphical sharpness and presentation on the Steam Deck when launched via SteamOS Gaming Mode (`gamescope`). (※ Specifically, the game will now always launch in fullscreen mode if launched from SteamOS `gamescope`. Running the game from the KDE desktop environment is unaffected by this change.) You can now scroll CGs with the k…
- Highway Blossoms 1.2.4 — Steam Deck compatibility fixes and more! - 5 January 2024
Hello, everyone! Highway Blossoms 1.2.4 has just been released, which fixes all known compatibility issues with the Steam Deck! It also fixes a few minor issues that were either reported, or were found in testing. As always, thank you for continuing to support Studio Élan! 〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa Changelog for 1.2.4: On PC, it targets Ren'Py SDK versions 8.1.3.23091805 〜 7.5.3.22090809. Fixed all known crashes that were affecting the Steam Deck when the game was run from the Steam client in SteamOS 3 / Holo.Fixed all known UI layout issues that were affecting the Steam Deck when the game was run from the Steam client in SteamOS 3 / Holo.Fixed a crash that could occur in Marina's Thoughts if the user loads the gallery pages in a very specific order.Fixed a visual anomaly that would occur at the end of the OP.Fixed an issue that could potentially cause videos to not play in…
- Highway Blossoms 1.2.3 — Maintenance Update - 10 November 2023
Hello, everyone! Highway Blossoms 1.2.3 has just been released, which fixes a few issues of varying severity! Of particular note, this release fixes the "FTFont NoneType" crash that was affecting certain users — thank you to everyone that reported and helped test this elusive issue, as we were completely unable to reproduce this on our local testing environments without your help! And our apologies for all the inconvenience that was experienced. Additionally, using the Steam "Betas" feature to downgrade to 1.1.1, 1.1, and 1.0 should now work correctly, fixing the "unsupported pickle protocol: 5" error. (※ You may need to restart your Steam client for the changes to take effect, as the changes were made to Steamworks metadata and not to any actual game code or data.) Thank you all for remaining patient, and as always, thank you for continuing to support Studio Élan! 〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_d…
- Highway Blossoms 1.2.2, 1.2.1, and 1.2 - 30 October 2023
Hello, everyone! We've just released a major update to Highway Blossoms! … In fact, we released three versions in rapid succession just now — 1.2.2, 1.2.1, and 1.2! (※ More on this below.) Our apologies for the large delay in getting these versions out — various external factors beyond our control prevented us from properly releasing these updates, despite them being feature-complete for the longest time. This release fixes many long-standing issues of varying severity including achievements / trophies, vastly improves controller navigation support, and adds native Apple Silicon (arm64 / AArch64) support for macOS, as well as ARM Linux (arm64 / AArch64, armv7) — notably including Asahi Linux (arm64e / Apple Silicon)! All that being said, we thank you all for remaining patient, and as always, for supporting Studio Élan across these many years! ※ If for some reason you want to downgrade t…
- Physical Game / Soundtrack / Artbook Copies + New Merch - 12 July 2023
Thanks to our last Kickstarter, we were able to fund physical editions of PC game copies, soundtracks, and artbooks for each of our yuri games, including Highway Blossoms! We have plenty of extras that are ready to ship. The PC copies of Highway Blossoms are the Gold Rush edition, meaning it also includes Highway Blossoms: Next Exit, the sequel side story to Highway Blossoms. You can pick up the physical copies of the game, soundtrack, and artbook on our store! To help celebrate the recent 7th anniversary of Highway Blossoms, we also added some new merch and some older merch featuring the cast! (yes you can carry Tess around as a keychain) You can find all of our Highway Blossoms merch on our website. Thank you everyone who's played Highway Blossoms these past 7 years! You can keep up to date on our ongoing games by signing up for our newsletter, following our Tumblr or supporting us on…
- Kickstarter Campaign for Physical Copies of our Visual Novels! - 12 March 2023
We just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund disc-based physical copies of our first three visual novels, "Highway Blossoms," "Heart of the Woods," and "Please Be Happy." We're also printing the artbook and soundtrack too! The game copies are disc-based and compatible with PC/Mac/Linux. The games are available in two versions: the Webstore Editions and Classic Editions. The Classic editions come in a DVD-sized case, and the Webstore editions come in a CD-sized case and have a reversible cover with a new illustration. There's also a special postcard and sticker sheet exclusive to the campaign, illustrated by some special guest artists. The campaign will run for 4 weeks starting from today, meaning you have until April 9th to order! After the campaign ends, the games, books, and soundtracks will be available on our webstore and at IRL events. The sticker sheet and postcard will be sent…
- Highway Blossoms: Next Exit Now Available in Chinese! - 8 November 2022
《花开公路：下一站出口》终于更新了官方中文！谢谢各位玩家的耐心等待，我们也十分感谢参与汉化的几位翻译和校对。希望大家会喜欢安铂和玛丽娜的新冒险！ 如果DLC没有显示中文，请重装DLC或验证游戏文件的完整性。 At long last, we're excited to release the Chinese translation for Highway Blossoms: Next Exit. Thank you for your patience, and a big thanks to the translators and editors who worked on the patch to make it a reality. We hope you enjoy this extension of Amber and Marina's story! It took us a couple tries to update properly, so if you saw multiple downloads for the game over the past couple days, that's why no you didn't.
- Highway Blossoms: Next Exit & Artbook Release, Base Game Update - 25 September 2020
Heyo everyone, Lots of big news today. The main ones, of course, are the releases of Highway Blossoms: Next Exit and the artbook! I've talked about those a bunch before, so I won't repeat myself too much here. Go pick them up! https://store.steampowered.com/app/490270/Highway_Blossoms_Next_Exit/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412300/Highway_Blossoms__Official_Artbook/ To access Highway Blossoms: Next Exit, go to the "Extras" tab from the main menu (which may require beating the game once to unlock) and then go to "DLC Content." You'll be able to start the DLC story from there! Alongside that, we've got a big update for the base Highway Blossoms game again, arguably even bigger than the Remastered update a couple years ago. Buckle in, because it's about to get bumpy. Longtime HB fans might not be surprised to see this, but unfortunately, this update is likely going to break your sav…
- Highway Blossoms: Next Exit + Artbook Coming September 25th - 9 September 2020
Hey gamers, As the event title, subtitle, and summary all probably told you: both Highway Blossoms: Next Exit and the Official Artbook will be releasing as DLC on September 25th. If you don't know what those are then cool, because I'll explain. If you do then skip to the bottom of this or something. Next Exit is a brand new story DLC set just a little while after the base game. Amber and Marina return to Las Vegas and to meet up with Tess for her birthday. Coincidentally, Tess' birthday is September 25. See what we did there? As you might expect, not everything goes as planned. There's laughter, there's tears, there's Cassi the candy shop girl. All that good stuff you want from a Highway Blossoms game. Or at least, so we hope. It's a little over half the length of the original game. It's got brand new CG's and backgrounds, and even some new/improved sprites. It's got a brand new GUI tha…
- Highway Blossoms: Next Exit - Wishlist Now! - 26 May 2020
Hey guys, Long time no posting an announcement for y'all to read. That changes today, with the exciting news that many of you may have already known: Highway Blossoms: Next Exit is coming soon, and available to wishlist right now. HB:NE is a new story set shortly after the original game. It sees the main cast return to Las Vegas to celebrate Tess' birthday, at an alien-themed convention at the Stratosphere. There's tension, humor, crying, etc. You guys know the drill, right? Most importantly, Cassi, the candy shop girl, is back. Somehow, she ended up being a fan favorite character, which was really cool, because she had my favorite design in the game. This whole DLC may or may not have been an excuse to write about her more. Anyway, the game. It's written by Syon and I again, and is a collaboration between Studio Élan and Studio Coattails. All of the original voice actors will be back,…
- New VN Released - National Park Girls - 17 March 2019
Hey everyone, Syon here. I'm one of the co-creators of Highway Blossoms and founder of Studio Coattails. Just wanted to let you guys know we released a new project. It's called National Park Girls, and in a lot of ways, it's a bit of a spiritual successor to Highway Blossoms, with its focus on Americana, rustic music, and also having a cutely cynical protagonist. Here's the rundown if you're interested: All Eve ever wanted was to protect and preserve the land, but after five years of being a ranger in Yosemite National Park, she’s just about ready to throw in the towel. The people are careless, her co-workers are annoying, and thanks to an increasingly tight budget she can hardly do her job. Fed up and burned out, Eve lashes out, but after being transferred to a remote cabin post in return, she only finds herself more uncertain of the value of being a ranger. Soon after arriving, three…
- Change In Developer For HB - 14 March 2019
Attention: This establishment is now under new management. Sort of. Starting today (technically a couple days ago), Highway Blossoms is no longer going to be under the Alienworks name. From here on out, it'll be jointly listed under Studio Coattails and Studio Élan, the two groups that Syon and I formed back in 2017. So what does this mean for HB? In the short-term, not a whole lot. The recent update to the game just changes the logos and credits (and also changes one joke from goofball mode so that we won't get sued). Long term, it means that you can look forward to HB merchandise from both studios, as well as extra content on the Studio Élan Patreon. Anything in the future that we do that uses the Highway Blossoms IP will be under the same two names, as well. While this is a great time to replay HB (since, let's face it, any time is a great time to replay HB), if you're looking for so…
