Somnova Studios

Originally established as an all-boys Catholic school, Privatgymnasium St. Dymphna (formerly known as the Ignatian College of St. Dymphna) was established in 1858 as means to cultivate the talents of young, but troubled, youth. Jesuit educators started by taking over an old, yet otherwise abandoned, Baroque monastery situated outside of Vienna and converted it into a boarding school. Victims of wars, survivors of tragic accidents, and orphans were often taken in as students as a means to help them heal from whatever afflicted them, as well as give them a quality education. By the mid-1880s, the rising popularity of psychological analysis led to the college begin admitting more psychologically troubled students and hiring interested professionals who would offer to study and help treat their students alongside their schooling. Soon after, it was decided that the college take in female students as well, creating one of the first co-ed elite boarding schools in Europe. The school functi...

(Content warning: This article briefly mentions suicide.) Written by Fia, Medical Consultant for Somnova Studios As someone who has been hospitalized three times as well as worked in an inpatient unit for people with developmental disabilities at one point, I felt like I would be the best to talk about psychiatric hospitalization and what it is like. There are a lot of myths surrounding psychiatric hospitalization and I want to give a more realistic view of what it is like. I won’t deny that being hospitalized isn’t a fun experience, but if there is anything I would like people to take away from this article is that psych wards are more boring than scary.  You can be hospitalized either voluntarily or involuntarily. With a voluntary hold, you can technically leave at any time as long as you can prove you are not a danger to yourself or others. Even if you decide to leave, the process of getting you discharged can take a couple days. With involuntary holds, you can only b...

Hello everyone, hope you’re all doing well. We’re coming at you with our regularly-scheduled update for Missing Stars so that we can keep you informed of our progress for Act 1.  At this point, we have 44 scenes programmed into the game. This includes writing, sprite direction, and scene direction. As of this writing, our current word count at this point is at about 123,000 words.To put that into perspective, that is approximately the length of about 2 full routes from Katawa Shoujo . Compared to a real-world novel, J.R.R Tolkien's The Return of the King has 134,462 words, making Missing Stars quite the read once it's all finished. We hope this explains why we’re taking so long to get Act 1 out. Our largest focus has always been on the writing quality and ensuring the programming of these scenes looks consistent.  We apologize for delays for July's Mental Health Blog post . It will be out soon next week however!  That's all we have for you this month! Tha...