Somnova Studios

Hey there! Condensing all of our updates into one update this time as I'll be traveling internationally for a good chunk of November and be Christmas-ing this December. Writing in the year 2026 is a lot different than it was back when I first joined Somnova Studios all those years ago. My writing style has changed. My preferences for how to give a voice to my favorite characters has changed. My outlook on what I want  Missing Stars  to represent to our audience has changed. But what hasn't changed after all these years has been my love for this project. I was never expecting to lead Somnova Studios, but I hope that I've done a good enough job with all of my fellow developers both past and present as we've worked towards finishing Missing Stars. Progress is hard to measure when a project has gone on as long as this one has. While I work on this in my spare time, there's part of me that feels guilty that I haven't worked on this more often, or that I haven't h...

Hello everyone! Time for another monthly-ish update. Things have, admittedly, been very slow in the  Missing Stars  developer mines, but I can give a few details:  Jeanne's Act 2 scenes are nearly done. Minor spoilers: there are 15 scenes in Act 2, and I've completed 12 of them. These final three scenes are relatively shorter than the others, so they should be done a lot faster than the bigger scenes I've been working on. Isolda's Act 2 scenes are making steady progress, and Downix is telling me that everything's going "according to plan". We have other behind-the-scenes plans for writing in general that, while we can't reveal anything concrete, will come to light once we release Jeanne's Act 2 to the public. We also have new art assets being worked on all the time by the wonderfully talented Likhos, like these:        Lastly, I intend to update the Steam Page for Missing Stars this month since that's been kind of... neglected. Sorry, Steam use...

Hello! I'm combining February and March's update because I was extremely busy last month with IRL stuff and didn't really have time to dedicate to making an update. Thankfully, things are a bit less chaotic this month. As always, we're making steady progress on Act 2. Everyone on the team is hard at work on [REDACTED] and we think it'll make some of you very, very happy.  Meanwhile, we're completing a branch on our repository that covers typos and continuity errors. We plan on creating an update this quarter so that you can all see that pesky alert on our Steam page finally go away. We're sorry! We should update that store page more.  The alert in question, haunting my dreams.   In other news, I am planning on moving our website for both Somnova Studios and Missing Stars to a new hosting platform, as the one I previously had was getting too expensive for my budget. So, for now, you might see that our sites are down at the moment. Don't worry -- we'll...

 Hello! ...Well, it's been a little over a year since I've made one of these, hasn't it? Time to get down to business.  Missing Stars  is, of course, still ongoing. Writing is very labor intensive, and as I get older it feels like I don't have nearly as much time anymore to grind out adorable slice-of-life dialogue between characters. So, what I've been trying to set up with the team over the past year has been quick weekly meetings to get writers updated and allowing everyone to ask for feedback. So far, that's been successful! Of course, that means little if we don't update you guys about what and how we're doing. I plan to get back to regular monthly updates -- small things showcasing what we've been up to and any future plans (like game updates) that might get you guys excited! I'll end this update with something nice: Jeanne's Act 2 is nearly done (something I thought was close to completion before, but this time it's actually close ...

Hey, hello everyone! It is time to address the rumors. Yes, the top secret early beta scripts of Missing Stars do, in fact, exist. So, as demanded, we are preparing to release these early scripts as a standalone game, “Missing Stars: Edgelord Beta Edition” . Changes you may find include: Lena’s original route. The humble rise of a journalistic superstar and her bumbling sidekick Erik as they address the true nightmare of high school corruption. Secret rendezvous between faculty and students, food safety violations, before winding up on the run from the mob for having uncovered a truth which will shake St Dymphna’s to its core. Katja’s original route. A mystery wrapped in an enigma with dating confusion on the side. A truly universal tale, as timeless as the solar system itself. Save the school from invaders, bad taste in music, a mysterious banana stand, and an overeager hedgehog in this grand adventure. Twins original route. Before Natalya and Sofiya, we had the Holm twins. What’re...

Hey folks!  Happy Holidays. I'm here to give you all a general update.  Missing Stars development has been, admittedly, slow this year. This is due to some personal things on my part - I've moved, and I've been spending more time away from the computer. I've let the team work on writing at their own pace, and we've been keeping things deadline-free until I got settled in. Now that things have indeed settled a bit, I plan on spending more time helping everyone out and getting more content for Missing Stars completed.  We have some general progress updates for you:  Jeanne's Act 2 is about 60% done at this point.  Isolda's Act 2 is about 60% done at this point.  Natalya's Act 2 is nearly done, but needs to be looked over before calling it complete.  Katja's and Anna's Act 2 are not at the 50% mark yet, but we'll update you when that happens.  We have an update that implements some typos and continuity errors that'll be coming soon. We ha...

We rendered the beard with extra care, for all you Bosworth fans out there.   Hey there! We have another update for you.This one's a bit more fun. After some internal discussion, we have decided to release each of the individual routes separately. That means when Jeanne's Act 2 scenes are finished, we will release that portion of Act 2!  This way, you guys can get to enjoy the routes as they are completed. Meanwhile, this frees up our artists, musicians, and programmers to work on the other routes that aren't ready yet. Finally, we have an incoming update with some typo and grammar fixes (a BIG thank you to Discord user Simpleflan for reporting those to us!). We also have new CGs lovingly crafted by our art team that we're excited to show off, too! We will inform everyone when this update will drop, so stay tuned! -Hamadyne Twitter Facebook Official Somnova Discord

Hey folks! We've got some important updates coming to Missing Stars , including some general typo/grammar fixes and adding new art assets. Please look forward to those changes coming soon. Secondly, I'd like to talk about another route cancellation. While it's unfortunate, the planned Irene route we've talked about amongst us developers has to be cancelled. We originally talked about adding her in as a "bonus" route for the Steam version, but we have run into issues and have thus had to cancel our plans for the route. But, we don't want to leave you assuming we're making this up. We do have an asset we can share with you! The Live2D implementation of this CG did not work as planned, unfortunately. We're sad that we're not able to incorporate the Irene route as originally intended, but we're still working hard on Act Two -- expect more updates on that soon! Thanks for all of your continued support, we really appreciate it.

Hello everyone! We're super excited to finally have Missing Stars out on Steam. Thank you so much for your support, and we hope you enjoy the game! As an Early Access title, we plan to correct any bugs, audio issues, typos, and general sprite weirdness as we find them. If you have any such issues to report, please be sure report on Discord, Steam, or itch.io. We'll do our best to get to them ASAP and post appropriate patch notes when fixes are ready. Once again, thank you all so much for your continued support over the years. Missing Stars has been our team's passion for a long time. We hope that our characters and stories give you joy and excitement, and that you also look forward to our future work on Act Two and beyond!

Hello everyone! I'm pleased to announce that we have a release date for our new Steam release. Missing Stars will be released on both Steam and itch.io on November 12th! This new version of Missing Stars will contain much of the same content you're used to, plus some extras, including: New (and updated) sprites! New (and updated) backgrounds! More CGs! A music player A BG/CG viewer Accessibility options As we continue to develop Missing Stars, we will make announcements when new content is ready. This means that we can show you more of the story that much sooner! See our previous blog post detailing this. If you haven't already, please take the time to wishlist Missing Stars on Steam! If you prefer itch.io, follow us here!   Once again, thank you so much for your support, it means so much to us. We are very excited to showcase all of our new changes with this new version of Missing Stars ! Twitter Official Somnova Discord

Greetings, everyone! We have an update for you: After some (slightly frustrating) waiting from the Valve Review Team, Missing Stars is now available to wishlist on Steam ! We're all super excited for you all to try out our new build (with updated content), coming out soon! (We'll drop a release date as soon as we're confident that everything is wrapped up!) Please spread the word on social media as best you can -- every little bit helps us get more attention! We'd love to see more people enjoy Missing Stars ! For those that are Steam-averse, we have an updated build coming out on itch.io as well -- stay tuned for that release as well! Once again, thank you so much for your continued support of Missing Stars. We're doing our best behind the scenes to give you all Act Two and beyond!  Twitter Instagram Facebook Official Somnova Discord

Hey folks! It's time for another Missing Stars update! We've been hard at work making the magic happen behind the scenes, and we have a special treat for you: our official trailer! As for development updates: the team is in the process of quality testing our scripts and making sure everything looks good. We're confident that we'll be done relatively soon. Once we have a release date pinned down, we'll make another announcement! In the meantime, please like, share, or leave a comment on the trailer's YouTube page!  Spreading the word about our visual novel is the greatest thing you can do to help (and it makes you super awesome, to boot). Thanks for reading! -Hamadyne Twitter Instagram Facebook Official Somnova Discord

Hey there! Hope you are all enjoying 2023 so far.  Missing Stars has been in development for 11 years now, and we've had a lot of fun polishing it and making it a fantastic visual novel. We're now in the final stages of adding new CGs, music tracks, and making our new user interface. Speaking of, here's a preview of the new textbox in our debug build! We decided to increase the opacity, add a drop shadow for the text, and make a swanky new name box. Not everything is in place just yet, but we're happy with the look so far. Note: Erik is not, and will not be, any sort of machine or man-machine interface. Now, on to more business things. Our Steam release is coming soon, and there's an extra little update I'd like to go over: Missing Stars  will be released episodically! We felt that trying to pile on the rest of our written content into "the rest of the game" involved a lot of extensive future planning, which would prove difficult given our studio's...

Trick or Treat, everyone! We've got two treats for you - some spooky artwork for all you lovely fans! Callie did a great piece of Irene dressed up as a vampire hunter! Likhos made a very sexy vampire Jeanne! Enjoy the rest of today's spooky festivities! -Hamadyne Twitter Instagram Facebook Official Somnova Discord

Hello everyone! It's been a while since our last update - sorry about that! We've all been busy with real-life responsibilities (work, getting married, etc.) so progress has been slow these past few months. However, we have some really cool things to show off! Fran, we felt, needed more expressions to expand their emotional repertoire, so they have received a significant upgrade to the number of available poses, expressions, and outfits they have. We're pleased with the result! They are now fully sass-equipped. As mentioned in previous posts, we've also been working on adding more CGs for our characters to more fully flesh out their Act One content. I don't want to spoil too much, so here's a portion of two of the many new CGs we have in progress! Telltale signs of healthy tree growth include dense foliage and thick, sturdy branches. "Perhaps this mannequin with a wig will... no, no, it just doesn't work." Our UI is in the process of being upgraded...

Hey everyone, it's Hamadyne here with a new update for Missing Stars: Act One. As we move further into the 2022, we've been making a lot of progress on the new build for Steam. Something we've been working on for a while is an improved save/load menu! Saving now has a more intuitive space for writing save messages. And loading... looks pretty similar! Very nice. Adam has been working hard at getting this menu looking super polished (and significantly less buggy than the older version), and we hope to polish the rest of the UI just as well as this menu is! Meanwhile, in the art department, we've been adding some more facial expressions for some of our characters who sorely needed some additional emotes. Isolda and Annaliese, for some reason, were a bit stony-faced when we initially made the requests for their initial sprites, and we wanted to add a bit more life to their respective characters. This expression was on another pose, but for some reason wasn't on this si...

10 years.  120 months.  3,625 days. As of February 17th, 2022, Somnova Studios and our project Missing Stars will officially be 10 years old! In order to celebrate this momentous occasion, we are planning to do a live Q&A on our Twitch channel, giving you wonderful fans a chance to ask us any questions that you're dying to know the answer to! On February 1st, we will be releasing a Google Forms survey for you folks to submit questions for the livestream. After two weeks, we will select a few questions to start the stream, as well as take any other questions that come through our Twitch chat.  Feel free to ask about:  Any of our projects ( Missing Stars, Arcadia, Surkea etc.)  A Field of Flowers and Stars (co-produced with Watercress, our sister studio)  Movies, books, TV shows, art and games that have inspired us over the years Something silly (within reason)  Whatever else comes to mind! While we are very excited about what questions you have fo...

Merry Christmas, everyone! Today, we have a little present for you all: a cute chibi drawing of Sofiya and Natalya! We've had a great 2021, but 2022 is looking to be another fantastic year for Missing Stars and for our studio. We are extremely excited to show off more content for our visual novel, so please look forward to our upcoming updates regarding our Steam release! Have a safe and relaxing holiday weekend, and may you all have a happy new year too! Twitter Instagram Facebook Official Somnova Discord

It's time for another Missing Stars Update!  While working on our changes for Act One's upcoming Steam release, our writer for Lena has had to make his departure from the studio. It's unfortunate, but it happens with volunteer projects such as these. We took the time to find a suitable replacement for Lena - her unique characterization meant we had to find someone who could really excel with her character. Sadly, we felt that there was no one who could capture the original writing style. What's more, the act of finding a new writer might also introduce additional risks such as potential ghosting and/or incompatibilities with other team members. All of this internal discussion was also taking up valuable time that would be better suited for other Missing Stars content.  As a result of this, we feel that it is best to remove Lena as a route character, and make her a side character instead.  What does this mean for Act One?   Lena's character will still be featured i...

Hello again, it's another Missing Stars update! This month's update will once again be rather short, but we do have a great update for this month: all of Act One's scenes have been converted over to our new code base that Adam W, our lead writer, talks about here .  At the same time, we are continuing to update and add any missing CGs, sprites, as well as revamp our UI so that Missing Stars looks even prettier for the Steam release. Here's a recent work in progress, featuring Erik and Annaliese! The full image is way too cute for this blog post, so you'll have to wait. We also decided to make a "sprite" of Erik proper, as we realized that we actually didn't have a reference that wasn't in a CG or early concept art. This piece probably won't show up in-game, but in the case that you all need a reference for fanart, storytelling, or something else entirely, here's an official image of our protagonist! Special thanks to Likhos for making this...