Somnova Studios

           At Somnova, we're in the business of having candid discussions of mental health. Awareness and understanding are the first steps toward resolving mental health issues, and even basic knowledge of community problems can go a long way toward promoting better outcomes. It's natural, then, that we should discuss the mental health situation of LGBTQ+ individuals for pride month. Before we proceed, I'll warn that the following discussion contains mentions of sexual assault, suicide, homophobia, and transphobia. We'll jump right in.  That there is a mental health crisis in the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and otherwise “queered”) population is no controversy. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation reports, in one study of LGBTQ+ youth, that 28% of youth report feeling depressed “most or all of the time” during the previous 30 days, as compared to 12% of other youth [1]. In a different study, those...

Hello everyone, hope you're doing well. We're coming at you with our June update for Missing Stars so that we can keep you informed of our progress for Act 1. What we focused on this month was going through our code and streamlining it in order to make it more efficient and help run the game better. What we did to achieve this was we took some commands that were 6-7 lines long that popped up throughout the game's code and shortened them to 1-2 lines. This was done not only to streamline the code, but make sure it was easier to read and sort through when adding in scenes, as well as make troubleshooting to solve any bugs that pop up a lot easier. On top of that, we have programmed in a number of scenes into the game and are continuing to make progress on that front. Some users on Discord were asking abut how tall (or short) some of our cast members are. By popular demand, here's a relative height chart of our core cast for Missing Stars! And that is all we ha...

Hello everyone, hope you’re all doing well. As some of you might know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. One topic we wanted to bring up is why mental health is just as important as physical health, and the barriers we have in society that prevent people from receiving the treatment they need. As we talked about in a previous article, the public’s perception of mental health is continuing to improve and head in the right direction. However, one thing that needs to be addressed is recognizing when we need help. In today’s society, whenever most people experience a decline in mental health, they initially dismiss this, thinking “Oh it’s just a rough patch, I’ll be fine. Most people have it worse than I do.” As time goes on, however, their mental health may continue to decline. Even at this stage, many are reluctant to seek any help until they hit rock bottom. This is most likely due to the fact that there still is a negative perception of mental health, especially when it comes...

Hello everyone, hope you're doing well. We're coming at you with our May update for Missing Stars so that we can keep you informed of our progress with Act 1. The biggest thing we focused on this month was art asset organization. Now all of our artists, writers, editors, and programmers are all on the same page as to what assets we need and don't need for Act 1. It also makes sure we avoid any duplicates of assets. Now as some of you are aware, April has been the dreaded exam season. Since a few of our team members are in school, their focus was on school this month. Now that its ending, we should have more of our writers and editors available for the upcoming sprint and continue to make progress on the remaining scenes for Act 1. Here is a sneak peek of some concept art for Natalya and Sofiya in their Gala dresses. That's all we have for you this month! Once again, thank you all for your continued patience and support. We're working as hard...

Hello everyone, hope you’re doing well. Today, we have a very special blog post for you for Autism Awareness Month! We’ll be talking about what autism is, what it looks like to others, and how it’s treated. We’ll also be interviewing four of our own developers on the spectrum to see what their experience has been like. So what exactly is autism? Autism is a disorder that can cause challenges with communication and social interactions, as well as display restrictive and repetitive behaviours. The spectrum used to be composed of several unique diagnoses: classic autism, Asperger's Syndrome, PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified), and pragmatic language impairment. However, these now all fall under the Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, with the spectrum being defined as having a high-functioning end and a low-functioning end, with the high end more able to blend into regular society, and the low end having a very difficult time communicating their ...