itch.io

Yep, NSFW is allowed! We just ask that you tag it appropriately and include any necessary content warnings.

Game Jam Advice

• Game Jam Survival Guide - Essential Tips and Tricks
• Releasing 8+ games (ft. game jams) and when to take a break
• making game development backup plans
• Advice for Leading VN Game Jam Teams
• How to Make a Visual Novel Solo

Visual Novel Design

• How to Make Visual Novels
• Visual Novel Conference Talks
• • Visual Novel Cinematography & Design
  • Art Direction & Execution in Visual Novels
  • Making Impactful, Impressive Character Sprites
  • Post-production Techniques for VNs
• Vimi’s Visual Novel Design

Visual Novel Writing

• Writing Interactive – guides for narrative games writers
• Visual Novel Conference Talks
  • Writing Mystery Visual Novels
  • How to Design Interesting Choices in VNs
  • The Intrigue of Ambiguity

Artwork

• Clip Studio Paint
• Krita
• FireAlpaca
• Medibang
• GIMP
• FastStone Photo Resizer – batch photo resizer and editor
• FotoSketcher – various settings to apply artistic filters to photos

Programming

• Ren’Py – free visual novel engine
• Twine – free text-based game engine
• Naninovel – Unity-based tool for making Unity VNs
• tiny tools – collection of various game dev tools
• Ren’Edit Add-On – Ren’Py script editing & feedback tool
• Ren’Py Accessibility Add-On
• Feniks Ren’Py resources – various add-ons and tutorials by Feniks

Marketing

• How to Market Visual Novels
• Marketing Visual Novels FAQ
• Marketing Fundamentals for Indie Game Developers
• Marketing your first indie game – What we learned from releasing the same game twice
• The stairstep approach to indie game marketing
• Marketing your Visual Novel for Kickstarter
• Marketing Visual Novels on TikTok
• TikTok Marketing for Visual Novels
• Visual Novel Press-Kits
• Social Media Field Guides

Audio

• Eric Matyas music & SFX
• Vita-chi SFX & graphics
• Free Music Archive
• Free Sound
• dova-syndrome

Misc.

• Lemmasoft Creative Commons Forum
• itch.io visual novel resources
• Google Fonts – free fonts
• Uncle Mugen backgrounds
• Canva – browser & desktop graphic design tool
• Unsplash – free photos

More resources for making your own VNs

Any type of fiction is allowed, so that would include short stories with artwork attached.

We remove any games that don't have screenshots or don't make it clear it's a visual novel. If your game has multiple screenshots and states it's clearly a winter-themed visual novel, feel free to resubmit.

No.

Hybrid visual novels (like RPG Maker games typically are) are allowed.

Game Jam Advice

• Game Jam Survival Guide - Essential Tips and Tricks
• Releasing 8+ games (ft. game jams) and when to take a break
• making game development backup plans
• Advice for Leading VN Game Jam Teams
  
• How to Make a Visual Novel Solo

Design

• How to Make Visual Novels
• Visual Novel Conference Talks
• • Visual Novel Cinematography & Design
  • Art Direction & Execution in Visual Novels
  • Making Impactful, Impressive Character Sprites
  • Post-production Techniques for VNs
• Vimi’s Visual Novel Design

Writing

• Writing Interactive – guides for narrative games writers
• Visual Novel Conference Talks
  • Writing Mystery Visual Novels
  • How to Design Interesting Choices in VNs
  • The Intrigue of Ambiguity

Artwork

• Clip Studio Paint
• Krita
• FireAlpaca
• Medibang
• GIMP
• FastStone Photo Resizer – batch photo resizer and editor
• FotoSketcher – various settings to apply artistic filters to photos

Programming

• Ren’Py – free visual novel engine
• Twine – free text-based game engine
• Naninovel – Unity-based tool for making Unity VNs
• tiny tools – collection of various game dev tools
• Ren’Edit Add-On – Ren’Py script editing & feedback tool
• Ren’Py Accessibility Add-On
• Feniks Ren’Py resources – various add-ons and tutorials by Feniks

Marketing

• How to Market Visual Novels
• Marketing Visual Novels FAQ
• Marketing Fundamentals for Indie Game Developers
• Marketing your first indie game – What we learned from releasing the same game twice
• The stairstep approach to indie game marketing
• Marketing your Visual Novel for Kickstarter
• Marketing Visual Novels on TikTok
• TikTok Marketing for Visual Novels
• Visual Novel Press-Kits
• Social Media Field Guides

Audio

• Eric Matyas music & SFX
  
• Vita-chi SFX & graphics
  
• Free Music Archive
• Free Sound
• dova-syndrome

Misc.

• Lemmasoft Creative Commons Forum
• itch.io visual novel resources
• Google Fonts – free fonts
• Uncle Mugen backgrounds
• Canva – browser & desktop graphic design tool
• Unsplash – free photos

More resources for making your own VNs

Q: Can I submit a previously started game?

A: Yes, but we don't allow previously finished games in the jam- you need to work on your game at least partially (not just a couple of days) during the jam.

Q: What engines can I use?

A: Any engine you'd like, but the final product must be a visual novel. Some engines that are good for visual novels are listed in the Visual Novel Development Resources thread.

Q: Will there be ratings? Is this ranked?

A: No and no. This is meant to be one of the most relaxed and chill (pun intended) VN jams to end off the year. Don't treat this as a competition.

Q: Can I submit gore? Or blood? Or ero content?

A: Treat this jam as if it's PG-13. Outright depictions of sex and gore are not allowed. For everything else, use your best judgement.

Q: Can I use generative AI assets (such as assets made with Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, etc.) in my game?

A: No.

Q: Can I use premade (non-AI) assets?

A: Yes.

Q: Can I submit a demo or WIP game?

A: Yes.

Q: Can I make something that isn't anime-style?

A: Yes.

Q: Can I make something that isn't a dating sim or romance game?

A: Yes.

Q: What is the theme?

A: Winter. Your game must have something to do with that, whether it's set in a winter environment, taking place during a wintery holiday like Christmas, etc.

Q: Why do I have to include screenshots of my game on the itch.io page?

A: We do this because it's the bare minimum for us to see if it's a real game or not and if it's a visual novel. Players are also wary of games that don't have any screenshots as they could be viruses. You've spent a month making an entire game, you can spend 2 minutes taking and uploading screenshots.

thank you so much!! I hope you'll enjoy this new story with Lucie ♥

thank you so much!!

yes, you can

thank you!

haha thank you so much!

thank you!

thank you so much!!

Great narrative that hooked me in almost immediately. Loved the prose and direction for telling this story. Great job!

thank you!

thank you so much for playing it, I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you so much for playing, glad you enjoyed the game! We're actually working on a sequel to it right now, which focuses on Lucie and the cure to vampirism set a few years after this first game. You can find the demo for it on our itch.io page.

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

thank you! sorry about that, I'll look into what the problem is. here's the survey link.

thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed it!! the current two endings are pretty similar, basically depending on if you take Aster's side in situations or not. I'd like to add more endings to it when I get the chance.

thank you!

thank you!!

Please DM me on Discord - arimia

when you submitted your game, this message appeared.

Hi, please read our rules - we removed several entries this morning that did not include screenshots. A screenshot is an image taken in-game. Screenshots are not character bios, backgrounds, key arts, concept arts, etc.

there's a browser build you can play on mobile!

Possibly, but not for sure right now. It will be a hefty game when the full game is done and I'm not sure about offering a demo on android while the full game won't be available on android.

hi, thank you so much! there's no order for them as they're not in the same universe- they're just all gay visual novels set in fantasy Victorian-esque settings.

just added an android port, thanks for asking!

thank you!!

Love the love sick pining- so close but so far. I also liked the silhouettes of them!

thank you so much!!

It was definitely hectic LOL

I don't remember the last time I stayed up past 3AM, it was probably back in college... the crunch was real 🥲 I wanted to do some CGs for different scenes but did not have the time or energy, so Ren'Py transforms it was! I speedran the art in the game, I think I spent an hour on each sprite (first Dahlia the vampire, then Camellia using Dahlia's sprite as a base) and then quickly drew a main menu art in less than half an hour (anatomy be damned).

I really really wanted to do a web build for the game so I updated Ren'Py to the latest stable build and apparently the web builds on it aren't stable so it kept having WebGL errors otl So I scrapped that and just went with downloads because by that time it was 3:30 and I was working on pure determination at that point. Once the rating/judging is over I'll probably make a web build.

This was really fun though!! I got my start making games by entering Ludum Dare a lot so this was a fun way to show myself that I still got the ability to making short VNs in a weekend. Thanks for running this!

The writing was so lovely despite the cruelty of the story 😭 This was great, I really enjoyed the music too!

The choice of music was really nice. Good job for only 8 hours!

The character designs and UI were really stunning!

I really like your art style, the framing here really shows it off well!