Hi everyone, Duhop here! I'm the writer, programmer, and director for Alex's Hope & Alex's Solitude.

It’s been far too long since I wrote a devlog, but believe me when I say we’ve been hard at work on Alex’s Solitude in the meantime. The final stretch is upon us and release is finally on the horizon.

Here’s a quick update on what we’ve done:

• Writing finished and edited
• Background art done
• Character sprites done
• Soundtrack done minus one track
• Programming/dev work nearly done

At the moment, Alex’s Solitude looks and feels almost like a finished visual novel! A polished UI, no more blank backgrounds or sprites, a well edited story, and a soundtrack that really pulls you in to the MC’s emotions. All that’s really left to do now is finish up the 3 CGs and add the end credits.

Buuut it shouldn’t have taken so long to get here. I’d originally planned for Alex’s Hope & Alex’s Solitude to be a quick demo/prologue to our other project Alex’s Journey to the Grave, released within just a few months, but as my attachment to the stories grew I just couldn’t help myself.

I added more writing to Alex’s Hope first, nothing much for the other team members to work on, but as I wrote Alex’s Solitude I got a bit carried away. It needed more writing, more art, and more music than I’d bargained for to have the impact I really wanted.

So my initial estimation for a November release turned into a December release turned into a January release turned into… Yeah, scope creep kinda got me.

Despite that, I’m really happy with the results. In my eyes, the project evolved from a rushed, incomplete demo into a beautiful and emotional little kinetic novel that easily stands on its own. I’m proud of what we’ve made, and I’m super excited to finally get it released.

And it should be soon! You might’ve noticed a February 16th release date on our Steam page, and that’s our current goal. I’m optimistic we’ll meet it since we’re long done adding scope, but I don’t feel confident enough to make any promises yet. I’ll write another devlog around the end of January to see how we’ve progressed.

That concludes the Duhop ramble. Hope to have more good news next time!