ViM Studios: 2022 Year in Review!

In 2022, our little studio released 7 updates and published 3 games to Steam! Plus so much more, all thanks to YOU - our many supporters and fans! 

Let's take a little walk down memory lane of what we've accomplished together in the past year...

JANUARY 2022

This was the first month both of us were officially working for this studio full-time! TheOmega officially took over as our lead programmer, after dealing with a revolving door of outside programmers not working out. 

Our supporters helped decide on a new character (Samantha) to be added to Prince of Suburbia, who has become one of the fan favorites of the game!

FEBRUARY 2022

We released the rewrite of Prince of Suburbia (Part 1 - V0.55) that had been in the works for months. Previously, the Prince of Suburbia story had been the work of at least four separate writers, and was not up to the new standards of our studio. So, Josselyn rewrote the entire game from scratch in late 2021.

We also launched the Steam page for Prince of Suburbia - Part 1, establishing a presence on Steam for the first time. A presence that continues to grow!

MARCH 2022

We released the first update of what would ultimately become Prince of Suburbia - Part 2 with the V0.6 release of Prince of Suburbia. 

APRIL 2022

This month was truly a watershed moment for both of our games and the future of our studio.

We made the difficult decision to propose a change of artists. With the blessing of our community and our previous artist, as well as your generous financial support, we were able to bring auxiliaryout on as the full-time artist and animator for Prince of Suburbia.

We also released Chapter 1 of A Shot in the Dark after about 9 months of development, officially becoming a two-game studio! 

MAY 2022

Prince of Suburbia - Part 1 was officially released on Steam, bringing V0.55 (previously known as the FREE DEMO) to a much wider audience of players! This release also coincided with the introduction of Chinese and Spanish translations of the game.

JUNE 2022

We released the second update (V0.7) for Prince of Suburbia - Part 2, less than three months after the V0.6 update. This was the shortest development cycle our little studio had ever achieved up to that point!

JULY 2022

Development for V0.8 of Prince of Suburbia - Part 2 (aka "the big one" for all our Catherine fans) was in full swing and we were already working on the upcoming beach release (V0.9) with lots of polls like this one. We also solicited feedback on the remastered sprites for Prince of Suburbia in posts like this one.

AUGUST 2022

We celebrated our 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ON PATREON with the release of the first half of Chapter 2 (V0.15) of A Shot in the Dark! 

This release marked the first time we showcased the work of outside writers. Thank you to Kitty Kaplan, Renee Ryan, and Mute Hazelnut for all of your help with writing in 2022! The skill and fresh ideas that outside writers bring to the table has really taken both of our games to the next level. Yay teamwork!

We also surpassed 500 Patrons for the first time this month! It was a better anniversary present than we could have ever asked for!

SEPTEMBER 2022

We are sure the release of V0.8 of Prince of Suburbia - Part 2 is one our fans will never forget! The "big moment" with Catherine had finally arrived! 

This is the version of the game we would later publish as a paid DLC on Steam, introducing thousands of new players to all the lovely ladies in Prince of Suburbia.

OCTOBER 2022

This month we surpassed 700 Patrons for the first time! Thanks to the growing financial support of our studio, we were able to bring on BananasFoster to help us with the all-important task of promoting our games!

Development of Chapter 2 (V0.2) of A Shot in the Dark and the first beach update (V0.9) of Prince of Suburbia - Part 2 were both going full steam by this point!

We also shared some amazing Halloween-themed art by auxiliaryout featuring Catherine and Sarah from Prince of Suburbia for our Patrons and Subscribers!

NOVEMBER 2022

We put the finishing touches on the rest of Chapter 2 (V0.2) of A Shot in the Dark including rendering a large portion of the 120+ animations featured in that release!

We also, unfortunately, spent too many days in bed battling the many illnesses that seemed to be circulating at that time. Thankfully, we brought on Doc62 to help with coding. He really saved our butts!

DECEMBER 2022

It was truly a December to remember! We finally released Chapter 2 (V0.2) which was our biggest update so far of A Shot in the Dark. We also put Chapter 1 (V0.1) as a FREE DEMO on Steam which has generated even more interest in the game.

December also brought the much-anticipated launch of Prince of Suburbia - Part 2 as a paid DLC on Steam, which gave Steam players access to the latest version (V0.8) of the game. The response has been better than we ever could have predicted!

We celebrated the end of the year with holiday-inspired illustrations and renders for both of our games, with characters chosen by our supporters through polling. Check them out if you haven't already! 

It's crazy to think about all that we have accomplished in the past year, and how much more we hope to accomplish in the coming year. 

We are humbled by all the support our little studio received in 2022, and we hope that we continue to earn your support in the future.

Thank you for believing in us!

 - TheOmega & Josselyn Stark, ViM Studios