CWES: Amaranthine Moon will release on April 29th!

The full release of our Victorian vampire otome game will be very soon, just a little over a month away! We’re excited to share the full game with you all and bring you back into Lucie’s world. As you might’ve seen from our previous devlogs, we’re very busy at work at finishing it up. We’ll be sharing another video devlog before the end of the month. This time, it’ll be focused on Rowan’s route.

The release of CWES:AM will be very close to our Steam festival Otome Games Celebration, which will be returning this year from May 4-11. It will be a very fun release week, so please enjoy it with us!

Harlequinade

As we’re wrapping up development on CWES:AM, it’s time to announce our next otome game — Harlequinade, a modern timeloop horror romance game!

A never-ending carnival and a death-prone college student…

Tired from your studies, your friends drag you out for a night of fun out at a traveling carnival. But for some reason, you can’t help but feel the sense of déjà vu…

Harlequinade is a horror otome romance visual novel about a never-ending carnival and a day that keeps going on forever—unless you find out how to stop it for good with the help of the clowns stuck at the carnival with you.

This visual novel will feature a customizable protagonist, 2 male love interests (the Harlequin and the Pierrot), and lots, and lots, and lots of ways to die. Wishlist it on Steam to be notified when the demo comes out!

Release Schedule

We have a lot of things coming up, so it may be a little tricky to remember them all. To help you visualize our upcoming releases, we made a 2026 calendar for our projected timelines.

CWES:AM will release on April 29th, 2026. Our next major release after that will be Lost Lune ~ the cosmic god’s eternal night, our post-apocalyptic action horror visual novel. After that will be Harlequinade.

If you want to support our upcoming releases, wishlist them on Steam!

— Arimia

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Happy Valentine's Day from the love interests in Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon! Which one do you want flowers from? 💖 Watch the art timelapse: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgkJ…

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— Crystal Game Works (@crystalgameworks.com) February 14, 2026 at 10:53 AM

And you can watch the timelapse for all 3 of them on our YouTube.

In February we worked a lot more on Cecil’s route, but also worked on Rowan’s route! Rowan is charismatic and confident, but even in the face of his father’s untimely death nothing seems to shake him — save for an occurrence on day 6.

A storm is brewing in Lauremburg which rears its ugly head on day 6, just after the common route ends. On Rowan’s route, Lucie finds him in the middle of the storm. They seek shelter in Rowan’s manor, but something remains off…

…Or maybe it was merely a mistaken thought on Lucie’s part? Rowan returns back to normal so quickly…

Later in his route, Lucie and Rowan take time to look through his father’s office, uncovering the past one letter at a time. I fear saying anything else will be too heavy of spoilers~

Some more miscellaneous updates…

Here’s a preview of Lucie confronting a certain someone.

We also have a new look at a side character, Meena! She’ll appear on all routes and is a fellow student at Prideaux. She loves chemistry and gossip~

We’re still working hard on the full game and can’t pin down a release date just yet, but it will be soon.

See you soon for the next devlog~

— Arimia

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Cecil is the childhood friend of Lucie—he’s always followed close by her and has never strayed very far. But now that they’re both adults, what will their futures look like? Will they follow each other in the future, or will their paths separate?

Day 5 is called our investigation day, where Lucie has the chance to not only spend time with the different love interest of her choice but also investigate alongside some of them to figure out why things are happening. It culminates in the route divergence, which brings us into the depths of the story…

On day 6 the cast will find themselves in a torrential storm of several proportions. Here’s a preview of the lighter moments from this day on Cecil’s route.

This devlog is shorter than normal mainly because we’re finally in the big spoiler territory for the game, but I hope it still showed off some interesting parts to look forward to in the full game.

Next time we’ll be looking at the twin’s routes! Despite being siblings and living together, Elm and Rowan’s routes don’t overlap much—Elm’s route overlaps more with Cecil’s, at least at the beginning. I wonder why…?

— Arimia

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The post January Updates – Cecil’s Route appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

Game Releases

Lilacs in the Breeze

2025 started off very dour, given our recent change in leadership at the end of 2024 here in the US. I have lots of trans and fellow queer friends and wanted to bring a little joy in the world—so, with my friend Stella, we created the Trans Joy Jam, a jam focused on making games about trans characters getting happy endings. Participants were encouraged to write about any subject matter relating to trans narratives, so long as there was at least 1 hopeful ending.

To go with the jam, I made Lilacs in the Breeze, a short otome game about a trans woman leaving her old life behind—only for her childhood friend to show up out of nowhere. It has a lot of tropes I’ve written before and will write again. I’m also bringing it to Steam in 2026! No major updates and will still be free, but wishlists are appreciated~

Asphodelium

Asphodelium is a non-linear boys love visual novel about cults, killing, and killing cults. And being in love. After its initial (mostly linear) release in 2024, I sought to expand it even more and bring it to Steam.

The finished version of Asphodelium is now a little under 70k words with a handful of CGs and 2 main storylines with the single love interest to go down. I think it’s my best writing so far. Despite the dark tones of the story, it was fun for me to make, and I hope to make more like it in the future.

I also bundled it with my friend Nia’s game Fearbonding at launch which has done well for both of us! This was my first time bundling with another dev on Steam so I was able to learn how to make it work.

a fae’s whim

O2A2 is a popular visual novel jam you’ve probably heard of if you’re in Devtalk or know of ongoing VN jams. It’s a unique theme—you can only use 1 of every asset and only 1k words. Creating something bite-sized is a great practice activity and I was eager to join this time around.

I ended up making a fae’s whim, a micro visual novel where you’ve freed a fae king from his imprisonment—but what now?

Speech bubbles can be a little tricky with my direction style, as I’m constantly tweaking assets slightly, but I think they’re a fun departure from ADV and NVL at times.

Mari’s Magical Deliveries

Our final full release for the year was Mari’s Magical Deliveries, a short point-and-click otome game about a witch returning home and helping her father’s delivery business. This game was first designed over 2 years ago but was pushed to the backlog for quite a while as I had several other games to work on. In the later half of 2025 I set out to finish it and did it!

The final game is around 26k words with 3 love interests, lots of side stories, customizable room options, and more. Aside from a few pre-existing assets (such as the delivery game framework, music, and backgrounds), all of the game was done by myself.

Projects

Aside from working on games, we also did several game-related projects, such as…

Otome Games Celebration

In May, we held our very first Steam festival, centered around otome games from across the globe! This was several months of planning, reviewing games, sending out emails, getting streamers interested, letting people know the event was happening…and it was a great success! We had over 100 different otome games across multiple languages from over 80 developers and 56k+ views on the festival page. I’m already planning on running the event again in 2026.

You can see more info on the festival here.

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon Kickstarter

We also held our first Kickstarter this year, for our Victorian vampire otome game Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine! It was a great success—thank you everyone who supported the campaign. We’re still hard at work on the full game with backers getting access to a beta build of the first half of the game yesterday, December 31st.

We hope to have the full game released in Q1 2026 and bring Lucie’s (continued) tale to all of you!

Games in 2026

Now that we’ve looked back at 2025, let’s look at where we’re headed in 2026! We have a handful of game releases slated for this new year, such as…

Lilacs in the Breeze

As previously mentioned, Lilacs in the Breeze will be coming to Steam in 2026! The game will probably have a small update attached (Steam achievements for sure) but nothing major, and will still be free. But Steam wishlists are very helpful, so if you want to support the game please wishlist it!

Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon

We’re hoping to release the full game in Q1 2026—this is the only game mentioned so far that has its own team, so it’s not just myself making the game. I’ll be focusing on scripting the game into the game engine this month in January. Likewise, you can wishlist it on Steam here!

Lost Lune ~ the cosmic god’s eternal night ~

Another project that got pushed to the backburner was Lost Lune, but now that the first draft is complete and most of the sprite artwork is done, the project will be coming out sometime this year. I’m unsure about a specific date due to all of the work being by me and it needing intensive scripting like CWES: Amaranthine Moon (which takes more time), but I’m confident it can release this year unless something urgent comes up. Again, you can wishlist it here~

Something else…?

Once CWES: Amaranthine Moon releases in early 2026, we won’t have an announced, full-length otome game in development. …But we do have one unannounced! Stay tuned to see what our next otome will be about

Thank you everyone for supporting us in 2025! I hope 2026 will be a wonderful year for us all.

— Arimia

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The post 2025 Year in Review appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

Make deliveries, decorate your room with your pay, befriend lots of side characters, and fall in love!

full game features:

• 1-3 hours of playtime (around 1 hour per route / playthrough)
• romance 3 characters (2 male, 1 female) with different endings for each
• befriend lots of side characters along your deliveries
• a point-and-click delivery system for exploring town and meeting others
• ability to customize your room with the money earned from deliveries

There’s also a free artbook you can download with the purchase of the game which includes higher resolutions of the art in the game, concepts and sketches, process notes, and more.

The post Mari’s Magical Deliveries is out now! appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

Mari’s Magical Deliveries is a cute slice-of-life point-and-click otome game about a witch returning home and reuniting with old friends. Play as Mari, a witch helping her father’s delivery service in her hometown while rekindling old relationships and making new ones.

Make deliveries, decorate your room with your pay, befriend lots of side characters, and fall in love!

This is a short otome game I’ve been making by myself on the side since 2023 and it’s finally ready to release! The full game is around 2 hours long and has 3 love interests (2 male, 1 female), a delivery minigame, room customization, and lots of side characters to meet.

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The post Mari’s Magical Deliveries releasing December 8th! appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

First off, if you backed the Kickstarter then you should have received an email about the Pledge Manager, which is essentially Kickstarter’s version of Backerkit, where you’re able to finalize your backer rewards as well as pay for shipping and taxes. Depending on where you live and what you bought, you may have to pay taxes (including for digital rewards). If you didn’t back during the original Kickstarter, you can still back for some tiers & add-ons through the Pledge Manager.

The Pledge Manager will be open for at least another 2 weeks. In this time, please finish filling out the information and double check what rewards you’re getting. Please be aware that some of the add-on rewards are already included in some tiers so you may be getting duplicates if you get certain add-ons depending on your tier.

Next, let’s take a look at the game itself. For Halloween we released an art timelapse of vampire Lucie.

I’ve been scripting more of the game, namely the investigation parts once you’re set down a particular route. Last week I was working on Elm’s sections.

You can see some of this in-engine in this new preview video.

We’re still working strong on the full game with the 4 of us—myself (Ari) as the director & programmer, Runa as the lead writer, Ironnori as the editor, and Dule as the artist. We are aiming for a December 2025 release but if we have to, we may delay the game slightly (Q1 2026) in order to make sure the quality remains consistent throughout the game. As always, we’ll continue doing monthly updates to keep you informed on the progress of the game as well as the shipment of rewards.

This isn’t my first commercial game but it is definitely the largest I’ve directed so far. Thank you for believing in our project! I hope you’ll look forward to seeing more of it next month.

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The post November Updates – Pledge Manager & Elm’s Route appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

We showed off the new Elm artwork by Hisuri Rii, which now has a speedpaint up on our YouTube channel.

Speaking of festivals, we’re currently in the Steam Next Fest with both Crimson Waves on the Emerald Sea: Amaranthine Moon and Mari’s Magical Deliveries, a short delivery dating sim we’ve been tinkering with for several years. Both have recently updated demos you can try out now on Steam if you haven’t already.

Both of our upcoming otome games are taking part in Steam Next Fest this week! If you want some fantasy romance, try them out Victorian vampires: store.steampowered.com/app/3072470/… Cute delivery dating sim: store.steampowered.com/app/3563380/…

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— Crystal Game Works (@crystalgameworks.com) October 13, 2025 at 1:00 PM

As for progress on the full game for Crimson Waves, I’ve been able to script more of Day 5 and I’m over halfway done with it. I wanted to finish scripting it in September, but health reasons prevented me from doing so. Here’s a look at some of the new progress I’ve made this month, though!

If Lucie decides not to visit Rowan on day 5, she ends up going to school and having a Very Normal lunch with Elm and Cecil.

As with most of the parts to day 5, there are a lot of interactions you will miss because they’re dependent on your choices beforehand—who have you pursued so far? Is Lucie still taking the emerald pills or not? Day 5 will be a new experience on every playthrough (unless you pick the exact same choices, of course).

I’m finalizing the shipping costs and backer surveys as we speak and hope to have them out before Halloween.

Happy spooky month, everyone!

— Arimia

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August was the end of our successful Kickstarter. With the turbulence of shipping things right now, as I’m located in the US, we’re holding off on sending out backer surveys to finalize backer info (and shipping costs) for now. We’re aiming to release the game in December, so hopefully by the end of October we’ll be able to finalize the backer details. Almost all of our rewards, aside from ones like the physical game copies, have already been produced and I have them on hand (such as the keychains, acrylics standees, etc.).

Aside from the Kickstarter, there was some great progress on the game itself too! Our character artist Dule finished another ending CG~ Here’s a small preview of it.

Speaking of a certain love interest, I was able to finish the first past for scripting Day 4 of the game.

Day 4 shows Lucie meet Rowan at his home to continue their business talks—but will their heart-to-heart lead to a deeper appreciation for each other as business partners or something more? That’s up for you to decide~

September will be a busy month for me IRL and with prior engagements (I’m running another Steam festival!) but I’ll begin scripting Day 5 this month. Day 5 is a massive day for Lucie, given that there’s a lot of paths she can go down and outcomes for it. It’s not the end of the script, but rather the rising tension. The script is past 100k words already with Rowan & Elm’s endings being wrapped up right now.

Have a great rest of your month, see you soon!

— Arimia

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The post August Updates – Crimson Waves Day 4 Scripting appeared first on Crystal Game Works.

Make Deliveries to Fall in Love

In Mari’s Magical Deliveries, you play as Mari, a college aged witch. The previous key arts all had Mari somewhat obscured, looking over the town, but the new key art shows her fully.

The plot revolves around Mari helping her father’s delivery business. He now has a brand new sprite, to better match the rest of the cast.

You’ll get to pick which deliveries you make, with 3 of the return customers being her love interests. The delivery screen is almost done and this is what it looks like, with new character and icon artworks.

Meet Lots of Side Characters

Alongside delivering packages to potential love interests, there’s a lot of side characters for Mari to meet as well! We showed off a few of the side characters in the previous May devlog on the game, so here’s a couple more that have recently been worked on.

There’s still a couple more side characters to meet in the game, which we’ll show off at a later date once they’re ready to be shown.

Be sure to wishlist the game on Steam!

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