Hello everyone,

Here's a short update on what is going on with Bat Studios.

Chapter 4 - Displacement

We're currently working on Chapter 4 for Patreons and we plan on releasing it sometime before Christmas. Up to now, the response for Chapter 3 has been a positive one considering how the story in Light My Way is unfolding. Chapter 4 - Displacement will follow up on the vibe from Chapter 3 and roll with it. I hope you will all like where the story is heading. We get some new insight into why things are the way they are for Lucian and for everyone around him. We're getting into the meat of it so to say. I am aiming for the release to be on the 20th of December but it could easily be later than that if we need to polish up on issues that might come up. And although we have gotten better at minimizing them, you never know what could go wrong again.

Merchandise Store

I opened up a merch store a while ago but I haven't gotten to properly organize it yet. Things in my life have been extreme for months now and I am barely catching my breath although things are far from calm. That being said, I do plan on slowly updating the Etsy shop with more stickers and prints. Once Chapter 3 goes public I will have more prints in stock. I do all the manual labor for both the stickers and prints at home, so all the products in the shop are on demand. Here is the link in case you would like to take a look at what I have available so far: 

BatStudios.etsy.com

The Swimmer

Light My Way is around 80% written. I still need to end the story somehow and I did finally find a line that I am happy with. I have been struggling for the past...years to sit down and write again. The thing with my mother's cancer has been a darkness I couldn't shake away for the longest of times and I still can't properly function since her passing two weeks ago. I did make an appointment with a psychologist, so I am getting the help that I obviously need and I'll start therapy next week. I hope that will bring me to the point where I can write again. I miss it dearly. 

I might take a break from Light My Way in the sense of letting more ideas come to me before I finish it. There are plenty of chapters that I have already edited to be ready for visual production. I want to find my groove again somehow even if it's really slow, so I figured I should start by going back to an old project of mine: The Swimmer. I originally wrote this as a movie script and had it ready to send out to agencies. Everything changed for me about 2 and a half years ago from what I mentioned above. But I do have the script. I re-read it and it needs more work. A lot more work. The script currently has about 25k words which is mostly comprised of dialogue. The good thing is that I wrote a lot of scene direction as well which helps me edit more easily into a novel. I know how that story begins and ends, but I want it to be more powerful than it currently is. It can have a better impact on my readers if I dig a little deeper into the main character Noah. 

The Swimmer is a drama set in a world much like our own which has more troubles than it needs to. I sent my original script to some friends in the theatre industry and they enjoyed it a lot saying that I am onto something. I will transform it into a visual novel that hopefully will offer the furry community something different and entertaining.

Job offers and other projects

Do you have any skills that you think would be useful for us here at Bat Studios? Can you do social media management? Maybe you can draw on par with our in-house artist Rlion. Are you good at coding perhaps to help out Tito? We're looking for people to expand our team in order to produce more visual novels, games, and animation shorts. 

Do you have a script for a visual novel? Maybe you have a few chapters and a story outline. If you would like to publish it under Bat Studios, reach out to me on Discord. 

I would like to expand the Bat Studios catalog, but since we're only 3 people working on one novel at a time, it's very difficult especially since everyone has real-life commitments to attend to on a daily basis. So if you feel like you could help us grow, feel free to get in touch.

Future plans on the priority list

About two and a half years ago I wrote a short story for Christmas for the local theater. I never gave it to them...But I did give it to my mom to read and to some friends too. Everyone liked it, although I know I could improve it. It's not meant to be this big thing, and it's written to be a stage play, but I did enjoy writing it. I recently found the printed version at my mom's place and remembered I even wrote it. So I would like to produce it into a short visual novel. I decided to re-write it a long time ago into the world of Light My Way and have it in a file on my laptop. I need to polish it, but overall it's already good to go.  The story can easily be read as a standalone, but if you did read chapter 3 of Light My Way, you would get a better idea of what is happening to the characters and why they are acting the way they are. 

I am looking for an artist to draw the sprites, backgrounds, and CGs. I am open to offers for this and although it would have been really cool to release this on Christmas day, I feel like it's too late for that this year. The best time to start would have been at least a few months ago, but the second best time is now. 

Thanks for reading this far and thank you for your support. It means a lot to me.

See you in Stradia!

- Hadrian Maximus