Hey patrons! We finally made it to the end of 2025 and can’t wait to start 2026 strong 🎉 Thank you for another incredible year full of love, thirst, and memes ❤️
We wanted to do an annual recap of all the fun we’ve had and the milestones we’ve accomplished thanks to your support! Before we dive into that though, here’s your regularly scheduled Dev Snapshot 🫡
🛠️ December 2025 Dev Snapshot
Narrative
Chapter 1 – Writing | ⚒️ ~ Dialogue locked
Full Game – Writing | ⚒️ ~92% Drafted, ~74% through final passes
Full Game – VO Prep | ⚒️ In Progress, scene + line selects underway for remaining characters
Voice Acting
Full Game – VO Recording | VO recorded for 3 characters so far!
Art & Implementation
Chapter 1 – CG & UI Art | ⚒️ 89% Complete, final polish in progress
Chapter 1 – Implementation | ⚒️ 78% Complete, final art in progress
Full Game – CGs & BGs | ⚒️ ~65% Complete
Systems & Testing
Full Game – Systems/Code | ⚒️ 67% Complete, revamped UI in progress
Chapter 1 – QA + Bug Fixes | 📅 Testing Phase Complete, Fixes Underway
Localization Planning | ⚒️ In Progress, negotiating with translation partners
Release Plan
Chapter 1 – Early Access | 🔓 Launched December 5, 2025 for qualifying Kickstarter backer tiers
Chapter 1 – General Access | 🔓 Launched December 12, 2025 for all other Kickstarter backers
Full Game – Public Release | ⏳ Targeting 2026 (exact quarter TBD)
We’ve made so much exciting progress this year and can’t wait to see these numbers get closer and closer to 100%! Now, let’s take a stroll down memory lane before our team gets ready for some NYE partying 🤭
✨ Exciting Milestones
Patreon Launch: We officially launched this Patreon in July, so now we have all of you lovely folks along for the journey! Thank you to everyone who has pledged and joined us. We’re so happy to be on this platform with you and we’re excited to offer more exciting perks in 2026! Perhaps a way to play a certain preview… but no spoilers!
Rest assured though, we have some fun stuff on the horizon 😉
Team Expansion:
Our Red Spring crew has grown! This year, we welcomed 4 new members (including me 😋) to the production, community, and art teams. It may not seem like much, but every new hire is a great privilege for us as an indie team! Each member makes a massive difference and your support as our patrons made this possible. Thank you for helping us level up!
We’ve also expanded our team in other meaningful ways… with some production babies! 🥹 Big shoutout to the new parents on our team who are doing the hardest work.
Development Wins:
We’ve also seen incredible progress with the full game, including hitting these milestones:
Redesigned our UI
Wrapped and recorded VO for 3 routes
Released Demo 2.0 to the public
Released the Chapter 1 Preview for backers (with something brewing for Patrons too…)
Closed a localization deal in China
And got original music composed!
⏰ Character Daily Schedules
This year, we thoroughly enjoyed exposing our LIs and their daily schedules. There’s a lot you can learn about a person from their routines and we had a great time reading your headcanons!
📖 NPC Reveals and Lore
The LIs weren’t the only ones getting exposed though, they had to share the spotlight with some of our NPCs! We posted a few beloved side characters and were floored by how much love you gave them 😭
🥂 That’s a Wrap
We also did lots more lore posts, text memes, charts, and more! It’s been such a blast embracing our more unhinged side with you all. Our team does a lot of hard and tiring work throughout the year, but laughing with you makes the weight a lot lighter on our shoulders ❤️
2026 is gonna be even more fun—more progress, more sneak peaks, more memes, and more thirst traps 🤭 Thank you for being here, for bantering with us and for making 2025 another joyful part of our journey to release!
🎮 Enshrined: Sword of Fates is Out!
In the meantime, if you’re looking for more games to play as you wait for TOUCHSTARVED, Enshrined: Sword of Fates is now available!
In case you missed it in our September update, Enshrined is a new game featuring our incredible Voice Director - Souha 🥳 Here’s some more info below:
Enshrined: Sword of Fates is the latest title by Truant Pixel’s Souha Al-Samkari, creator of Akash: Path of the Five, senior writer on Date Everything and First Bite. It is a dark fantasy visual novel that dares to ask the question “what if an ancient, powerful sword of legend could only be activated by sleeping with someone… and your only choices were three strangers who were just trying to kill you?”
Strap in for the world’s worst date with three men who should be nowhere near the dating pool:
DYMA: A proud king who is as muscular as he is entitled (VERY).
Played by Dave Fennoy (The Walking Dead, Batman: Arkham Knight, Minecraft: Story Mode)
NIKO: A mercenary quick on the draw with his sword and his mouth.
Played by Jonah Scott (Dying Light 2, Date Everything!, When the Night Comes)
JUN: A mysterious adventurer who’s frighteningly competent and maddeningly tight-lipped.
Played by SungWon Cho (Borderlands 3, God of War: Ragnarok, Date Everything!)
Check it out on Steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3835610/Enshrined_Sword_of_Fates/
💌 Till next time
That’s all for this one! Thank you again for being the best community we could ask for 🫶 We hope everyone has a wonderful new year!
👀 Got Questions?
You can always reach us:
via comments
With love (and a flute of champagne),— Sofi @ Red Spring Studio