We had the opportunity to talk with Snowhaven Studios about their visual novel rhythm game “Love’s Crescendo”! This unique and heartwarming game, set in a university, highlights the wholesome romance between two women as they reignite their passion for music. Yuri fans are sure to love this!
1. Tell us about Love’s Crescendo
Love’s Crescendo is a cozy visual novel with rhythm mini-games and features a yuri story about finding true love.
In Love’s Crescendo, players can enjoy a casual, non-competitive rhythm game experience. You can work to beat your previous scores, but the scores won’t affect your progression of the game. You can even play the jukebox outside of the main story to enjoy even more rhythm games.
The story takes place in a university, highlighting the romance between two women as they reignite the spark for their passion: music. Cadence, a talented pianist, and Valerie, a skilled composer, must work together to create their next composition. Little did they know that their composition would blossom into something more.
The game was released on Steam in November of 2023.
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux
Price: $4.99
2. What is the ultimate goal for your game?
To create a relaxing and fun game that welcomes both VN players and a casual rhythm game audience. Because the game doesn’t penalize you for performing poorly, in a way, it does tie back to the game’s story which I’ll touch upon in the second point.
The game centers on Cadence rediscovering her passion for piano again through working with Val. She sees how Val can have fun without any restrictions, while Cadence always played for others. It’s through Val and her constant encouragement she learns to let go, and play for pure enjoyment, not for an award or placement in some competition. I think this journey is something a lot of people can relate to, whether they’re the Val or Cadence in this situation.
3.What advice would you give to new indie game devs?
The first piece of advice we would give to other developers is to start small. Sometimes completing a game is better than being stuck in development. Make sure you’re working on a project with a reasonable scope.
Second, the first game that a team releases is unlikely to be their best, but it can still be super fulfilling and set the second game up to be something even better. On that note, it’s easy to fall into the trap of redoing certain areas of the game over-and-over until it’s perfect but sometimes you just need to move on to your next game.
Third, don’t chase trends just for the sake of success. If you make a game that you love, chances are someone else will love it. If you make a game just because you’re chasing something that’s popular, but you don’t enjoy doing it, it will show in the finished product.
4. What inspired the art style of your game?
We envisioned a scene in a yuri VN with two characters playing the piano together, at night, with a snowy scene in the background. We took a lot of inspiration from Shojou Anime and made sure to add lots of bright colors and gradients to give that inviting feel for the characters in the space.
5. Interesting combination of a rhythm game and visual novel! What gave you the idea of that concept?
When we first started brainstorming the story to go with the vision of a snowy piano scene, we wanted music to be a core value of the game but not necessarily a requirement. All of us at Snowhaven are big fans of when games have an aspect that is unusual or branching out of its typical genre. We had the idea to have the player perform the tracks to try and put the player in the characters’ shoes and feel immersed in the story. Additionally, we wanted to make sure that while getting a perfect score on a song can surely impress one of the characters, it was not a requirement for the player.
6. What can yuri fans expect to find in your game?
Yuri fans can expect a wholesome romance between Valerie and Cadence. The story is kinetic, rewarding players who progress through the story with romantic CGs that capture the love between these two characters.
7. Thoughts on All Ages of Geek?
We are appreciative of All Ages of Geek for highlighting indie games and giving small creators the opportunity to reach a wider audience. We resonate closely with the anime culture/visual novel games as you have featured on your website, and we love that All Ages of Geek publishes stories about LGBTQ+ games, creating a space for people to feel included. You are awesome!
8. What has been the biggest success story as an indie game studio so far?
As the director of Snowhaven Studios, I feel successful when people play our games, especially Love’s Crescendo. I care about all our games, but Love’s Crescendo is very special to me personally.
9. Where can folks support your work?
You can support us by checking out our games. We have a few titles released as well as another one coming up called Drops of Death—we’d love for people to wishlist it!
This is our linktree that features our most recent games and the social media platforms we’re on: FOLLOW HERE
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