Ren'Py / VN

The Shadow Over Willowtown [Ep.1 v1.15 Special Edition] [VNCraft]

March 1, 2025F95

Our game is inspired by the works of E. A. Poe, H. P. Lovecraft (duh!) and the cult classic adult horror visual novel Divi Dead.
Our story starts in 1985 (Doc!). The main protagonist is a young man that starting his life as a student along with his two best friends, at the prestigious Willowtown University situated on the island.
It’s also a sort of homecoming for our hero, who left the island as a child with his mother, but doesn’t really remember anything from that part of his younger life.
Troubled with his nightmares and finding himself surrounded by sinister forces, what will happen to him and his friends all depends on your choices.

Thread Updated: 2025-03-01

Release Date: 2025-02-25

Developer: VNCraft Itch.io – Boosty – Patreon – Twitter – Subscribestar

Censored: No

Version: Episode 1 – v1.15 Special Edition

OS: Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Language: English

Genre:

3DCG, Animated, Horror, Male domination, Male protagonist, Monster, Mobile game, Multiple endings, Oral sex,

Future tags: Anal, Creampie, Footjob (optional), Harem (sort of), Incest, Masturbation, Stripping, Titfuck, Vaginal sex, Dating sim, Graphic violence, Humour,

Installation:

1. Extract and run.

Changelog:

Episode 1 – v1.15 Special Edition

Episode 1, Chapter 2 is here!

This update concludes the events of the first day, evening and night and ends in the morning of the 2nd day at Willowtown University.

We also introduced all of the main female characters – but there are still many side ones. The male characters… Well, nobody really cares about those, right? “i just read that while mixing our logs and even i’m laughing –Dev”

After this, we have one, last chapter that will conclude Episode 1 and our cycle of free releases per chapter. Starting with Episode 2, chapter releases will only be available to subsribers in those Tiers that have access to them.

That said, the game will be free for all, but retroactively: after we finish Episode 3, Episode 2 will be free and can be found on any of our sites including itch.io.

We hope you like the game so far. Until the next time, we wish you good fun and good health!

All subscriptions are 50% off on any of our sites.

SUBSCRIBESTAR

Boosty

Patreon – Promo Code: 46751

Devlog from ‘The Dev’ (updated)

• Intro skip

The intro can now be clicked through entirely, may take a couple clicks (or taps on mobile) due to the transitions, but it works…on PC you can also use any mouse button or hit Enter, Escape, etc. to avoid that issue.

• Interface font

Added a font choice for the entire UI in all versions, now selectable in the preferences/options menu.

All original fonts except Courier New and Comic Sans MS have been included. Those made keeping the interface lined up nearly impossible.

Made the menu buttons text instead of images that nowbchanges with the new interface fonts for translation purposes.
• Improved Outline selection

You can now choose the direction of outlines as well as the thickness to help make the font/color choices more customizable and easier to see.

• Panic Button

Added a Panic Button accessible by pressing ‘p’ or ‘P’ (to avoid accidental caps lock when tab skipping) and returns to the game using the same button.

Updated and mapped to the Guide / Steam / PS button as well since the original update.

The Panic Button brings up a clone of the main menu without any extras that might hint at adult content (I.E the Gallery button)

From the ‘panic menu’, you can Start a new game in ‘Replay’ mode which will not lose your current progress (for those extremely nosy people), as well as click ‘Help’ to abort the game immediately or click ‘Quit’ to end the game with confirmation, either will save your progress in the first quick slot so you can get back to the game after the moment of panic.

• Gallery Update

Added a third button to the gallery type selection at the bottom to prevent the buttons from switching in different sections and confusing people.

• Continue Button
Added a ‘Continue’ button to the load game menu screen for quick access to your last save (does not use autosaves by design)
• Preference Reset

Added a ‘Reset’ button under the Performance tab in the preferences screen to reset all options to default, the only other method would be to delete persistent data…and we don’t want that. – may be required ONCE on mobile to set the UI size properly.

• Updated About Section

Updated the credits in the about section, including an entirely new thanks section to users who helped us and beta tested for us.

Updated again since the code update to include more people, which include the people who funded any of our sites so early in our project. We apppreciate the show of support!
• Manual Save

At the end of each version, skipping is halted and you are prompted with the option to save manually (or quit the game) before the credits, the autosave was left intact regardless and saves in the first empty save slot PAGE starting with page 10.

• Keymap / Controller binding change
Added experimental controls to switch tabs in the Preference, About, and Help screens using the A and D keys, or the Left and Right Trigger if your using a gamepad. If the remap isn’t desired it will be removed.
• Translation Prep
Designed the game for ease of translation after a few offers from users to do them (next update may include spanish), this is behind the scenes…but it involved me gutting text from the entire UI to other files, it was likely the most work in the entire update.
Translators now have 2 base files of just strings that should never change, and only a few others that couldn’t be removed, aside from story obviously.

• Warning and intro are shorter in general.
• End credits faster.
• Removed the Tier joke in the credits
• Added more insults during credits.
• Laughed…hard. (It’s all in good fun)

Known Issues
• Androiid saves before 1.04 broken.

Unfortunately my SSD crashed and I was forced to make a new Android key file, so users who played the mobile version before version 1.04 will need to restart once. (it won’t happen twice–the new key is on multiple external media including DVD)

• Tab switching keys stop working.

This is likely due to previous mappings or multiple screens visible at once, i’m working out the bugs.

• Language glitch

Due to the language additions coming, users may need to click on English once in preferences to make the Ancient Medium font show up in the list again due to a new persistent variable and language autodetect.

Episode 1 – v1.01

Got a lot of backlash over the intro, you can now skip through it–as much as I could possibly make it without redoing it entirely.

Episode 1 – v1.00

Initial Release

Developer Notes:

We’re a game-developing team of two, DeVNCraft (programmer) and LoVNCraft (story and visuals) with no prior experience in creating visual novels, but with love and passion for gaming all our lives. as well as other experience in our particular area’s of this project for almost as long.

Our games will be story-rich adult games with horror, mystery, thriller and SF elements, and of course the reason you’re all on this page, adult content as well.

The story will take precedence, but we promise plenty of content to those of you that are here for it, the plan is just to find the right balance at the right time so it’s not purely a long adult video…the internet has plenty of that already, and either of us will be more than happy to point you in the direction of some good ones–if only to get you degenerates off of our page (I’m kidding, I’m kidding…or am I?)

Ahem, with that aside…welcome to the twisted realm of VNCraft, we do hope you’ll stick around and enjoy the tales we would like to share with you…