Subject: LOVE – Chaos, Charm, and a Witch with a Plan
What do you get when you mix a witch with no concept of love, six deeply chaotic bachelors, and a single dose of love potion? Subject: LOVE, the unexpectedly heartfelt and hilariously twisted visual novel from indie duo at Honeybunny Studio. We sat down with DemonBear, one half of the creative team behind the game, to talk about their amazing work.
Subject: LOVE Interview
DemonBear: “My journey as a dev has started around pandemics. It was a tough time for everyone, and me and Alex were having a hard time. So one day I just came up to her and said, what do you think about making Otome games? We had no experience with anything. I am otome gamer, but that’s all. So she was a little worried about it and didn’t consider doing it, but a few days later, we kept talking about it, kept thinking about it, and we decided to start it, so now we are here making games.”
DemonBear: “The story follows Rosalyn, young witch who is tired of waiting for love to happen in her life. So she decides that it’s time to brew a love potion and make it happen for sure. But she doesn’t want to test the potion on herself. Instead of that, she decided to find six boys that caught her attention to experiment on them. But the thing is, the potion can’t be shared by all of them because it’s just one dose. So she needs to make a little test to see which one of them will be the best to test on.
DemonBear: “When we were thinking about making Subject: LOVE, we weren’t thinking too deeply about the story or what message we wanted to deliver. It was supposed to be just a April Fools game, it was supposed to be just fun. But as we entered this specifics, we started to realize that there was something deeper that we could do.”
“And the funny thing about it is, Alex is ace. So she doesn’t understand some things about love and how people have relationships. So when we started work with Rosalyn, she started to see herself in her and we decided that we could do something a lot more important than we had planned at first.”
DemonBear: “She’s our little gremlin, we go around saying. People really adopted her like that. She’s completely out of her mind, and she does what she needs to do to get what she wants. Even if she has to commit a few crimes along the way. She has no regret. Yeah, just a few.”
DemonBear: “Of course! In Subject: LOVE, we have 6 love interests. So we start with Blatella. He’s a sharp-tongued, no-nonsense journalist. He likes things to be clear and very close to Earth. He really doesn’t care about love, and he doesn’t care how people see him. He’s just there for the truth.”
“We have Bogart. He’s a dancer and the most beautiful man in the little village, and he knows that, so if you like confident narcissistic guys who are there for drama? Bogart is really the right one.”
“We also have the sweet guys like Frank, he’s soft-hearted, always there to help everyone.”
“And we have Doug, who is quiet, but he’s also very sweet in his own way. Though he doesn’t show up too much, you know.”
“Buzz-Bee is an airhead and he’s always trying to bring cheerful things to the conversation, but somehow he’s hiding something behind it all.”
“And we have Julian, who is the favorite one, a ghost who can’t speak properly but he’s always around there following Rosalyn.”
DemonBear: “Our art style follows what the game wants to show, what the theme is. So with Subject: LOVE, the goal was to create something out of the box. We have a chaotic MC forcing people to fall in love with her, but the story is told in a comedy way, because we didn’t want people to feel like it was bad or uncomfortable. So with this comedy we had to be playful with the arts too, so people could have fun while playing it. But yeah, most of alex inspirations were some flash games from our times when we were kids, so it has a big influence.”
DemonBear: “It was hard. But you know, when you are working with comedy, usually people don’t expect us to bring anything serious. So it’s our secret weapon, you know, because you can place some serious questions, can place some unexpected endings, and that will get people’s attention.”
“So it’s a little easier to connect to the player when you do something like that and add more personality to the characters too, you know, because people start to grow attracted to them when they show so much that people can see themselves on the characters.”
DemonBear: “For this game, we’re going to bring the full story. We want to tell everything about Rosalyn, past and present, and make a future with this game. We’re going to go deep into the characters’ lore too, like the love interests have a lot to talk about, where they came from, and why they are there, and why Rosalyn chose them.”
“We are also going to bring some secrets that are around the village and how this also affects the characters’ story, because the side characters are very important to our story. We are going to go really deep with drama, comedy, angst, and hopefully we will bring more emotional damage.”
DemonBear: “I want to thank everyone for all the support, for being around here. Our players know how hard it is to make this sequel happen. Last year wasn’t easy, we had a lot of trouble with our files, but we are still here, we are trying, and we’ll do our best to make this game happen because everyone is here with us, and we’ll make it happen for you guys. Thank you so much for being with us.”
As a special treat, DemonBear shared an exclusive sketch from the upcoming sequel, giving us our first look at Rosalyn’s eccentric aunts. These two side characters promise to play a key role in the story ahead: one is the tall and mystical one, deeply tied to the arcane, while the other is a gentle, plant-loving “green witch” with a softer demeanor.
Subject: LOVE might have started as a silly little April Fools joke, but what it’s become is something genuinely special. DemonBear and Alex poured so much love and weirdness into this world, and it shows in every gremlin smile, ghostly stare, and oddly emotional basement moment. If you haven’t played it yet, go grab it here. It’s free, hilarious, and full of heart. And if you’ve already fallen in love with Rosalyn and her chaotic crew, consider supporting Honeybunny Studio on Ko-fi to help bring the sequel to life. They deserve all the love they’ve given us.
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