Sweet Leaves
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Android
The Sweet Leaves Visual Novel is a slice-of-life/fantasy/romance story told over four episodes presented in a unique storybook style. The main narrative follows California transplant Red Ellsworth as he takes a new job and moves across the country to a small town in northern Minnesota. There, he befriends the Graingers and their found family, who support him during the transition from his old life to a new one—though just as Red is beginning to adjust, he's introduced to a strange and remarkable being that changes his life forever.
Sweet Leaves uses a linear/kinetic visual novel format to deliver a tightly curated reading experience where every piece of artwork, video, dialogue, music, and sound effect are thoughtfully placed and timed. This gives us the ability to tell the story exactly as intended and without interruption—allowing you to fully immerse yourself in a rich atmosphere that lets you experience the novel as if it were a living book.
“Sweet Leaves” was created as an LGBTQIA, fantasy, slice-of-life webcomic back in 2018, following the story of the Grainger family—two gay fathers, their precocious son, and the found family members that stepped in to help raise the child after the untimely and tragic death of his mother.
Sweet Leaves stories acknowledge that painful events that occur in their lives, but how providing love, empathy, and physical and emotional support to loved ones can help them through those inescapable difficulties and trials of life we all face—even when some of those things just can’t be fixed. Humorous, happy, and light-hearted at times, and sad and bittersweet at others, Sweet Leaves aims to leave its readers with a lasting emotional impression, and to hopefully inspire others to commit their own acts of kindness and thoughtfulness for those they love, similar to how the Graingers and their extended family do so for one another.
Sweet Leaves includes features aiming to create an immersive and cinematic experience for the reader, such as:
- Unique storybook-style presentation
- All hand-drawn backgrounds with animations
- Animated sprites with over 100 unique expressions per character
- Pre-rendered, cinematic CG cutscenes
- Custom atmospheric sound effects
- Decorative custom UI
- All-original chillhop soundtrack featuring tracks by AJMW (from Chillhop Records and Lo-Fi girl)
Q: I’m new to the series. Do I need to have read the Sweet Leaves comics in order to understand the novel?
A: No! In fact, the narrative is written in such a way that assumes the reader is not familiar with the series or characters. If this is your first Sweet Leaves experience (welcome!), don’t worry, you won’t be lost.
Q: Is there a gallery that contains all the Sweet Leaves webcomics previously released if I’d like to read them before starting the novel, though?
A: Yes! We've made the comic collection available on this page in a .zip file separate from the game. You can download it for free.
Q: Do I play as a character? Are there any choices in this novel?
A: Sweet Leaves is a fully kinetic novel without a player character.
Q: Will there be any F/F romance/relationships in addition to M/M? How about M/F?
A: Yep! We've got all 3 in the narrative.
Q: Will there be explicit content in the novel?
A: While the main narrative is completely SFW, optional adult DLC containing explicit M/M and F/F romance scenes between couples in the story will occasionally be released for future episodes (note, there are no adult/explicit scenes in episode 1). All explicit content in future episodes will be skippable, and readers will not miss any plot points or experience holes in the narrative if they don’t view these scenes. In future episodes that contain explicit scenes, the game will warn the player and give the option to skip or watch the scene.
Q: What is your release schedule going to be for future episodes?
A: We estimate episodes releasing approximately every 9-12 months. Future episodes will be between 40,000 and 80,000 words.
Q: How can I support this project?
A: First of all, thank you for considering it, we can use every single penny we can get (this thing’s not cheap to produce)! You can leave a donation at our Ko-Fi page, name a price/donate on the itch.io download, or join our Patreon.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- June 2026 Dev Log16 days ago
- May 2026 Dev Update48 days ago
- April Progress Update (Episode 2)71 days ago
- Episode 1 Patch (1.1)Jan 22, 2026
- Soundtrack available for downloadDec 02, 2025
- Android Version Release!Nov 26, 2025
- Episode 1 Now Available!Nov 24, 2025
- Steam Deck SupportNov 24, 2025
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Since you have an Android port, would iOS be possible as well in the future?
Since the VN is SFW it could theoretically go on the App Store. But even if you don’t wanna go that route (which I totally understand), you could publish it to an AltStore repo, get it notarized for regions that allow third-party app stores and/or just build a plain .ipa for sideloading. The options are a lot more open now than just a few years ago.
Theoretically I love the idea - I can check with out developer to see what's involved. It really fully depends on budget and whether it's actually possible for us to do one.
Does Sweet Leaves contain anything image wise that's not safe for Twitch?
Everything is 100% Twitch-safe!
Awesome thanks for that.
It looks beautiful. I hope this vn wont break my heart.
Hey there i have never commented in itch.io before but after playing this vn i felt compelled to drop a review,i love the art of this vn and the character dynamics are just perfect i love the relationship beetween the graingers,this vn just deeply touches my soul and i love it,ill continue you to support you as of today,since i just discovered this vn today and i fell in love with it,i was also wondering wether you guys have a discord server or anything of the sort as i would love to join it and give support or ideas,i would also like to ask if you guys were looking for more people to help with this vn project? i know this question is a bit straightforward but i would love to help even for free.In the end i would just like to say thank you for making such an amazing masterpiece that kindly touched my heart and soul in an amazing level,thank you for creating this vn.
Thank you for the kind compliments! We don't have a Discord server because we simply don't have the time to maintain and administer one. We do have a telegram channel which has an attached discussion group, though there are only about 30 people in that. We also have a Patreon (which I can't link here due to itch preventing me from doing so, but the user name is just "sweetleaves") where a monthly update is posted.
We appreciate the offer for help, but as far as production itself goes, our team has that under control. Where we can always use more help (and it's very valuable) is word of mouth advertising. Let your friends know about the game! Increasing readership and awareness is critical to our success and an area we really need help in! Thanks so much for the interest!
可爱到爆的视觉小说😭😭😭
A super cute visual novel 😭
Great job to everyone involved!!
I remember this comic! I read a bunch of the early strips and then fell off before the time skip, so admittedly I got lost. I'm hoping to give this a try sometime soon!
Good news is that you can just drop right in on this one as if you'd never read the comics. Welcome back! <3
I've been reading the sweet leaves comics throughout the years before, so i'm excited to see more content of the graingers family! Cant wait for ep 2!
it’s really a beautiful vn from all aspects the visuals the dialog the writing everything i wish i had something to critique but there’s nothing :), it made me wish i was living with them in the same universe with that atmosphere, really thank you for this experience.
Don't think I'm trying to be mean but, the lead programmer "SrBilyon" looks like if Hardstop Lucas was a duck, and was ready to tell me how he's not playing these games... And I think that's going to motivate me to play this game so I'll come back to y'all when I finish...
My bf Kodi introduced me to this game and it was lovely. Very chill vibes overall. Its nice to have have a vn with a pair of gay dads as part of the main cast. It's not an aspect of the gay experience you see in furry media very often. All the art is excellent and the music really helps set the scene. Also I really love ferrets and resonate with anxiety/trauma so Red is like laser targeted at me lol. I'm quite intrigued for chapter 2
I know you're already working on a reverse feature, but I'd also recommend either more save slots or a scene select menu. (Apologies if you're already also working on these.)
Thanks for the kind words! More save slots are already on the way when we do our next patch. Scene select is definitely on the roadmap for the future, unsure of when that’ll be.
Wanted to update you - our latest patch has has both of these now!
Lovely VN, the amount of work that went into this is insane
Absolutely amazing strong start to a delightful VN. Such a breath of fresh air honestly. The visuals are top notch! Glad to support you guys. Can’t wait for more!
Only suggestion I have so far: it would be nice to add gamepad support at some point for those of us who like to play on the bigscreen. Renpy usually supports them out of the box, but since this is a custom engine it doesn’t (at least not for me).
Thanks so much!
I'll inquire with our programmer about the gamepad support. Is there a typical button configuration for Ren'py controls, or one that you prefer? Ideally we'd probably just copy whatever people are used to.
I think most folks are used to Ren’py scheme (and it works well) so that’s what I would copy/emulate if possible. Thanks for considering!
Jaw dropping visuals from the very start. And it does not let up. One lovable character after another, each delivering precisely tailored lines to craft the most heartwarming world possible. There's silliness, depth, kindness, all sorts of emotions. Like a good, good dream.
Crazy how this piece of art is available for us to read for free . . .
And now I've got to wait 5-6 months...🤧
We're doing our very best to make the wait worth it and are already hard at work on episode 2! :)
when i downloaded this, i was expecting smth smaller, not a banger hour long first installment with animations, music, one of the prettiest styles ive ever seen, and a unique engine
top 3 VNs ive ever read (i have done over 100 at this point
keep up the great work!
Thank you for the kind compliments, we're very honored to be in your top 3 after just one episode!
O my...GOSHH THE BEST VN I EVER HAD IDK HOW TO EXPLAIN IT.uhm sorry to excited hehe k so this vn is very recommended to play! From the artstyle is impressive cute and sweet all the character is WELLMADE DONE!! Especially Red i lov him so much! Sadly he has a traumatic event...(Spoiler a bit) Next from the story! It is still realease game sooo... not many the gave from the story but ITS okay! I like from the oriantation to the event very nice theme tooo .okay next is my favorite from https all!!! THE ANIMATON AND SOUNTRACK,the animation is very very cool! The movement is smooth and everything they did very welldonemade!AND THE SOUNDTRACK OH MY GOSHH I REALLY LIKE THE THEME OF THE SOUND ITS VERY CALMING AND BEAUTIFUL SWEET MY FAVORITE OART WHEN RED IS ON ANOTHER REALM IS REALLY NICE WHEN MELODY HUMMING HER NAM- wait melody is girl or boy nvm WHEN THE WITHE BEAR HUMMING THE NAME IS VERY CALMING ARGHHHHH.Yeah the the good review!but... I have bad review too about the ui on Android is kinda weird but i can telorance it,i know ITS early access on the android but the dev really cooking here GAVE A PLAUSE THE THE DEV 👏👏👏👏.TYSM for replying my other comment 😊.sooo that all this vn make my day 100 Times better! I have this vn 9,4/10 ! The highest rate i ever gave to a game!!!! Yeah that all byeee guys have a nice day!!!!!!lov Ya'll(sorry if my grammer really really bad still learning)
Glad you were able to get it working and that you enjoyed it so much! We appreciate the enthusiastic positive review. :)
Is the middle of the dream scene supposed to be the end of chatper one? The game stopped at black screen when the figure is revealing their name (android version).
That's not supposed to happen, no. My best guess is that you are hitting an out of memory error, as we preload assets at the beginning of a scene to ensure smooth/fast performance. There's a large number of assets used in the final scene which could theoretically lead to an OOM error, depending on how much RAM is on your device.
I haven't received any reports of the game breaking on this particular cutscene (and there have been many Android players), so for at the moment, it appears to be isolated to your device. I might suggest (if you weren't doing this already), reboot your device, then ensure no other programs are running in the background, in order to shore up available RAM.
Another thing you could try is making a save in the final scene, exit the program, then come back in and load that scene. No idea if that will make a difference at all but it's something to try.
Best of luck!
Hmm I think I've tried everything I can do to fix it, like reboot the device, clear memory, reload the scene, reinstall the game ect, so I guess my device is just incompatible for the game. And the assets of the restaurant scene except for sprites are not showed as well, but it didn't crashed or something so it didn't bother me much.
I alternatively use my laptop to finish the rest of the game though so it's alright. This game gives such a joyful experience, looking forward to the upcoming chapters!
I’m glad you weren’t cut off from being able to finish it. Thanks for the kind words and your patience with the Android build!
Of course! Sweet Leaves is definitely one of the best quality and iconic VNs that have been made. Keep it up. :)
This was such a lovely and emotional game! All of the characters are so sensitively portrayed; each one just leaps off the screen. I'm invested now, and I can't wait for episodes 2 though 5.
I had a question not about the game: How read comic (; _ ;) I downloaded the zip, but there's a bunch of unnumbered episodes in there, and I'm not sure what order they're meant to go in.
Lei Day should be read first; after that you can go in any order you like!
I lost for word. I was wandering on itchio looking for new furry game. I was hype once I found this page a few day before it's release. I spend my whole saturday to appreciate the whole story, background and art/animation. I am also a slow reader because English is not my bettest skill (🇫🇷).
The first chapter is a master piece. I am super duper hype to see the next ones 😁. You made such a good job. Your game worth much more than some of my 10$ steam vn.
Also I got curious about something: Did Emma will have her own scenary about her life or she will be only a side character to the other one ?
Merci beaucoup! We appreciate the kind words.
All of the main cast (which includes Emma) will have a shorter narrative side arc that takes place over 2 episodes. Episode 1-2 is Sebastien's arc (which Emma is a big part of); future episodes will always introduce a new side arc for a different character, and complete one that was already ongoing. (This is our typical formula but there may be slight variations here and there on timing depending on various factors.)
Oh my god, this is truly a fucking masterpiece (Even if it costs me $4, I still have to say that F-word.). Every single picture, every detail, every change in expression - I simply can't imagine how much effort you put into the art of this work. I really love the plot and the character development. Every character is very vivid, with distinct personalities, and I like all of them. I don't know much about music, but I can say that I think the soundtracks are all very suitable. 9.9/10.
Oh, by the way, I kind of hope to add a gallery function, or have more save slots and be able to save more precisely. There are many scenarios where I would like to be able to revisit them more conveniently from time to time.
Hi there! Thanks for the kind words on your review. More precise saving and a gallery are on our list of enhancements we're going to make either as a patch for episode 1, or introduce in episode 2.
What a lovely story and experience! Can't wait to see more episodes release and looking forward to supporting and following this project. You have something really amazing here and folks should be recommending this to their loved ones and friends.
甜言叶语 第1章 粉丝向汉化补丁，由DDB制作
Sweet Leaves Episode 1 Fan Chinese Localization Patch, Made by DDB
Sweet Leaves Episode 1 粉丝向汉化
注意：这是粉丝向汉化作品，不是官方版本！没有得到官方授权。文本是基于AI的机械翻译，经过了少量人工修正，但仍无法保证翻译的准确性。
Notice: This is a fan-made translation, not an official one! It hasn't been authorized by the official. It is an AI-based machine translation that has undergone minor manual revisions, but the accuracy of the translation still cannot be guaranteed.
Please note, this is not an officially sanctioned translation. We did not authorize its creation, but we aren’t requesting this to be taken down, either - just take with a grain of salt that this is machine translated, and we can’t vouch for the accuracy of the translation.
I apologize for any confusion. I did label it as a fan translation, but I didn't realize that wasn't clear enough. I've now added more detailed text to clarify that this is not the official version.
I cant open the file on Android. but ITS okay i really apriciate the dev i know is not easy development a game but at least you guys try thank you for trying😁. Btw Tysm for response my comment,i Will wait the development on the game!!! I luv you guy!!!(Bad at English)
If you tried to unzip the file in your browser, that wont work; you'll ned to unzip it in the files explorer/files app. You can also connect to a PC to unzip the file and put the apk file somewhere you can access on the device.
TYYYSMM for the explanation!
It won't let me play it on android it says can't open file which i have android though. 🤔
If you tried to unzip the file in your browser, that wont work; you'll ned to unzip it in the files explorer/files app. You can also connect to a PC to unzip the file and put the apk file somewhere you can access on the device.
Ok thanks for the heads up <3
So far the story is great, im very curious to what's coming next
While I am very much enjoying what I'm reading so far, I do have a sizeable gripe with something outside of the text. Certain sounds are not tied to any of the volume sliders. So they always play at max volume. Even Master Volume at 0 plays them at full.
Hm, that sounds like a bug. You said certain sounds - can you give us a few examples of ones that had the issue? That can help us investigate.
Minor spoils for anyone still reading.
Red's gasping and heavy breathing when he woke up from a nightmare in the guest house and Melody telling Red their simplified name are the two I've gotten to so far.
Ah, okay - that’s because those are pre-rendered videos. I’ll log a feature request for an additional volume slider just for movie files.
Hello, we are a Chinese localization group, and we would like to translate your work into Chinese so that more Chinese readers can enjoy it. May we have your permission to do so? However, due to our technical limitations, we may need you to provide the corresponding game text files and UI . We promise that we will not use your work for profit, nor will we remove important information such as the link to your itch.io page from the game. You can view the Chinese translations we have already obtained authorization for at the following link: https://yuanxing-federation-clt.itch.io/
If you would like, you can contact us via email at：yuanxinglianbang@foxmail.com
Best regards — 元星联邦
I haven't finished it yet, but I can already tell it's such a wonderful labor of love, I was not familiar with the sweet leaves comics [a friend recommended to me to keep an eye out for the vn] so the inclusion of the comics in zip files is very appreciated. So far I've been loving the writing and characters, the style of the UI looks very cozy, not to mention the artstyle!! It's very very pretty [including the backgrounds, they looks amazing!]. I can already tell from what I've seen so far I'm going to cry and honestly can't wait
My thoughts are a little all over the place, but congratulations to the team, it's a wonderful wonderful game and I can't wait to experience more of it! :]
We'd love to hear what you think after you've finished (and if you did indeed cry!), but thank you for the kind words already. :)
whyyyyyy Pls make it android this game looks gourges 😭😭😭i feel so sadddd :'ccccc.I wait this game until the realease but ITS not available on Android very disappointed :( plsss make it available on Android divice thx :'c
There's one available now!
OMG YOUR THE BESTTTT TYSMMMM :DDD
It's incredible to appreciate how every detail of this VN was planned. I'm someone who pays much more attention to those details that nobody else notices. Each setting, the background art, is incredibly detailed, the scene transitions are divine, and the soundtrack perfectly matches each setting. Even the menu is customized with fluid character animation in the text boxes. The VN gives you that feeling that the team responsible wants that immersion between the reader and the character in the story. I haven't even read the comic beforehand, and honestly, I won't. I want to follow the story without spoilers.
For those who are going to read the story, I recommend reading it calmly and appreciating the settings because it's worth it. It's better to take a relaxed day to read and appreciate it than to read it all at once quickly and regret not appreciating and reflecting on the scenes.
Thanks so much for this comment (you made our background artist, Reo, quite happy with this). Reo really took it upon himself to try and incorporate elements previously illustrated in the web comics directly into all the backgrounds. I'm glad the extra effort he put forth shows. I'm extremely fortunate to work with such a talented (and nice) individual.
- TanukiDad
HELL FRICKIN YEAHHHH!!
obligatory are there any plans for a future android build?
Yes! We unexpectedly now have one. It's live on the page!
Aww :'(
Hi! I wanted to let you know that our programmer was able to pull together an Android build. See here for info: https://sweetleaves.itch.io/sweet-leaves/devlog/1124907/android-version-release
Super hyped up for novel, I always love sweet leaves so much can't wait to play this once it comes out.
super excited for this!!
Yay
Art looks AMAZING, can't wait to play this
Can't wait to try your Visual novel content, as I am a friendly fan of your comics and if the writing and story telling of your world of story content<3<3<3