The Artist

About this game

Step into the shoes of a successful lawyer in ‘The Artist’, a gripping and dramatic visual novel that puts story and character above all.

Experience a mix of humour, romance, and drama as you navigate your relationship with Ava. With multiple possible endings depending on the choices you make, ‘The Artist’ takes you on an emotional and thrilling journey through the depths of love and trust.



After a run of bad luck on the dating scene, and having seemingly explored every avenue available to you, you unexpectedly meet a woman named Ava who captures your heart and attention.

You find yourself falling into a deepening relationship that is hard to get a grasp of. Ava is an utterly mysterious muse that brings curiosity and so many feelings out of you that make you second guess yourself endlessly. She is the kind of woman that will make you question everything you know about relationships.

Will you stay by Ava's side, even as the evidence against her mounts? Or will you cut ties and move on with your life?



The Artist is currently in Early Access, and the first act of the story is available to play for free. The current version features:

- Over 1,200 static renders

- Over 26,000 words of dialogue

- 12 Animated Scenes

- Jam-packed with Meaningful Interactions

- 10 Achievements to Unlock

- In-game Gallery



There are three major updates planned for The Artist, and these will be delivered in the form of 'Acts'.

- Act One is available for free to give you a chance to play the game, get a feel for the story and characters, and ultimately not waste your time and money.

- Act Two will continue where we left off, and will be around the same length as Act One

- Act Three will be the final release of The Artist, and will see the end of the story.

- We will be releasing bonus content in the form of DLC that go directly towards the production of The Artist and all future stories we choose to tell.

Latest news

• Patch Notes·13 Aug 2023Official

  Development Update

  Please Note: This development update is from 9th July 2023. All development logs are posted to Patreon backers first as well as on our Discord for owners of the DLC. Hey guys! To kick things off this week with our development update, I'm going to dive right in and say it's been another incredible and productive week. I've had some time off work, and I've used that time wisely... by working none-stop on The Artist We are now just a few poses shy from being halfway through! We would have been past halfway by now, but we have one early scene that is proving quite troublesome with being rendered by the batch renderer. There are over 200 images to render, and there's something in the scene that is kicking up a stink. So that's on my to-do list to go back and remove the pesky thing so I can batch render and forget about it. We have been approached by a translator, who has kindly offered to translate The Artist into Chinese. This was only a few days ago, and he is already working his way through Act One. We hope that this will make The Artist more accesible for more and more players across the world - an amazing feeling in itself! Whilst my PC has been rendering, I have been investigating different animation techniques. Originally, all the animation done in The Artist was done natively in DAZ. Now, if you've ever used DAZ to render, you'll know that it's a pain in the arse. I've landed on a piece of software that works with DAZ relatively easily, and with a few test scenes and getting the hang of the workspace, I am super happy with the results. I am able to animate A LOT of things in less than half the time it would have taken me in DAZ, and with much more realistic results, including an IK system that actually works! Our progress graph has now been updated to show the current stage. Totally forgot to update that last week so it's been out of date for longer than I realised! All is well now though :) That's all for this week. Looking to have another productive week in the...
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• Announcements·26 Jul 2023Official

  Join Grotslot's Team!

  Good Morning! (Or Afternoon) When we set out creating The Artist, I didn't have any interest in trying to do this alone to take more share of the revenue. You know as well as I that small teams take longer to update, and by taking so long to update, we lose the trust and support that you guys give to us. I could have written it myself, done all the art myself, and then figured out the coding side with the help of YouTube and other online resources, but stretching myself too thin would have shown in the final product. Instead, I recruited a team who specialise in each of these parts so I could focus on what I do best, and they could focus on what they do best. As we are making excellent progress with Act Two, the time has come for me to search for a second DAZ3D Artist. The second artist will join the team to assist with the posing only, as the rendering and post-work will be handled by myself. Job Description You will use the pre-created character assets and environments that I provide to pose characters inline with the dialogue script and stage direction. The software that would be used is DAZ3D, and it's important that you have some understand of how to use it. Once you have posed your way through the dialogue, the files are then sent to me to light, render, and post work. Easy! Payment At this time we are looking for a long term team member to join us on a 25-40% revenue share of all income obtained (minus any expenses) from The Artist and future income streams depending on experience. Commitment This isn't full time for us, and won't have to be for you either if you struggle for time. If you let us know what you can comfortably commit to each week, we can discuss this separately. It's important to me that this doesn't become a huge drain on your health. Still here? Great! If you're interested in joining our team, then please reach out to me on Discord with some examples of your DAZ3D work! Hope to hear from you soon and we look forward to welcoming you to the te...
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• Patch Notes·23 Jul 2023Official

  Development Update

  Please Note: This development update is from 9th July 2023. All development logs are posted to Patreon backers first as well as on our Discord for owners of the DLC. This week has been an amazing week for development. Following on from the completely written dialgue of Act Two, we are already a third of the way through posing and rendering the still images! We've had The Artist released on Steam for a week now. So far, the feedback has been great and the number of players has gone far beyond what we could have imagined! (#10 on 'New and Trending' for AVN's on Steam) To say we are really enjoying how well it's been received over there is an understatement :) It's still early in development, but we are remaining optimistic in how quickly the next update will arrive. We originally pencilled in 3 months from the release of Act One, to having a build ready for our Patreons to play first. As we are a third of the way through after only a few weeks, it wouldn't surprise me if we got things done ahead of time. Earlier on in development, we were discussing the possibility of having an OST for The Artist. It's something I've always wanted to do, and up until recently it seemed a little out of our scope. It was a chore to try and find someone whose style matched what I wanted, or even to get anyone to reply after the initial messages! HOWEVER! We may have found a composer/ musician who is prepared to create an entire OST for The Artist, and all other future stories released under Grotslot - For us, this is HUGE! We are still early in talks, but they are very keen, and so am I. We also released a 4K Wallpaper pack featuring Ava. You guys seemed to enjoy this, and the feedback has been great. I know that development of Act Two comes first, and it always will. But as in our last post I mentioned having an incredibly productive few days, taking time to work on other things is good for the mind and helps keep things fresh - is this something you want to see more of? That's all for ...
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• Patch Notes·16 Jul 2023Official

  Development Update

  Please Note: This development update is from 2nd July 2023. All development logs are posted to Patreon backers first as well as on our Discord for owners of the DLC. What a week it has been! I have updated the progress graph on the main Patreon page that gives you a more detailed look on how things are progressing for each stage. There are more elements to the development of course, but these are the basics that dictate 99% of the progress. As you will see from the graph, ACT TWO IS COMPLETELY WRITTEN! DONE. FINITE. I do want to give major credit to our writer here. His ability to knock out scenes like an afternoon wank have made the writing process so much easier. And let me tell you, when I first got my hands on the script, my heart was racing. Not totally down to excitement; mostly because what will be happening in this Act! I wish I could give you all the script to read now, or that there was a magic button I could press to get the next major update out to you all straight away! (There isn't, I've looked) I have finished setting up the master scenes now that I have the script, and the next job for me as the artist is to work my way through the dialogue. The first scene is completely done, and deals with where we left off with Act One. It has taken some time to get back into the swing of it. Especially with the various releases, bug fixes, marketing... everything. BUT, there's just one teeny update to come out to fix some typos and the last few crumbs of errors, and then I am 100% back in the thick of it. Once Xaos has given me the latest build for this bug fix, he will then be working on an official Android port for those that prefer to play on mobile! For future releases, it means you guys get to play on your android device without having to wait for a community port and then wait even longer for any other updates. Plus you get full support from the team if anything goes wrong! The Steam release went out this week, and we are absolutely LOVING the response. Sup...
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• Patch Notes·9 Jul 2023Official

  Development Update

  Please Note: This development update is from 26th June 2023. All development logs are posted to Patreon backers first as well as on our Discord for owners of the DLC. Happy Monday my dear Supporters!! I know I said I was going to do a dev log every Sunday, but the weather was so good yesterday that I took time away from my desk and spent it outside with the family - no regrets at all! As for updates, the major update we can give you is that the writing has been commissioned to the end of Act Two, and is already 50% of the way through! We imagine that the writing will be complete before the month is out! With the writing well under way, it allows me to create the stage for each scene. Now I have all the dialogue, and what characters will feature in each scene, I can set up a master file ready for me to get stuck in. This includes setting up the lights, dressing the characters, creating new scenes, and making sure everything translates over into Photoshop properly - It can be a long task, but makes the rest of the posing and rendering a breeze! We are working on another bug fix for Act One, that looks to address some minor niggles that people picked up the more they play. The Steam build has been approved and is good to go. There seems to be an issue with Steamworks that requires the store page to go through another review - not sure why this is but Steam are looking into it now. Once they have given the all clear, you can add it to your steam library! :) That's all for this week. I expect the next update will see us much further along, and I will implement the progress graph to give you an idea of where we are at with Act Two!
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