Alec Holowka, a member of the development team that created the indie hit Night in the Woods, has died. His sister, game designer Eileen Holowka, shared the news on Twitter this Saturday. "Alec Holowka, my brother and best friend, passed away this morning," she wrote.

Alec Holowka's death follows accusations of severe emotional and sexual abuse made by game designer Zoë Quinn. After Quinn made their allegations public, a number of other developers came forward to corroborate Quinn's story and add their own, some publicly, others in private to Holowka's Night in the Woods collaborators Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry, who subsequently announced they were cutting ties with him. Benson wrote in a Kickstarter update (via Reddit) that "this is more complex than any one person's accusation" and "enough of the allegations are extremely plausible and just about all of it we've corroborated with other sources." Holowka had created the soundtrack and done the coding for Night in the Woods.

Eileen Holowka wrote that Alec had spent his life battling mood and personality disorders, and had been an abuse victim himself. She said that she believes survivors' stories of abuse, and that she wasn't "willing to pretend" that her brother hadn't been responsible for causing harm.