Lemma Soft Forums

Presenting a new visual novel from the writer of In This Dream of Ours...



Skylines is a character-driven story set in Lincoln-Fair Academy, a private American high school. The story is played from the perspective of Chris Lauria, a recent dumpee who's become jaded after losing all his "friends" after his ex broke up with him. Well, almost all of them. He's still got that semi-weird Thom kid with him. Victory? Then, there's also that transfer student, Izzie, who Thom roped into hanging out with them at lunch. Together, they decide that it's up to them to save the universe rescue Chris from his slump, even though he'd much rather write in his notebook by himself.

Ugh... Junior year's a hard enough year as it is, even without friends on stupid "cheer-up" missions. How can the year get any worse?

Famous last words.

Characters:

Note - they're sketches. These aren't the final drafts. Come to think of it, that logo up there isn't final, either.



The visual novel is seen through Christopher “Chris” Lauria’s eyes. He starts the visual novel with a reserved personality that changes dependent on your choices. The personality that you craft for him will color his choice options as the story goes on. For example, acting passive for a long enough time will make “tough guy” options harder to pull off. Likewise, creating an aggressive personality will make it harder for gentler options to come off as kind. It all depends on the way that you steer him and the situations that you get him into.



Thomas “Thom” Hatch is Chris’ best and, at the time of the visual novel’s opening, only friend. The two of them go way back. Called Thom instead of Tom for the sake of being unique, Thom’s the jokester in the group. Although he’s hard to take seriously, he’s a lot more grounded in reality than he lets on. He’s the BxB option, but since this VN’s more about the story than the pursuit-of-romance, don’t expect it to be an easy path to take.



Isabelle “Izzie” Westfield is Lincoln-Fair Academy’s newest student. She becomes the glue that holds Chris and Thom’s slowly distancing friendship together at the beginning of the visual novel. She’s all smiles, but how much of her happiness is truly genuine? Why transfer to Lincoln-Fair of all schools? Teaming up with Thom, she vows to turn Chris’ frown upside down after learning about his post break-up depression.



Rosalia “Lia” Ramirez is Chris’ ex-girlfriend and the one that’s dumped him a little while before the visual novel starts. Normally confident, she has difficulty when it comes to matters of the heart. In response to that sentence, she asks, "hey, doesn't everyone? It's called being human."

Features:

A story of trust, identity searching, cultural issues, uncertainty, and the messiness of Junior year in an American high school
Writing by kaleidofish of ouroboros[connect]
Sprite art by the forever-amazing Deji
Custom music
2 BxG romances, 1 BxB romance, a whole lot of writing
Choices that really do lead to multiple endings (hey, if you played my other games, you know this is a step-up)

Bonus Art:


Drawn by untramen. Find a bigger version on the official ouroboros[connect] website!

Let Me Know:

Any thoughts? Questions for me or the characters?
Words of encouragement?
Suggestions? There won't be any screenshots for a while because I'm in writing-mode, but I would love some suggestions on GUI design!

Thanks for the support!

_________________
Main Website * Tumblr
Play: In This Dream of Ours (5/7/2012)
Working on: Skylines, Dream's Dénouement, The Girl in Red
ouroborosconnect.com

_________________
blog | deviantart
Working on Charmed, an otome based on Particle Physics.
Aubade, where Egressus works on vns WITH SCIENCE.

The combination of Kaleidofish's writing and Deji's art promises to make this fabulous. Not even kidding!

Any ETA on this?

_________________

Since everyone has school uniforms, can I assume that Lincoln-Fair Academy is a private or alternative school? I know that some schools have mandatory uniforms. Though the private high school that I attended in the Chicago area (about fifteen years ago...) had a dress code but no uniforms.

R.I.P. k-fish's wallet.

But it's gonna be worth it ;-; I hope that the romance won't be exaggerated too much so as to not bury the real intent of the game, but who would not marry Thom and I have great expectations for you :3 How goes the script?

Question answered.

_________________


Visit the OELVN wiki at the top of the forum! We have free assets, programs, tutorials, tips and more over there. I'm the administrator, PM me if you want to help organize the place. I could use a hand.

Oh wow, we can pursue both male and female? That's a major plus. I played some of your other KN and I really like your writing, so I'm sure this will be a great game. And I can't NOT play something with Deji art in it.
Isabelle is so adorable <3 I'm really looking forward to this.

_________________
Complete: (P)lanets - The Life of Normalcy has Ended!
My blogs were hacked. I'm currently trying to get them restored. Don't worry, I'm still alive -barely-

Thanks for the support, everyone!

@ Egressus:
That's okay. Hopefully I'll figure it out by the time I show off screenshots. I was a little worried the premise was too plain to be attention-grabbing. Thanks!

@ Obscura:

Thank you. LWR once wrote something similar to "art gets people through the door, but it's the writing that makes them stay." For that reason, I think her art and my writing will be a great match. I feel super lucky to have hired her for this. As for an ETA, I'm hoping to get the bulk of the writing done by the end of the summer. I'm not sure when the art (including the GUI and CG art), music, and heavier duty coding will be finished. Let's just say...definitely 2013.

@ gekiganwing:

Yep, Moya's quote says it all. It's a private school. There will be a post on my website explaining the school (and possibly the town, too) in four days. Thanks for giving me the good idea on what to write about on my site next.

@ Moya:

Thank you! Yeah...that wallet. It's because of that wallet that I have to create a $10-15 donation version which will contain special extra content for the people who donate. I'm focusing on writing the main story paths, so I don't want to think too much about the commercial edition at the moment.

The romances will be realistic. The script is going well so far. I had to restart because the original version was intended to be smaller in scope. It didn't even have Thom as an option. I'll use pieces of the old script, but it won't work as-is for pacing reasons. I've nearly finished the outlines for this new one, so yay.

@ teacup:

Thanks for the compliment! After seeing the sketches, I was like, "why not make Thom possible, too?" And yeah, I think Izzie's adorable, too. Deji made them all look better than I could ever imagine.

_________________
Main Website * Tumblr
Play: In This Dream of Ours (5/7/2012)
Working on: Skylines, Dream's Dénouement, The Girl in Red
ouroborosconnect.com

_________________
blog | deviantart
Working on Charmed, an otome based on Particle Physics.
Aubade, where Egressus works on vns WITH SCIENCE.

In case anyone was wondering about Lincoln-Fair Academy, I put a post up on my site explaining their school. It also contains a few things about how the characters fit (or don't fit) into the setting.

Thanks, Egressus! The challenge with a plot line like this is that it's so normal, almost restrictively so. But, I like that about it too, because "what's normal, anyway?" Turns out it's a lot less restricting than I thought...there's plenty of room to write things that haven't been touched on in other high school visual novels. It's been a lot of fun writing for them so far, so I'm hoping people will have just as much fun reading it when it's released.

_________________
Main Website * Tumblr
Play: In This Dream of Ours (5/7/2012)
Working on: Skylines, Dream's Dénouement, The Girl in Red
ouroborosconnect.com