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Sudden suicides occurring every six years.
Mysterious figures seen in the woods.
Ancient catacombs hidden beneath the school.
Just what is the Academy hiding?

Only you can find the truth.

Alice Black is a multi-route visual novel, first envisioned by me three years ago as an RPGMaker story. Now it's evolved into a full-fledged Horror-Mystery Visual Novel for the Ren'py engine! Note: This is NOT a romance visual novel. The focus of this visual novel is the mysteries surrounding the Academy. Romance endings may be available, but they will not further the story and will not unlock the True Ending.

Characters
Name: Katherine
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Likes: Mystery Novels, Books
Dislikes: Sports, Running
Clothing: The School's uniform with the official, emblem-adorned vest.
Appearance: Katherine has strawberry blonde, similar to the hairstyle of the Kyoukai no Kanata female protagonist.

Name: Michelle
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Likes: Music, Guitars, Sports
Dislikes: Teachers, Parents
Clothing: The school's uniform, but instead of the vest she wears an unzipped, gray hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows.
Appearance: Her hair is black and done up in twintails. Always seen wearing a bandage on her cheek.

Name: Erica
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Likes: Writing, Journalism
Dislikes: Loud Music, Criminals
Clothing: A pant-suit version of the school's uniform and a dress-suit jacket emblazoned with the school's official emblem.
Appearance: Her brown hair is long and straight, accented with a pink hairband. She wears glasses.

Routes
There are four different routes.
1. The Michelle Route.
Become best friends with Michelle while exploring the mysteries of the school!
Has a bigger focus on fantasy-horror and psychological elements.

2. The Erica Route.
Become best friends with Erica while exploring the mysterious, cyclical suicides!
Has a bigger focus on typical mystery elements.

3. The Truth Route.
You've gone beyond fantasy and mystery.
What awaits you when you find the truth?

4. The Alone Route.
What awaits you beyond the veil?
Ignore the truth and seek mysteries untold.

Gameplay Features
1. A plethora of choices that lead to different routes. All of your choices matter.
2. Many bad ends, many exclusive to exploration sequences.
3. Old-school, text-based adventure style exploration sequences!
4. The option to skip exploration sequences and continue with the story.

Things I'm currently doing
1. Writing the opening scenes
2. Planning the UI
3. Planning the routes

Things I can't do well and may need help on
1. Programming in Ren'py (still learning)
2. Art (Sprites, Backgrounds, CGs, etc)
3. My writing can be rather repetitive (probably need proofreaders/editors to help me.)
4. Assets (Music, Sound Effects, etc)

Mockups
GUI Mockup (Proof of Concept. It is not going to be an MSPaint Abomination in the actual game)

Exploration Mode Navigator Mockup
During the course of the game, there will be exploration segments. When the player is exploring, a cellphone image with the screen like this will appear. It will either take the place of the player character's sprite on the bottom left corner of the screen, be in the center of the screen, or show up on the left side of the screen in some form.


Flowchart Previews (Pixelated Screencap so No Spoilers here)
Chapter1 and the first Exploration Event:

I very much enjoy psychological horror. The tension. Uncertainty. To feel comfort, less.
I'm definitely looking forward to this!

Can you elaborate more on the concept: "all of the choices matter" ? Does this mean that the choices the reader makes effect the story as a whole or only effect the ending you will get? I'm also interested in reading what your opinion of a "choice that does not matter" is.

I elaborated on this slightly with the "Routes" section of the first post. Your choices determine which genre of mystery the story plays out in.

In the first chapter there are two alternate endings depending upon your choices. Each chapter will have multiple alternate endings that lead into the different branching storylines based on your choices. The first chapter is the earliest branch off that leads into an entirely different storyline than that of the other chapters, while later chapters will branch off into closer intertwining stories that spell out a piece of the mystery in a different genre.

Michelle's route will focus more on fantastical horror and evil creatures. Erica's route will focus more on pure mystery. The True route will tell the full story behind the mysteries of the Michelle and Erica route in its own way, while the Alone route branches off into the separate storyline I mentioned above.

In my opinion, a choice that does not matter would be choices solely created to add a differentiation in dialogue or scene instead of furthering the story in a specific direction. Many visual novels have cosmetic choices that have no bearing on the plot and sometimes go alongside choices that don't seem to change anything but impact the story hours later. My project will not contain any alternate scenes based on choice that do not affect later events.