It's in the early writing stages right now, but I'd like to get some general feedback on certain things. =w=
--- Premise ---
The Flower and Bone Movement's plot starts out as a pretty standard RPG plot. Demons are destroying the world and the oracle, Teselle, does a psychic search for the divine hero of legend who will save their world. Turns out it's Celo, who lives in a peaceful village nearby. He's learning magic based on music since he was little and was even asked to become the apprentice to a prestigious musician! Unfortunately, Celo is a hermit. He's very anxious and can barely bring himself to say two words to another person, let alone make decisions that are going to affect the fate of the world. But Teselle has a solution! She summons an entity from another world to watch over Celo and give him advice. And this entity... is you! All the choices in the game are advice you give Celo, and there are also points where you have regular conversations with him which can make him like you more. Little does Teselle know, there might be another problem sending Celo on this quest. Roughly a year ago, Celo was approached to become a musician's apprentice. Even though Celo was more talented, he said that his brother Lancelot should go instead. Celo was born as Kadia, Lancelot's sister, and here he saw an opportunity to switch places with Lance and live as a man. So Celo has to go find the real divine hero before anyone or anything realizes that he's not the invincible legend everyone's been hearing about.
There are three endings and five major characters (who aren't you or Celo).
Celo becoming friends with you and the other five characters affects which ending you get.
There's one character whose friendship subplot is actually a romance subplot. (BxB)
--- Characters ---
(writing good character bios without huge spoilers is hard, huh...)
Celo: Human, sound kinesis. Lives peacefully in Maron village, making deliveries around town for various businesses. A little spacey and pretty naive. Learns songs and composes his own music in his spare time. Likes classical music and lemon tea. (Also,i n case you missed it in the premise, he is transgender.)
Teselle: Human(?), ??? kinesis. Lives in Charcru city at the temple. It's hard to tell if she works for the sages or if she's their slave. Has unusual powers. She's friendly and kind, and doesn't act as mysterious as she could. Knows a little about the human world.
Sevill: Human, sight kinesis. Belongs to a long line of merchants. Loud and (dare I say) obnoxious. Would love to be rich and famous. Has an interest in travel and can draw a pretty good map of the world from memory. Skill with both swords and kinesis is mediocre, but at least she has some!
Lancelot: Human, sound kinesis. Kind of a bro. Still calls Celo 'Kadia'. He has a good heart, though. Kind, but he gets jealous of Celo easily and has a big competitive streak. Makes friends quickly by annoying people into acceptance.
Vesica: Demon, all kinesis. A nice, sweet person... Maybe less so when she's cheerfully suggesting everyone make a blood pact because she's apparently always wanted to make one.
Morian: Human, no kinesis. A mercenary working for Mercury. Quiet, reserved, enjoys a good book. Very good at killing people.
Enso: Demon, all kinesis. The first true boss! Does not like humans, but does like playing cruel tricks on them.
Mercury: Human, no kinesis. The second boss! A prince who uses his body guard unit to help with his two passions, killing people and torturing people. Really just a great guy.
Crosida: Human, no kinesis. Final boss. Once, she advocated for peace between the underworld and overworld. Legend has it that when her husband was killed by humans she decided to take a more genocide-y approach.
--- Other ---
The magic in this world is referred to as "psychokinesis". Specialties are sight, sound, touch and flavour. Celo would describe using kinesis as seeing all the threads connecting everything in the world together, like a huge tangled ball of yarn. You need to find one particular thread and manipulate it without losing track of it or disturbing any others. For a sound kinesist like Celo, he uses music to locate and move that thread. A sight kinesist would use something visual, like a symbol or a gesture.
edit: Working title attempt two is The Flower and Bone Movement. "Movement" as in part of a longer piece of music, or a journey, or the definition of the word 'kinesis'. Aren't I clever~ orz Flower and Bone is the name of a poem (in the story) which is relevant to the plot for a few reasons. The more thematic one being that it's about martyrdom.
Question Time!
(General)
1. Does the premise sound interesting? Anything in particular you'd like to see?
2. Are any of the characters of particular interest to you? What do you like about them?
3. You definitely want Celo to end up with the guy who kills people for a living, right? Right???
3.5 (Speaking of which, should I mention that the game is BxB? Morian is the only male main character who isn't related to Celo, so even just saying that much makes it obvious who the love interest is. Would knowing that already make you less interested in the game?)
4. My current (nitpick-y) title concern is, do you read it as "the flower" and "bone movement" (wrong) or the "flower and bone" movement (right)?
5. Anything that would be a deal-breaker? Like, "I'd never play something with ___ in it!"
(RPG)
1. Is there anything you'd expect or want to see in a visual novel inspired by eastern RPG type games?
(Meta)
1. How many options would you expect for each choice you make, considering you'd be playing this game as yourself?
2. What would you want those options to be? Just story-related? Some inane ones? Would you prefer to enter your own responses and have the game use a text parser?
