Lemma Soft Forums

Overwritten (working title)

Summary:

• For your best friend's 20th birthday, you give him an action RPG about a bounty hunter who looks just like your best friend. After a night of watching him play you begin to have dreams about the game. All seems well until your best friend tells you that his game is acting up; when he loads the game it's never in the place he last saved, as if his saves are being overwritten. Eventually, you realize that your dreams and your best friend's game problems are related: each night where your dream ends is where his game starts up whenever he loads it. But upon this discovery, you find something else out: as time goes on, you spend more time asleep in the game world.
  
  It becomes a race against time to find out why you're slowly being sucked into the game world and to find out how to stop it.

Main Characters:

• ○ Ariana Layton (first name changable): The player character. Your average 20 year old college student. In the game world, Demetri attempts to catch her, believing that she is a woman named Runa, however Ariana convinces him that he has the wrong person. Ariana is honest and energetic, but can be stubborn at times.
  
  ♥ Derek Kanner: Ariana's best friend since middle school. Because their last names were close together in the alphabet, Ariana and Derek were often seated next to each other and eventually became friends. When the two graduated high school, Derek decided to go to a college far away, but transferred back to the college in his hometown after a year.
  
  ♥ Will Masterson: Derek's roommate who works at the game store where Ariana purchased the game (in fact, he sold it to her!). Will is a computer science whiz so when he finds out about Ariana's problem, he takes it upon himself to see if there's any answers in the game's programming feeling responsible since he sold Ariana the game. Will is cheerful and friendly, and always willing to lend an ear.
  
  ♥ Demetri: The protagonist of the game that Ariana's being sucked into. Demetri is a bounty hunter who's known to do any job if the compensation is good enough. He's the first character that Ariana meets in game, telling her that she's been tasked to catch her and bring her to his current employer. Upon realizing that Ariana isn't the one he's after, he decides to help her plight. While he's serious on the job, he's known to be a flirt while not actively working.
  
  ♥ Allan: Demetri's official current employer. Allan is the crown prince of Cathalis, a country inside the game. Although he's the one official employing Demetri's services, it's really his father, the kind of Cathalis who is footing the bill. He is after Runa on his father's orders for the two to be married, though Allan himself seems to be indifferent on the matter. Allan is particularly handsome and smart, but he's rumored to be lazy and not worth of the crown.

Minor Characters:

• ○ Caity Kanner: Derek's older sister. Caity wished that she'd had a little sister instead of a little brother and often treats Ariana like her own family. She works at the coffee shop that Ariana often visits while studying for school and often gives her, and any others who want it, advice.
  
  ○ Sidney: Demetri's assistant. Sidney often does any extra work that Demetri needs done, which ranges from reconnaissance to buying dinner. Sidney would likely argue that they're more like a slave than an assistant, but respects Demetri. Sidney is initially suspicious of Ariana, but learns to trust her.
  
  ○ Runa: A mysterious woman connected to Ariana's presence in the game world.

Content (subject to change):

• - ~15 hours of gameplay
  - Visual novel
  - At least 8 endings (two for each love interest)
  - 5 CG per character
  - Noncommercial
  - PG-13 rating

Progress:

• Story Content (currently in the planning stage, will be updated upon progress to the outlining stange):
  ○ Prologue (demo content): 30%
  ○ Common Route: 10%
  ○ Derek Route: 40%
  ○ Demetri Route: 20%
  ○ Will Route: 10%
  ○ Allan Route: 5%
  
  Art: 5%
  ○ Character Design: 70%
  ○ Sprite: 0%
  ○ CG: 0%
  ○ BG: 0%
  ○ GUI: 0%

Staff/Recruitment:

• I don't intend to hardcore recruit until I have made more progress. However, if think this idea sounds interesting and would like to contribute to art/programming (particularly art) or whatever, feel free to shoot me an PM or email me at crytalstellar7 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Updates:

• ► June 22, 2016: thread created

Other Stuff:

• Oh. Um. This is just where I wanted to put some other stuff. So, I'm actually out of a computer at the moment, but I'm still plotting and working on stuff! I should be able to get a new computer by September. I'd had this idea for a while (and i made this post as motivation to myself, cuz if it's out there, then... yeah.) Anyway, I want to have a demo out around January 2017 and the game released about a year from now around June 2017.

Questions:

• ► What do you think of the premise and/or characters?
  ► From the descriptions of the love interests, is there one that particularly piques your interest?
  ► Any other questions/comments you might have!

Thank you for reading!

► What do you think of the premise and/or characters?

As I was reading this, my first thought was "Eh." But then when I got farther into the description, I was like "THIS NEEDS TO BE A STORY RIGHT NOW"
The content really sounds interesting and something I'd DEFINITELY play! The characters are great, too! (Although I'm kind of sad there's no "bad boy" character haha. But it's okay because there's a flirt so that's good )

► From the descriptions of the love interests, is there one that particularly piques your interest?

I'm usually the girl that roots for the bad boy or the flirt. So Demetri is my favorite so far (:

► Any other questions/comments you might have!

How did you think up this kind of plot/topic? I'm kind of curious about what it is that inspired you to come up with this idea~

Mama J wrote:

► Any other questions/comments you might have!

How did you think up this kind of plot/topic? I'm kind of curious about what it is that inspired you to come up with this idea~

I'm glad you think it's interesting! Makes me all fuzzy inside.

I've had the idea for a really long time (8 years?) and originally it was gonna be a novel, but I tweaked it to be an otome game. Anyway, part of it was that one of my friends kinda looked like Dante from Devil May Cry 3. And so it kind of developed from there. I was also super into Fatal Frame 3 at the time so that might have influenced the situation since in that game the characters get pulled into a kind of haunted house in their dreams.

Also, about the bad boy thing. Allan might become a bad boy when he's developed more. I'm not so sure yet so I can't make any promises.

I received a PM with a couple questions and figured I would post them in case anyone else had the same questions!

Are you working on this while in school/ work? (Because that would sound stressful)

• I do work part time, so I have to split my attention between this and work, however I'm not too worried. Luckily, I just finished school so I don't have to worry about that! :3

What other features do you plan to include (i.e. cg album, voice overs, customization, etc)

• As for other features, I definitely would want a CG album, potentially with scene replay. Maybe an appendix sort of thing to explain the in game lore? I currently don't intend on voice over, but I'm not against it. owo

What kind of art style/ direction would you like for this novel to have?

• Um. I would like something like a semi-anime, semi-realistic style? This is actually something I hadn't really thought of- I was more thinking... oh hey, I'll look at someone's art style and be like yay or nay. ; A; But yeah....

I'm glad you think it's interesting! Makes me all fuzzy inside.

I've had the idea for a really long time (8 years?) and originally it was gonna be a novel, but I tweaked it to be an otome game. Anyway, part of it was that one of my friends kinda looked like Dante from Devil May Cry 3. And so it kind of developed from there. I was also super into Fatal Frame 3 at the time so that might have influenced the situation since in that game the characters get pulled into a kind of haunted house in their dreams.

Also, about the bad boy thing. Allan might become a bad boy when he's developed more. I'm not so sure yet so I can't make any promises.

No problem! And wow, 8 years is a long time to hold on to an idea. I've had this one idea for another story for maybe 3 years now? You beat me, haha And it's incredibly interesting how you got inspired into creating this.

And sweeeeet, I have another possible thing to look forward to in your game !! I hope he does develop into that kind of tsundere character (: