Hollowed [Supernatural][Thriller][Romance][GxB]

[meowworkstm]

Hey y'all! The name's Amy or Lady, whichever you prefer, and this is like my first ever ~real~ post. I just want to introduce the plot of a vn i'm currently working on, named Hollowed. It's very, uh, inadvertently Halloween themed, so if you're into that kinda thing this game's just for you!

Hollowed

What happens after you die...and don't end up in Heaven or Hell?

Welcome to the afterlife! A home for all ghosts, imps, ghouls and other supernatural beings to live out the rest of their existence.

Hollowed is a story following Kayenne, a ghost who recently died and is now living a life post-mortem in the afterlife. She finds herself in a common predicament among ghosts, where she must complete her unfinished business before her soul loses all physical attachments, and vanishes into the nothingness. Permanently! Afterall, there’s no afterlife after the afterlife…

Only when a ghost has found all their “missing pieces” will they be able to go to Heaven.

In the strange world of the afterlife where every hour is nightfall and every month is a moon; beings known as evil spirits are not unusual. They are spirits that drain energy from the living in order to keep a physical form, yet despite this, they live a life strikingly similar to the living. With holidays, and ceremonies, a whole kingdom rules the afterlife--now what does this all have to do with Kayenne?

Simply, it seems the enigmatic prince Hector has taken an interest in Kayenne…

...and everything she never knew begins to fall into place on the night of the last full moon.

Features

• 3 routes, 2 romance-able characters

• 6 endings

• 40k upwards 60k (aproximately 3-5 hours of gameplay)

• non-commercial

• WARNING: Includes crude language, violence, and death (surprise, surprise!!)

• Regardless of which route you choose the 3 main characters will still play a prominent role in the story

Characters*Designs subject to change


Kayenne(KAI-ann, like the pepper): A ghost with no memory of her past life, Kayenne is left to find herself in the afterlife.
Mischievous and always filled with curiosity, she can't help but be drawn to the dream-like qualities of
the afterlife and its inhabitants.



Hunter: Kayenne’s grumpy next-door neighbor and friend. He lives a simple life in the afterlife;
sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat, work and not much else. Past his rough exterior and unsociable attitude,
however, is a golden heart.



Hector: The good natured prince of the afterlife; he speaks sweetly with gentle mannerisms and
is admired by most all who live in his kingdom. Although occasionally, he has a habit of slipping out of
character.



Valentina: An energetic but hardworking vampire who is the owner of her namesake, Valentina’s
Cafe. She’s Hunter’s co-worker and friend, and tends to stick her nose into his affairs like an overbearing
sister.



Ichabod: A dullahan who enjoys academic pursuits. He’s known to be quite whimsical and always
has his head in the books--or he would, if he had one. He appears to know Prince Hector personally and
frequently visits Valentina’s cafe.

**no image as of now

Ophelia & Orianne: Two of Hector’s 6 older sisters. They are identical twin sisters who love to gossip
and are rarely ever seen apart. It always seems like they know something that nobody else does.

Notes
As of right now I'm trying to complete the story outline and then finish the script. The prologue is already finished so I'm somewhat making progress?? I don't want to create a percentage thing to state what i have and haven't accomplished because that dejects me so fast lmao i'll just stick with updating this thread by parts.

I'm the lone artist, writer, and programmer of this vn, and it's unlikely that it will be completed anytime soon due to schoolwork...and other life...things...but I don't plan on dropping it either since I've already invested a lot of time in it.

Oh yeah here's some questions to answer if you want? Any feedback would mean a lot to me and thanks so much for reading this so far.

• Is the plot interesting, and would you play this game?

• Thoughts on any of the characters? Who's your favorite?

• Is there anything that needs work in terms of quality? Like art, writing, plot etc.

• Any other questions regarding the story?

[MaxH]

Is the plot interesting, and would you play this game?
Very interesting! I love the more darker-theme (not storytelling-wise, necessarily, but overall style in general). It seems really fun and I would certainly even drop some money to play a game like this if you went a commercial route!

Thoughts on any of the characters? Who's your favorite?
The characters all seem great and I would love to get to know more about them. Hector seems like a total treat, but Hunter seems like a character after my own heart, hahaha.

Is there anything that needs work in terms of quality? Like art, writing, plot etc.
Well obviously there's much that needs to be done, but I think that there is plenty here to reel someone in from interest alone. I really do like the character designs, ESPECIALLY Ichabod's and Hectors. The plot seems like it'd be lots of fun and full of surprises!

Any other questions regarding the story
No questions, but I will definitely be following you on Tumblr to keep up with things in case you so happen to post about Hollowed there! I hope things go well for you!

[LizardRobot]

Is the plot interesting, and would you play this game?
It's an interesting setting! I would definitely check it out and play it. Admittedly my main reason for playing would be that I think your art style is super fantastic. How much I would play would depend on the writing.

Thoughts on any of the characters? Who's your favorite?
I definitely like Hunter and Kayenne best. Kayenne's color scheme really appears to me, and I love how grumpy and angry Hunter looks! Hector is cute, I like his color scheme, and Valentina looks like she could be interesting. Ichabod raises more questions for me than anything, like how does he read books without eyes?

Is there anything that needs work in terms of quality? Like art, writing, plot etc.
The scenario is confusing me. It's the afterlife, there are supernatural creatures, Kayenne is a ghost, that I follow. She has to complete her unfinished business. Then in the character descriptions, you say she can't remember anything. Is the central challenge for Kayenne that she must complete her unfinished business, but doesn't know what it is? And her missing pieces are something different from her unfinished business, correct? Are they literal pieces she has to collect so that she can regain her memories and complete her unfinished business?

It sounds like the afterlife is somewhere different from the regular world with its own kingdoms and locations, so then how do evil spirits drain energy from the living, if the afterlife is full of the dead? Is there passage between the mortal realm and the afterlife?

I only ask this many questions because I'm genuinely interested in your project, not to discourage! It looks like it could be something really cool, but some of your turns of phrase are a little too obtusely poetic for me, and it's adding to my confusion about the story's central aims and world setting.

Any other questions regarding the story?
What are Hunter and Hector? What's a dullahan? (I realize I could probably google that, but...)

[fasteverything]

Is the plot interesting, and would you play this game?
It certainly sounds interesting, and I'm down with playing this game. So down I'm six feet underground. I'm an atheist myself so I don't believe in either heaven nor hell, and I always find myself wondering if there's a place "in-between." Needless to say, I'm hooked!

Thoughts on any of the characters? Who's your favorite?
All of their designs are amazing and it really adds to the halloween theme. I've also noticed that both Hunter and Valentina have similar bowties and I'm just, gasp!! Fashion trend? Symbol of social hierarchy? What, what? I'm so eager to know, and even if it turns out to be not that big of a deal, I still love it.

I'm loving all of the characters equally, but if I had to pick one, it'd be Prince Hector! I have a major weakness for sweet characters who also has a h̷̭̻͈̣͖̖̾ͩ̃̈́̈́̐͜ͅi̸̜̮̱̳͇̩̠ͦͪͨ̑͛ͮ̿͐d̘̯̙̬̹̳͍̰̖̄̓̓ͮ͜d̡̯̹̘͉͖̽͛ͤ͊̏̓ͮͨ́͡ͅe̻̭ͭͥ̌͋̒̓̑n̬̯̹̙̻͑́ ͮ̿ͦ̈̒͜͏̠̦̺̤͖̼͉͟s̱̰͓̜̈͊ͭ͊̈iͫ̀̓ͩ҉̸̨̥̱͎ḓ̷̶̟̙̼̻̹̯̲͋͐̌̒̂͆ͅe̡͕̺̼͕͚̟͙̘̾̉̅͟͢-- ahem... * ･ ｡ﾟ☆ hidden side. ☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

Is there anything that needs work in terms of quality? Like art, writing, plot etc.
One thing that I thought of is... if Kayenne recently died, and she and Hunter are neighbors, how did that come to be? Did she wander before being led to a housing directory, or was she plopped into an available space after her death? I hope we'll get to know.

As for the art... it's amazing! I love your style, it's so refreshing.

Any other questions regarding the story?
Uh, I don't think I have any other questions, but I'll come back if I do!

/cheers you on from a distance

[meowworkstm]

OH MY GOSH!! Thanks for the feed back guys, i didn't think I'd get any after like two weeks of nothing but here we are, I'm so psyched!! Sorry for getting back to this late, by the way, I was preoccupied with a lot of work this week and decided to hold off on replying until I had time.

MaxH
I'm so glad you like the premise and characters! I was possibly thinking of going down a commercial route but since this is my first project i'll probably just keep it free. I really appreciate that you'd pay money for something like this though!!
Most of my serious updates will likely stay on this forum. On my Tumblr I just post a lot of silly doodles haha, but just as a warning some of the earlier stuff might be a bit spoiler-y! Especially in regards to the characters.

[meowworkstm]

The scenario is confusing me. It's the afterlife, there are supernatural creatures, Kayenne is a ghost, that I follow. She has to complete her unfinished business. Then in the character descriptions, you say she can't remember anything. Is the central challenge for Kayenne that she must complete her unfinished business, but doesn't know what it is? And her missing pieces are something different from her unfinished business, correct? Are they literal pieces she has to collect so that she can regain her memories and complete her unfinished business?

It sounds like the afterlife is somewhere different from the regular world with its own kingdoms and locations, so then how do evil spirits drain energy from the living, if the afterlife is full of the dead? Is there passage between the mortal realm and the afterlife?

I only ask this many questions because I'm genuinely interested in your project, not to discourage! It looks like it could be something really cool, but some of your turns of phrase are a little too obtusely poetic for me, and it's adding to my confusion about the story's central aims and world setting.

Ohh yeah, no, these questions are really good! I'm getting a lot of insight here and I can see how my wording can be pretty confusing. So starting with the unfinished business, the missing pieces and unfinished business are the same thing, (by completing the unfinished business Kayenne will regain her memories) I was just trying to find different ways to word it so it didn't sound repetitive but now that i think about I should've just stuck with one commonly known phrase for it in the afterlife. So yeah, the central conflict is that Kayenne must figure out what her unfinished business is despite having no memory of when she was alive. You can think of the unfinished business as something a ghost never achieved in their living life but wanted to, for example; getting an education, finding love, growing up, independence etc. It's like a game of marco-polo: if the ghost gets warmer to their goal they'll start remembering bits and pieces of their memory and if not they stay stagnate.

Yep! The mortal world and afterlife are totally separate from each other and double yes, there's a bridge that connects the two worlds. The passage is normally monitored by a barrier which allows ghosts and evil spirits to pass through a few times a year, limiting their power. I may adjust the specifics but it's that general gist.
The afterlife is small, so there's only one kingdom seeing as how most people just end up in either Heaven or Hell.

A lot of what I just said (and more) is explained in the prologue and I worry that there might be too much exposition the readers need to consume. Even then I know there's still a lot of loopholes in the worldbuilding (yeah still working that out...) but I've decided to leave some of the more minor details unexplained/up to the reader's interpretation. I was actually wondering how much of a story was okay to reveal and how much to keep in game for the readers to learn?

Annnnd lastly Hector is a ghoul (graverobber/zombie that eas human flesh) and a dullahan’s just a fancy way of saying "headless horseman" lol. I based the type of evil spirits the characters were, loosely on real evil spirit myths and legends. The ghosts turn into these evil spirits depending on the way they drained the energy from the living so for example, if they drink blood they become a vampire, if they eat human flesh they become ghouls etc. This is actually a very important part that'll ill probably update the summary with, but I hope this clears things up for you! And thanks for the feedback, I've found a lot of areas and perspectives I didn't get to touch on while answering your questions
//this got like really long?? My bad dude//

[meowworkstm]

I've also noticed that both Hunter and Valentina have similar bowties and I'm just, gasp!! Fashion trend? Symbol of social hierarchy?

They actually work at the same cafe! So it's supposed to be like a work uniform but I really like the idea of it being a symbol of social hierarchy! Then I can force all my characters to wear spooky bow ties mwahahaha

One thing that I thought of is... if Kayenne recently died, and she and Hunter are neighbors, how did that come to be? Did she wander before being led to a housing directory, or was she plopped into an available space after her death?

Ohhh yes you'll find out!! All these question will be answered within the length of a demo if I ever get one out. You might be disappointed to hear that that's basically what happens though lmao. Well, until I think of something cooler anyway.
I really enjoyed reading your feedback and I'm glad you like the story and characters so far! //haha I like sweet characters with hidden sides too it's like my favorite trope //