Soul Power: Book 1 [Supernatural][Adventure]
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:53 am
Soul Power follows the misadventures of Zero and his companions as they try to survive in the dangerous world known as the Outlands, protecting their new hometown from the advances of a demonic empire and a holy crusade.
Book 1 establishes the main characters in the series: Zero, Kat, Orlock and M'Lady Onyxclaw and introduces the world they inhabit. A majority of the story follows Zero who has literally fallen into his current situation, wiped of any memories of his past life and in possession of strange powers he doesn't remember having before. There is a subplot of a love triangle between Zero, Kat and Lady with a planned branching story/ending scenarios that will see him develop feelings for one or the other depending on in-game decisions. The game revolves around investigating the town and exploring Zero's new powers, while raising questions about his amnesia, and whether or not he can actually trust the people who now surround and count on him.
The visual style and themes pull from folklore, fables, mythology and even some pop culture to establish the core "bits" of the world. While the story focuses on the source of Zero's plight and how he copes with loss of his memories by throwing himself fully into helping the only people he now knows with seemingly little regard for his best interests.
The characters and story are from a comic project I've been working on sporadically since ~2007 so I have some artwork:
Zero http://siben.deviantart.com/#/d5nafsx
During the course of the game Zero has his soul forcibly removed from his body, unexpectedly instead of killing him this allows him to manipulate and channel his soul (the wisp floating over his hand) through his body for a number of effects.
Kat http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2yptcu
Alley "Kat" Rotkap is one of the main protagonists, a witch-in-training who accompanies Zero on his travels. She uses candy as a magic implement in her spells and eschews a broomstick for flight, preferring to summon a large candy disc to glide around on. Her hat (which you can see here in this scrap drawing is actually a shape-changing jelly monster she's named Mint. Mint allows her to change her appearance, something she does at work and in battle.
M'Lady http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d2mnt4p
A refugee fleeing from the Umbral Empire's blitz M'Lady is actually a member of the 'Nobility' a race of near-vampiric/demonic humans. Haughty and cold on the exterior she tries to impose her will on everyone she can and starts off the story attempting to reestablish a kingdom by exploiting Zero's newfound powers.
Here's an image of Zero, Kat, and 2 of the incidental characters from the initial comic: Otto and T.S. Krowe
http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/25713320#/d3ki41t
More of the comic can be seen here to get more of a feel of the setting http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/25713320 I had to take down the original webhosting but I've mirrored most of the comics up on DA.
I'm also attaching to this post a small prototype I've roughed out today using some of the comic page assets to animate the first few pages of the comic, forming a "Prologue" chapter of the story. Obviously at this point all the images are place holders to be replaced by better/higher fidelity assets but I wanted to show something to see if there is any community interest in me pursuing the project.
I'm in the process of blocking out the story paths and endings at this point. If there's enough interest in seeing a finished product I am also sourcing actually competent artists to approach for final artwork/backgrounds so I'm interested to hear what people think about the characters and setting. I have a number of story arcs blocked out in writing so if successful I would like to use the VN format to present what has been my 'passion project' for the past few years and the foreseeable future.
So I guess to start the discussion:
What are impressions of the characters?
Is the story/setting compelling enough for people to want to explore it through the VN medium?
What would -you- like to see or what would you expect to see in the finished project?
The Soul Power.rar is my compressed archive of the Ren'Py project folder, I don't know if there's a better way to actually provide the files for the community so apologies if that's a pain. Today was my Day 1 of Ren'Py development so I'm kind of a total newbie.
Book 1 establishes the main characters in the series: Zero, Kat, Orlock and M'Lady Onyxclaw and introduces the world they inhabit. A majority of the story follows Zero who has literally fallen into his current situation, wiped of any memories of his past life and in possession of strange powers he doesn't remember having before. There is a subplot of a love triangle between Zero, Kat and Lady with a planned branching story/ending scenarios that will see him develop feelings for one or the other depending on in-game decisions. The game revolves around investigating the town and exploring Zero's new powers, while raising questions about his amnesia, and whether or not he can actually trust the people who now surround and count on him.
The visual style and themes pull from folklore, fables, mythology and even some pop culture to establish the core "bits" of the world. While the story focuses on the source of Zero's plight and how he copes with loss of his memories by throwing himself fully into helping the only people he now knows with seemingly little regard for his best interests.
The characters and story are from a comic project I've been working on sporadically since ~2007 so I have some artwork:
Zero http://siben.deviantart.com/#/d5nafsx
During the course of the game Zero has his soul forcibly removed from his body, unexpectedly instead of killing him this allows him to manipulate and channel his soul (the wisp floating over his hand) through his body for a number of effects.
Kat http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2yptcu
Alley "Kat" Rotkap is one of the main protagonists, a witch-in-training who accompanies Zero on his travels. She uses candy as a magic implement in her spells and eschews a broomstick for flight, preferring to summon a large candy disc to glide around on. Her hat (which you can see here in this scrap drawing is actually a shape-changing jelly monster she's named Mint. Mint allows her to change her appearance, something she does at work and in battle.
M'Lady http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=24#/d2mnt4p
A refugee fleeing from the Umbral Empire's blitz M'Lady is actually a member of the 'Nobility' a race of near-vampiric/demonic humans. Haughty and cold on the exterior she tries to impose her will on everyone she can and starts off the story attempting to reestablish a kingdom by exploiting Zero's newfound powers.
Here's an image of Zero, Kat, and 2 of the incidental characters from the initial comic: Otto and T.S. Krowe
http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/25713320#/d3ki41t
More of the comic can be seen here to get more of a feel of the setting http://siben.deviantart.com/gallery/25713320 I had to take down the original webhosting but I've mirrored most of the comics up on DA.
I'm also attaching to this post a small prototype I've roughed out today using some of the comic page assets to animate the first few pages of the comic, forming a "Prologue" chapter of the story. Obviously at this point all the images are place holders to be replaced by better/higher fidelity assets but I wanted to show something to see if there is any community interest in me pursuing the project.
I'm in the process of blocking out the story paths and endings at this point. If there's enough interest in seeing a finished product I am also sourcing actually competent artists to approach for final artwork/backgrounds so I'm interested to hear what people think about the characters and setting. I have a number of story arcs blocked out in writing so if successful I would like to use the VN format to present what has been my 'passion project' for the past few years and the foreseeable future.
So I guess to start the discussion:
What are impressions of the characters?
Is the story/setting compelling enough for people to want to explore it through the VN medium?
What would -you- like to see or what would you expect to see in the finished project?
The Soul Power.rar is my compressed archive of the Ren'Py project folder, I don't know if there's a better way to actually provide the files for the community so apologies if that's a pain. Today was my Day 1 of Ren'Py development so I'm kind of a total newbie.