Phantasmagoria-The Record of Modern Magic[UrbanFantasyDrama]

[Krescentwolf]

Phantasmagoria.
Noun.
From the French 'fantasme' or 'phantasm/ghost' & '-agorie' or 'production/play'
An optical illusion produced by manipulating light from a special 'magic' lantern.
Phantasmagoria, that is what they will call this day. A day when everything changes. When everything taken as fact turns into fiction. A day when everything taken as fiction turns into fact. A day when fantasy and illusion became reality.
A day... when Magic came to the otherwise normal real world.
And slowly, silently, the world goes mad.

Genre: Drama, Adventure, Modern Fantasy
VN Type: Story-centered

A tale of magic revealed to the modern world, and the subsequent chaos that revelation makes, Phantasmagoria stars 'Helena Hollinger' (the girl in light blue pictured above) as she moves through a world in the middle of falling apart.

To help her find her way through the chaos, Helena has the fact that her soul has awakened to the memories of its previous life, that of an ancient, pre-historic, hero queen named Azuria. Manifesting as an alternate personality, Azuria aids Helena as the two deal with the powerplays of several powerful 'Phantasms,' or modern magic users, who are trying to carve their will into the crumbling world.

The Protagonists:

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Prologue (complete)
Arc 1: The Firefly & The Raven (in writing)
Arc 2: The Firefly & The Dragon
Arc 3: The Firefly & The Moth
Epilogue
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For the art & assets of Phantasmagoria, please visit my DA gallery Here

For updates and other info, please visit my blog Project CoR

The current build only has the prologue, but can be found here
Download Link: http://www40.zippyshare.com/v/29287463/file.html
Note: A pair of fonts (included in the .rar file) are needed for the game, please install them before playing!

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The thread title was almost too long to fit!
Anyway, Hello one and all in the LS forums! Krescentwolf here, bringing you the one-man show that is Phantasmagoria - The Record of Modern Magic. Yes, thats right... So far it's all a one man project. Writing, Character Art, & Event CG's done by yours truly; with BGs, Sound FX, and Music done pretty much by scavenging whatever corners of the internet I could find them in.

I plan on releasing updates in chapter-sized chunks, and I was tempted to wait on posting here on the LS forums until I had more meat on the story than just the prologue... but I like hearing feedback so I posted a little early. I'm working in Novelty, but the forums over there don't move much. ^_^;

Critical hits... err... critiques and opinions welcome.
-Till next time

[gekiganwing]

A few questions for when you have time:

* Scope. How large will the story be? Few or many characters? A simple fictional setting, or lots of world building? If you intend to make multiple endings, then how many do you estimate there will be?
* Pacing. Relatively fast or slow?
* Theme. Serious, humorous, or somewhere in between?
* Relationships. Important or not a big deal?

[Krescentwolf]

A few questions for when you have time:

* Scope. How large will the story be? Few or many characters? A simple fictional setting, or lots of world building? If you intend to make multiple endings, then how many do you estimate there will be?
* Pacing. Relatively fast or slow?
* Theme. Serious, humorous, or somewhere in between?
* Relationships. Important or not a big deal?

Since I'm working on this mostly by myself, I wanted to keep the scope fairly low. The original story called for much more, but I scaled it way back. The story as it plays out in the game was originally set to be just a series of flashbacks in a much larger story. I divided the original story up into three parts, with -this- game representing one part. Timeline-wise, the -first- part.

Most of the scope is limited by the fact that I'm working solo on it at the moment. So far, I have it set for one ending (as it was originally made as a flashback/foregone conclusion) and probably some bad ends. As far as characters go, well, I'm sure there will be a lot of incidental sprite-less characters (or ones using black vectors like the mooks in the prologue). The ones you see in the picture above, plus one or two more 'side' sprites are all I've planned at the moment, and that's likely only going to change if help comes along ^_^; The same goes for the UI (which is currently pretty bare-bones)

World building is... well... something I do a ton of, but whether or not that gets transmitted to the reader will become clearer as the story gets written... Count on seeing at least a bit of it ^_^;

Pacing is harder to describe, in my opinion... Any story will naturally move at different paces at different points... Overall, I'd take a wild gander at maybe slow to slow-medium paced.

Theme... I think it'll become fairly apparent after I release the first main chapter but it'll be mostly serious. I can write comedy, but my scope with it is fairly limited, in my opinion anyway. I can't say there won't be comedic and/or heartwarming moments, but expect a fairly high level of seriousness throughout of the story.

Relationships... I suppose I ought to make it clear; None. I started this to write the Main Characters story, more so than to create a dating sim. The fact that it was originally designed as a flashback hampers it too.

Counting the main character as 2 people (Helena & Azuria) there's only one other protagonist, the red-head in the center of the lineup above. The other four are antagonists for the three respective arcs, one "bad guy" per arc for the first two arcs and two for the last arc.

For those few who might have tried the currently released prologue, the arcs -will- be longer.

[Krescentwolf]

Figure I'll throw an update here as well as on my blog.
Chapter one is well under way, with an introduction to the narrator, Wiseman, and to the mentor-character who stars alongside Helena in the game, Ysabella.

Wiseman:


Ysabella:



My next big task is the sprite for Ysabella...
Sprites are so time consuming to make!

[netravelr]

Ysabella reminds me of Katarina from League of Legends.. who just so happens to be my favorite character. Premise sounds interesting... I'm looking forward to this!

[kaleidofish]

"A tale of magic revealed to the modern world, and the subsequent chaos that revelation makes, Phantasmagoria stars 'Helena Hollinger' (the girl in light blue pictured above) as she moves through a world in the middle of falling apart."

Why is the world falling apart? Is the magic sapping away at the Earth's natural essence, or is the chaos caused by greed? I'm curious as to what sort of motivations the villains will have in this story. In fact, could the villains even be called villains? Somebody has to be causing the chaos, so I assume so. I have not played the prologue.

What role do non-magic folk have in your story?

Edit: I forgot to add. Your art is very striking, in a good way.

[Krescentwolf]

"A tale of magic revealed to the modern world, and the subsequent chaos that revelation makes, Phantasmagoria stars 'Helena Hollinger' (the girl in light blue pictured above) as she moves through a world in the middle of falling apart."

Why is the world falling apart? Is the magic sapping away at the Earth's natural essence, or is the chaos caused by greed? I'm curious as to what sort of motivations the villains will have in this story. In fact, could the villains even be called villains? Somebody has to be causing the chaos, so I assume so. I have not played the prologue.

What role do non-magic folk have in your story?

Edit: I forgot to add. Your art is very striking, in a good way.

Why is the world falling apart? As a certain philosopher once said: "A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power." Or, as my friend put it, Imagine giving everyone you know a grenade launcher. Whats the betting they all make it out alive? Its hinted at in the prologue, and reinforced in the chapter I'm writing now, but the 'existence' of Magic basically throws everything outta wack.

And as for the non-magic folk, they actually play a fairly important role in the story. 'Magic' is explained in the prologue as returning to the world because of 'a wish for an extraordinary life.' The 'Normals' are important as some of them embody the theme of 'A wish for an ordinary life.'

Basically a giant combination of "Be careful what you wish for" and "The Grass is always greener on the other side."

The villains... they've each got their own motivations inside the ongoing chaos. Those motivations are hinted at in the arc titles if you stop and think about it. I won't spoil them though.

And as for my art... Thanks!

[Krescentwolf]

*Falls over and dies*

Ysabella's sprite is finally done.



Gothic style clothing with lace textures. Check. Difficult Hair. Check. Fireballs. Check.

Good Gods what was I thinking?! Ysa's sprite was probably the single largest hurdle to my visual novel, since she's the character you see the most of. Still, I really like how she turned out. But it'll be too soon if I EVER have to draw another gothic themed character -_-;;;

While I'm at it, here's the sprite array I posted on DA for Helena




A lot of work for a hobbyist artist!

[enta]

Wow, I love your art!

And, may I ask where Helena's shoes were? :'D

[Krescentwolf]

Wow, I love your art!

And, may I ask where Helena's shoes were? :'D

She donated them! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFldBVWFgWo

In all seriousness, After I finished her sprite lineart and loaded it up in photoshop to color it, I realized I'd completely forgotten to draw her shoes! Since you never see her sprites feet in the game, I took the lazy way out and left it as is...

Actually, I didn't even decide on what her shoes looked like until I drew the intro-art in the first post... And that was AFTER the prologue had been finished!

Currently Trudging along with story writing... Finished Chapter 1-1, working on chapter Chapter 1-2 atm... Pondering over the idea of a new release once i get some more meat into chapter 1.... maybe around 1-5 or something.

[Krescentwolf]

Back again for a quick update. Knee deep into chapter 1-3. I don't really have an estimate of exactly how many chapters the first arc will be comprised of, but the main villain 'The Raven Master' will be making his first -real- appearance either in 1-3 or 1-4... so a rough estimate of chapters would be around..7 or 8.... 10 at the most, though thats subject to change.

Also, while I'm here, I'll introduce the minor character for arc 1... I suppose you could call him the tag along. Hes basically there to help move the story along and make sure Ysa isn't the only sprite you see for a long stretch of time

His name is Kenan, a Phantasm who can create & manipulate metal.

[Razz]

*Falls over and dies*

Ysabella's sprite is finally done.



:

Woah! Really awesome stuff. I am very excited for this game, it's not often I get to play a cool character!

[Krescentwolf]

Another quickie update to introduce the main villain of the first arc. Mostly... because I'm at this part in the writing anyway

The Raven Master

"This city's always had a lot of ravens. There's an old urban legend around here that says the ravens will take whatever they can get their claws around, 'cept for what already belongs to 'The Raven Master.' And them corpses that turned up recently? The ravens don't go -anywhere- near 'em."

[Haze]

Woah, that Raven Master is creepy...I love it!

Your art is awesome, and this VN looks like it's going to be great! I really like that Kenan guy.

[Krescentwolf]

That awkward moment when you realize you've made a CG that has more variation than some of your Sprites....

Finished a major hurdle in getting Helena's Battle CG done...4 expressions, and 4 types of SFX for a grand total of 24 different variations...

Now I can get back to writing and steamroll it for a while... the next big cg work (unless things change ) will be the final battle of arc one... which is still some ways away.

At least with this one, I can use it all through-out the novel.