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"Violence is an inescapable part of our lives."

This is the idea presented in the senior thesis of Gale Kingsley, a sociology student. His entire project revolves around "the environmental theory of crime," which is the notion that criminals aren't just born, they're made. It's not just "something wrong in the brain." It's a result of outside forces, acting upon the individual.

What starts of as a series of petty crimes - breaking and entering, theft, and the like - quickly escalates into assault and kidnapping. Gale realizes that all these small sleights are the work of the same criminal as the more serious ones, a theory which is discarded by the police as irrelevant.

With his knowledge and college-age confidence, Gale jumps headlong into the criminal mind, pursuing this man whose actions become more and more violent. But every step Gale takes puts his quarry, the Social Media Killer, or SMK, two steps ahead.

So named for his propensity to use the victims' social networking accounts to not only taunt but also to gain notoriety, the SMK treats Gale with a fairly casual interest. That is, until Gale starts getting too close, and so the SMK starts targeting a bit closer to Gale...

"Close" for Gale is a pretty specific term since he only has three friends. One of his best friends, Jason, ran his way into scholarships while Gale studied. Kenna Macelroy, Gale's other longtime friend, is the complete opposite of Gale: a wild, hedonistic party-goer with a tendency to either live life on the line, or cross it. Her foil is Shana Ninian, a psych major and girl completely detached from human attachment. And with good reason.

The decisions Gale makes, and why, tend to err either towards his logical or emotional sides, which impacts his relationship with the corresponding girl. Kenna makes all her decisions based on her emotions, and it’d be easy for an emotional Gale to end up with her. But could cold logic temper her fire? Shana is deliberately devoid of emotion, choosing instead to protect herself with a shield of reason. A logical Gale is a kindred spirit, but perhaps someone a little more human would make a better match?

That's up to the reader.

- - -

Returning to our trend of trying to do new things in VN's, "Violence" will also be packed with a few extra features courtesy of our programming team. Due to the nature of these features, I can't be as liberal in sharing art as I usually am. Instead, I'll post some of our concepts, but probably no more than that.

Writers:
-Sir Mopalot

Musicians:
-Guron

Artists:
-Suqling
-Pirate.Affair

Oh snap. This is definitely going into my To-Play list. The concept art is amazing!!! The story is interesting as well!
I just checked out your musician's soundcloud and saw you have your own OST already ready for your game...!
I can't wait! /stalks

This sounds like a very original and interesting idea with a lot of potential. I listened to some of the soundtrack, and it sounds like it's going to be pretty cool, too.

I'm kinda curious, though: is this going to be free or commercial?

Thanks for the support!

The game will be free to play.

This sounds really, really good. I also love the concept art! (Gale is quite hot, heh.) The best of luck and I'm looking forward to this game! <3

This looks really interesting! I don't usually play as males in games, but the plot sounds so well-done that I'll definitely be playing this one - I'm a sucker for a good psychological mystery, especially with role-playing personality added into the mix!

I really, really love Kenna's concept art. The concept of Gale's face also looks absolutely amazing!

Do you have an estimate on how long you expect the playthrough time to be? Also, to what extent can you control the direction of Gale's investigation? (I'm really curious about those 'new features' you mentioned as well, but I suppose I'll have to wait until this comes out to see them!)

Anomandaris wrote: Do you have an estimate on how long you expect the playthrough time to be? Also, to what extent can you control the direction of Gale's investigation? (I'm really curious about those 'new features' you mentioned as well, but I suppose I'll have to wait until this comes out to see them!)

Mm, I can provide a word count more easily than I can play time, and we're looking at 100-150k unique words (so that's not counting scenes that overlap between endings).

Your guess is as good as mine as to how much control the player we'll have. We're currently discussing ideas and trying to see what we can work into the game, but a large amount of it depends on what we can do within the engine. Personally, I'd like the player to have full control - which could include false leads and possibly indicting the wrong person. However, we'd have to walk a fine line to not make that a sort of Scooby-Doo gimmick ("It was X the whole time!" where X is some side character who you'd never consider) and due to our just wanting to get the game done, this probably won't make it into the final incarnation. If the game as a whole is well-received though, we might look into an extension of the system for a future release.

eingelle wrote:Oh snap. This is definitely going into my To-Play list. The concept art is amazing!!! The story is interesting as well!
I just checked out your musician's soundcloud and saw you have your own OST already ready for your game...!
I can't wait! /stalks

Guys, thanks for the support! The OST is still far from finished, plenty of stuff coming up. And while we are on track, here's a piece for the game I just finished: https://soundcloud.com/jani-gr-hn/neural-overflow

(Pun most certainly intended.)

Just finished the theme for the villain of the story, the SMK.

https://soundcloud.com/jani-gr-hn/i-am-thor-smks-theme

EDIT: And Jason's theme as well. Groovy.

https://soundcloud.com/jani-gr-hn/boon-jasons-theme