Lemma Soft Forums

In Ebon Light, the player takes on the roll of a young woman who comes from a remote, seaside village.

Then one day, ripped from your village, unceremoniously plucked from safety, you are made into the key component of a great scheme. The dusken elves of Gha'alia have a foggy and mysterious past, one which you are now tied to despite yourself. They are hostile and isolated, infamously known for their brutal ebon Forces. Though they are suspicious and aggressive toward you, they have a vested interest in your situation. You have a vested interest in survival.

Unfortunately, Gha'alia is not easily survived. What power you wield is dangerous in more ways than you know, and what you become of it and how you put it to use remains to be seen... assuming you become anything more than a secret stifled in the night and buried at sea.


* EL will be released free of charge. Expansions, added feature versions, etc, may not be free.
* Heavily choice driven, many, many choices.
* Customizable protagonist. (Appearance, name, personality!)
* Multiple endings, drastically different consequences and outcomes. Premature endings. None are right or wrong, they are simply user defined.
* Optional romance. (Five different romancable men.)
* Unlockable codex.
-- Codex has notes written from PoV of the Protag, now.

* Customizable home setting - not yet implemented.

* (Considering/brainstorming) A ?thoughtful? battle system, other rpg elements. - not yet decided/implemented.

1920x1080 Resolution, Estimated 5+ hour play throughs.


There are a lot of characters in Ebon Light but because I'm willing to bet people are most interested in getting a peak at the romantic prospects, here they are!








Release ETA: I have noooo idea anymore, and I'm not guessing anymore because I have been wrong about three times! Learned my lesson! Too new to this to know!

Currently working on: Script!

Overview:
GUI: 90%
Programming: 90%
Art: 40%
Writing: ?!?!

I love the realistic look of the art. It's nice to see VNs with different styles other than anime or cartoon.
If you need a proofreader, let me know.

I look forward to seeing any updates!

Beautiful artwork I'm looking
forward to this as well the characters

Oh gosh, look at all those pale-skinned men. That's my number one weakness right there. I want them all. <3 Gorgeous art and interesting concept; I'll be joining those who are looking forward to seeing this develop further.

You've an interesting premise, and lovely art. I'm very much a sucker for mature stories with "grimdark" elements.

Since you're considering a custom "home," would it be out of the question to hope for the ability to customize the protagonist's sprite?

This sounds very interesting, and I love the art! Everyone is so pretty. ^^

Gorgeous work! Can't wait to see more.

ColaCat wrote:I love the realistic look of the art. It's nice to see VNs with different styles other than anime or cartoon.
If you need a proofreader, let me know.

I look forward to seeing any updates!

Awesome! Yeah, I love seeing all the art styles around here!
When I get ready to have chunks proof read I'll definitely keep you in mind, thank you so much!

MJDAlleria wrote:Beautiful artwork I'm looking
forward to this as well the characters

Thank you very much! I'm looking forward to posting more about it

lan wrote:Oh gosh, look at all those pale-skinned men. That's my number one weakness right there. I want them all. <3 Gorgeous art and interesting concept; I'll be joining those who are looking forward to seeing this develop further.

Ahah lucky for you I have a whole island full of pale people! Thank you very much, I'm glad it sounds interesting so far!

Mad Harlequin wrote:You've an interesting premise, and lovely art. I'm very much a sucker for mature stories with "grimdark" elements.

Since you're considering a custom "home," would it be out of the question to hope for the ability to customize the protagonist's sprite?

Not out of question at all. I've been trying to work out how I could handle CG's with customized hair styles and outfits.. There are some instances where the protagonist will be in a dress (IE for a party) or in a battlefield (and thus wearing protective gear) in addition to 'typical' attire, and it seemed like it would be jarring to have her revert back to 'default' versions of the various outfits in CGs if her sprites was customized. I haven't really worked out how to handle that yet... I think some people display a cg sort of like a background template and then kind of like a dress up game move 'hair' and 'clothes' on separate sort of 'layers' over the appropriate place on the picture via code... at least, that's the only way I can imagine it being done. Well, barring drawing separate versions of each possible combination, but it seems like there should be a craftier solution! Nevertheless, If that is how it's done, I think I can still whip up at least a few different selections. Hairstyles especially would be easy to blur the line with as far as sprite to cg conversion goes...

It's got about the same priority as implementing the custom 'house' and collectables: something I'm going to work on as fluff after the rest of the game is nearly done. That said, it's something I totally want to do.

I really wanted to make the protagonist completely customizable (skin tone, facial features, body type, gender, background, family, etc...) but early on that seemed impossible to contend with on a first project and it's a bit too late out the gate for this one.

Doomzilla wrote:This sounds very interesting, and I love the art! Everyone is so pretty. ^^

Thank you! I suppose that's one upside(?) to the story focusing on elves, mostly everyone looks 20 something and prance around with their elf genetics. Of course, there are exceptions in every population >.>

I'm so glad it sounds interesting! <3

Hazel-Bun wrote:Gorgeous work! Can't wait to see more.

Thank you! I can't wait to get a demo out so people can actually try it out!
~

I'm on a mission to hack away the rest of(ok fine most of) the GUI tonight, so I'll post some screen shots of that tonight... I'm so glad some people are interested in my project~

underbliss wrote:I really wanted to make the protagonist completely customizable (skin tone, facial features, body type, gender, background, family, etc...) but early on that seemed impossible to contend with on a first project and it's a bit too late out the gate for this one.

That's understandable. I was hoping for a way to make the protagonist stand out a little more from the fair-skinned folk surrounding her, but I know some stories, especially older ones, just don't have a particularly diverse cast due to historical/cultural isolation and so on and so forth. That doesn't necessarily make them less worthy of a read. Anyway, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. You did say Edric was secluded, after all.

Another question: will we learn why these elves are so pale? The classic vampire, for example, tends to be ashen-faced when in need of blood---which, to a certain extent, naturally lends color to a person's flesh. So are we going to learn about elven biology, or will this sort of stuff be attributed to the presence of otherworldly magic? (Yes, I ask such questions. )

Mad Harlequin wrote:That's understandable. I was hoping for a way to make the protagonist stand out a little more from the fair-skinned folk surrounding her, but I know some stories, especially older ones, just don't have a particularly diverse cast due to historical/cultural isolation and so on and so forth. That doesn't necessarily make them less worthy of a read. Anyway, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. You did say Edric was secluded, after all.

Another question: will we learn why these elves are so pale? The classic vampire, for example, tends to be ashen-faced when in need of blood---which, to a certain extent, naturally lends color to a person's flesh. So are we going to learn about elven biology, or will this sort of stuff be attributed to the presence of otherworldly magic? (Yes, I ask such questions. )

Oi, I know. I have this huge photoshop file with all my sprites lined up (I'm evidently vaguely masochistic) and all the blinding paper-white x.x It is almost entirely the fault of the elves and not Edric, though. Much of the story takes place in Gha'alia, where the majority being so vividly monochromatic is rather jarring. What you suggest about a lack of diversification is infinitely true to their culture in many ways - they're a distrustful, aggressive, secluded culture not known to play well with others at all. You're in Edric for all of a hot second before whisked off to doom/glory/adventure, as an aside.
Thankfully, you do not stay in Gha'alia the entire time and there are some families who have managed to diversify their gene pool, so I have a little bit to work with in the cast. There are many, many more characters and though most of them are Gha'alian, and thus many are also paper-white, I've only posted the love interests and protagonist on this thread.

The elves! being pale! is, in the end, mostly just one of the blaring physical markers of their species. Err, it is species, isn't it? Subspecies? I never really got my head around where the defining difference was when you talk about, say, an elf and a vampire in reference to human. It's like a wolf and dog/donkey and horse I should think, because they can have babies! But humans don't work this way, and they dont suck blood to live immortal!
Further still, it's just this particular elven race, because even among elves in this setting there skin tone is unique to Gha'alia.

It isn't completely without a biological factor, though. Their environment is practically sunless, very cold, and being so close to monochrome added to their natural defenses. (their scary island has allllll sorts of mean things, some of which not even elven!)
Hehe, I love those sorts of questions! One of my dear friends who's helping me proof this game is the same way~ I fear it does make me ramble though, ahem!

rerere edit: and now the GUI war continues >:D

Ah, no problem! I'm more than happy to help.


The cold point is probably one of the biggest factors. I'm naturally brown (not black, brown) and we had a really cold winter here. My skin went so pale!
Also if you have bad circulation you can have pale skin. Maybe that's a biological thing that elves have. (?)

underbliss wrote:Thankfully, you do not stay in Gha'alia the entire time and there are some families who have managed to diversify their gene pool, so I have a little bit to work with in the cast. There are many, many more characters and though most of them are Gha'alian, and thus many are also paper-white, I've only posted the love interests and protagonist on this thread.

Good to know!

The elves! being pale! is, in the end, mostly just one of the blaring physical markers of their species. Err, it is species, isn't it? Subspecies? I never really got my head around where the defining difference was when you talk about, say, an elf and a vampire in reference to human. It's like a wolf and dog/donkey and horse I should think, because they can have babies! But humans don't work this way, and they dont suck blood to live immortal!

Well, horses and donkeys are different species, while the domestic dog is a subspecies of Canis lupus. Vampires are essentially undead humans, so I guess you would call them a subspecies of human. Elves tend to be humanoid, but are treated as a separate species.

It isn't completely without a biological factor, though. Their environment is practically sunless, very cold, and being so close to monochrome added to their natural defenses. (their scary island has allllll sorts of mean things, some of which not even elven!)
Hehe, I love those sorts of questions! One of my dear friends who's helping me proof this game is the same way~ I fear it does make me ramble though, ahem!

Oh, don't worry about rambling. I do it too.

ColaCat wrote:Ah, no problem! I'm more than happy to help. The cold point is probably one of the biggest factors. I'm naturally brown (not black, brown) and we had a really cold winter here. My skin went so pale! Also if you have bad circulation you can have pale skin. Maybe that's a biological thing that elves have. (?)

True and true.

The art(even if unfinished) looks gorgeous! The story sounds mature and very interesting, especially the part where the elves may become toothless in comparison with the heroine
I like negative characters in GxB games so I'm very intrigued)) I really liked the characters of the elves!
Laceaga(Lacey), Duliae and Ernol have caught my attention!... though Vadeyn seem to have the prettiest face out of all the bachelors.
I'm looking forward for this game! I can't wait to see more!

ColaCat wrote:Ah, no problem! I'm more than happy to help.


The cold point is probably one of the biggest factors. I'm naturally brown (not black, brown) and we had a really cold winter here. My skin went so pale!
Also if you have bad circulation you can have pale skin. Maybe that's a biological thing that elves have. (?)

Good to know!

That's an interesting thought. On one end, the elves were meant to be beyond a human spectrum anyhow - well into 'unnatural' territory by our standards (though whether or not I can draw that properly is yet to be seen), but on the other hand rooting it in some sort of flaw could be compelling... it's something to consider!

Mad Harlequin wrote: Well, horses and donkeys are different species, while the domestic dog is a subspecies of Canis lupus. Vampires are essentially undead humans, so I guess you would call them a subspecies of human. Elves tend to be humanoid, but are treated as a separate species.

Alright! Species it is! Finally, an answer to something I've managed to stay vague on for wayyyyy too long!

Erikka wrote:The art(even if unfinished) looks gorgeous! The story sounds mature and very interesting, especially the part where the elves may become toothless in comparison with the heroine
I like negative characters in GxB games so I'm very intrigued)) I really liked the characters of the elves!
Laceaga(Lacey), Duliae and Ernol have caught my attention!... though Vadeyn seem to have the prettiest face out of all the bachelors.
I'm looking forward for this game! I can't wait to see more!

Thank you!
Vadeyn, in any sort of realistic way (as in 'people I would ever actually like in real life') is far and away a favorite of mine and my helper friend.
In contrast, Lacey, and to a lesser extent, Duliae, are his complete opposite. There is no way a PC who would find themselves with Lacey could be juggling affections with Vadeyn at the same time, they admire completely opposite traits. Duliae is far more 'gray', morally. (Duliae's my favorite, in an 'unrealistic' way. )

As an aside, I didn't even realize at first that I was calling him Lacey in this thread. He is NOT called that in the game, it's this ridiculous nickname I've been calling him since he was fictionally 'born' that has evidently become second nature to me. Errrr.. Well. It's out of the bag now!

underbliss wrote:Alright! Species it is! Finally, an answer to something I've managed to stay vague on for wayyyyy too long!

Well, I'm only speaking from experience as a reader of myths and folktales, and of fantasy fiction. By all means, treat elves differently in your work if you want.

As an aside, I didn't even realize at first that I was calling him Lacey in this thread. He is NOT called that in the game, it's this ridiculous nickname I've been calling him since he was fictionally 'born' that has evidently become second nature to me. Errrr.. Well. It's out of the bag now!

I was wondering about that. Maybe you could make the nickname an in-joke of some kind!