De Profundis [Music Novel] [Psychological/Mystery] [FR]

[Doedelzak]

Please note that contrary to this topic, the game itself is only in French for now. It should thus only interest the french-reading and/or curious among you.
An English language version of this act 1 should however be published on this forum in a few months max.

Download links:

Windows : http://we.tl/EWk00igkgb
Mac : http://we.tl/2AmPm6H66V
Linux : http://we.tl/seJ87OqVwo

There has been an incident of sorts at the Val de Pitié shopping mall. Noise, destruction, a wave of chaos, and then darkness. Darkness everywhere.
Thirty-something painter Daniel was caught in that explosion and finds himself surrounded by debris and silence in some nondescript underground labyrinth, without any light source.
Fortunately(?) he's not alone. He encounters a mysterious young woman, Thémis, who seems to be able to guide herself with strange familiarity in the dark: indeed, Daniel learns not before long that she is blind. She could be of precious help in finding again the light.

They soon encounter other people, each strangely void of any lighting device... and the group then tries to collaborate and get back to the surface.
But in full darkness, everything seems possible. Especially with no way to see - nor fully understand.

De Profundis is an ongoing game project by french collective 'points contigus', comprised of Hélo, Lepanthes and myself (listed as 'Cornemuse' in the game credits).

This game isn't strictly speaking a 'visual novel', as it is almost devoid of any graphics: which is justified by the fact that the story is happening in full darkness. It could be called instead a 'music novel', as most effort has been deployed towards its soundtrack and sound effects.

There's no voice acting, however each line of dialogue is accompanied by one musical note or one melody. And each story character has their own 'voice' symbolized by a unique music instrument: for example, the protagonist Daniel's spoken words is always accompanied by grand piano notes.


The gameplay itself is traditional, based upon multiple choices which determine the story branches. Relative to the game's middle length, the choices are quite numerous: they underline an unreported relation points system between the protagonist and the other characters, where the player can try to get more or less affinity with each accompanying character. Their attitude towards Daniel change according to his continuing answers to the many choice prompts.

The game's structure patterns itself around a standard 'character route' template, and one of the game's main objectives is to complete each of these character storylines by rising the affinity with this particular character. Daniel being a painter, getting to a character's ending, which is equivalent to getting to know them intimately (one way or another), leads to his imagining of a portrait or painting linked to this character. Each of those paintings then appears on the title screen (Daniel's art studio), giving a sense of the player's progression within the game.

The total duration of the game should be around 10 hours with 7 concurring endings. There will be a 'true end', however we're trying to make each ending interesting by itself, with its own... distinctive flavor, of sorts.

We're currently approaching the two-thirds of the French version's development. With the first third up and ready for download, we've made our way well within the writing of the second third, and the last third is all planned out with the structure and synopsis finalized.
The English language 'international' version (by a bilingual French/English helper based in the UK) should begin shortly.


Credits (French version):

Cornemuse: Music, sound design, story planning, writing and programming
Lepanthes: Story planning, writing, programming, debugging and visual design
Hélo: Drawing and paintings


Questions :

-What do you think of the game's sound ambiance in general?

-Is there a good rhythm to the narration? Any long-drawn-out or instead too abrupt sections?

-What is your own preferred sequence?

-Who is your current preferred character?

-Do you have any hypothesis regarding the various mysteries in the game story?



In any case thanks for playing !

Download links:

Windows : http://we.tl/EWk00igkgb
Mac : http://we.tl/2AmPm6H66V
Linux : http://we.tl/seJ87OqVwo

[PyTom]

This is an English-language forum, so for this game to be discussed, the post (but not the game itself) must be in English.

[Doedelzak]

Okay, sorry, I will translate the game presentation !

[Doedelzak]

The game presentation has been updated and translated into english.

We hope we'll find some french speaking players to try it ! Anyway, we are currently working on the entire translation of this first act.