of all there is [BxB...?][Fantasy][Demo out!]

[Ghost of Crux]

The Skyfolk has always been, and always will be, bound by the laws that govern the skies. Revolutions of the stars and comets and galaxies are determined by the laws of physics, by things that can be measured. The Skyfolk do not deviate.

The Skyfolk do not create revolutions.

But when one-- the herald, some say, or the sayer, or the echoes and, in some circles, the new vortex-- attempts to spread the lingering whispers from the other creatures in the universe, the kingdom decides to take action, before anything drastic could happen. The Emissary-- has many names, most of them temporary, transient-- is to dissuade the herald, who calls himself Seth, by any means possible.

Download

Dropbox | Itch.io
Tumblr post here.
Custom music here.

Feedback questions:

1. What do you think of the characters? Did you get at least an image of their personalities?
2. Is the world building enough, too much, or too little? Is it too confusing?
3. Any input on the assets usage front, ie. whether the art or music fits, or whether the dialogue makes sense?
4. Suggestions for the finer details, ie. fonts or small things like hover icons? (I can add a dyslexia-friendly font for the final version)
5. Or maybe you’d like to be a beta-tester for the final version? :’D

The Emissary

As a comet, the Emissary is but a transient being in the grand scale of time. His name is uncertain, and it changes depending on who is referring to him, but due to his current task, he is the Emissary. He does not seem to understand-- nor does he think he could understand-- the intentions of Seth the herald's actions, but could he somehow be swayed?

Seth, The Herald

A powerful pulsar, Seth the Herald is widely known for the words he speaks. He seems to have the ability to hear and voice the voices of the other creatures of the universe. The question is, is this a gift, or a curse? He is set in his ways, though, and seems mostly amused at the Emissary, and is content to spend long periods of time trying to convince him to believe.

What's in the VN?

> 4 endings
> 3 parts
> A shitton of art, because I can
> my tears

The reason why I have ? in BxB is because teeechnically, a pulsar and a comet doesn't have genders. Some skyfolk refer to themselves with a particular gender (for humans' convenience and in our terminology, anyway) but honestly, the best way to refer to them is as xyr and xe. BUT since this is a VN and I'm not here to beat people with proper ambiguous pronouns, I will refer to them as he.

But that's just miscellaneous notes.

[Kumiho]

Ooh! Your gui is adorable (and I love the 16-bit[??] feel), and your art is absolutely gorgeous <3 Your story sounds interesting, too! ++ You could always refer to the characters with "them" pronouns, and I think most people would even be accepting of "xer" pronouns, although how you address your characters is 100% up to you. Even Undertale, a fairly mainstream game, used ambiguous pronouns for the two main characters. Regardless, I'm totally looking forward to this VN!

[Ghost of Crux]

Ooh! Your gui is adorable (and I love the 16-bit[??] feel), and your art is absolutely gorgeous <3 Your story sounds interesting, too! ++ You could always refer to the characters with "them" pronouns, and I think most people would even be accepting of "xer" pronouns, although how you address your characters is 100% up to you. Even Undertale, a fairly mainstream game, used ambiguous pronouns for the two main characters. Regardless, I'm totally looking forward to this VN!

Thank you! To be honest, this entire VN is mostly due to my sudden want for something with binary-tool aesthetics, and this just... accidentally happened xD;
I'm glad you think it's interesting, too.

Well, I was going to refer to them with xe and xyr, but then I thought, well-- a lot of the minor characters prefer those pronouns, while these two are impartial. I thought I might as well as use those pronouns for the ones that truly mattered; these two are based off some manga characters, anyway. it's a covert otp vn


Thank you!

UPDATE - sprite sketches

[Ghost of Crux]

Did quite a lot since the last update. Finished ~7 new sprites, including the back of the ghost of crux itself. Is it a namedrop when it's your namesake? Or is that stealing?

Anyway. I've been writing a bit, too, and while I won't put up percentage on the writing since I have no idea how long it will be, but it's probably a twentieth of what the entire thing would end up being. I decided that while I have 3 endings, each endings will have two variants each-- one normal, one romantic. It won't change how it ends but it would change the dynamics towards the end, so I'm going to estimate 20k of writing because I would have to write quite a bit. Who knows, though. This VN has far less words than Many A Weary Foot, so I might be overestimating the number.

Sneak peek to both sprites and writing:


I finished the splash screen, too. Which I will show, because I like my unicorns.

[Thirteen]

I love the art style of this. I'm definitely a fan of "pixel" art. And the atmosphere of the game looks really good too.

[ikebuguro]

This looks so good I'm so pumped, the art is ridiculously gorgeous, and it sounds very interesting!

[Ghost of Crux]

@ Thirteen ; Thank you! I'm planning to use just atmosphere for the CGs, and I'm glad you like the art style! it's so much easier to draw

@ ikebuguro ; Thank you so much! I'm glad you think so > u < I hope it lives up to expectations, ahahaha

[Ghost of Crux]

Finished a background and the sprites for a minor character. His name is Crab, he's a nebula, and he's gaudy as heck.



A better image of the background:



The Emissary will get a whole lot of sprites, two of which I should work on right now, actually. There would be a bit of variation to him as time progresses, and he'll slowly start being more expressive. Will this mean that the end product will have me redrawing him over 20 times? Yes. Do I regret? Yes.

BUT HEY I'm a masochist.

[Ghost of Crux]

One does not know the importance of pupils in conveying emotions until they draw someone with no pupils trying to convey emotions...

Been mostly working on arts and sending the WIP to a friend so she can help me with the music. Anyone who wants to help can contact me; I'm not really good with assigning soundtracks to scenes. By not really good, I mean cannot, at all.

[KiloTango]

Really loving the aesthetics of this, there's something really classy about the aliased, limited colour palette you're using. The story sounds interesting as well!

[Ghost of Crux]

Really loving the aesthetics of this, there's something really classy about the aliased, limited colour palette you're using. The story sounds interesting as well!

Thank you! I'm glad it's pleasing 8D;
It's really fun and easy to draw as well, so it's a win win

[Ghost of Crux]

Main menu! I've been using a placeholder menu for a while, which is an art of The Herald that cemented the coloring style of this entire VN, which you can see here.
Next I'll probably work on the preferences screen, but honestly, with this cold, I just wanna sleep.

[Thirteen]

your art style is too good. Like ugh I'm so pumped for this game. I'm just going to like stare at it and enjoy the art, bc it is so good!!!!!

[Ghost of Crux]

your art style is too good. Like ugh I'm so pumped for this game. I'm just going to like stare at it and enjoy the art, bc it is so good!!!!!

Thank you! I actually released a mini demo of it-- you should be able to stare at the art in detail then xD
It's got a bunch of sprites that I haven't posted here, at least for the Herald. More art, yay?

Tumblr

[KiloTango]

The demo is really lovely! It's a really intriguing world.

A couple of suggestions though: It might be worth colouring the name labels in the text box to differentiate between the labels and what's actually being said. Also a shorter transition between sprites might suit the aliased style of them: the slow dissolve between them feels a little odd with the cool hard-edged look of them.

Can't wait to read more though, this is really cool so far!