Echoes of the Fey - Episode 0 [FANTASY][DRAMA][GxB]

[storykween]

Here is my latest project, Echoes of the Fey - Episode 0: The Immolation, currently in Steam Greenlight!

WATCH TRAILER:


INTRODUCTION TO EPISODE 0: THE IMMOLATION

"Echoes of the Fey" is a visual novel series following a flawed but forcefully optimistic heroine, Sofya Rykov, trapped amidst the conflict between Humans and Leshin (elves). For thirty years, the continent of Oraz has been wracked by the great war between its peoples. The East is ruled by the kingdom of the Humans, divided up into counties and family houses. Beyond the great forest of the west is the Leshin, undying men and women with a strong connection to the Fey, capable of powerful magic.

Humans cannot wield Fey magic on their own, but they know how to channel it into machines called Fey reactors and manipulate it for their purposes. Deeply offended by this use of Fey energy, the Leshin have been fighting for decades to disarm Humans of their Fey reactor technology.

"Echoes of the Fey: Episode 0 - The Immolation" is a short prequel to "Echoes of the Fey: Episode 1 - The Fox's Trail," already released. It reveals the origin of Sofya's strange abilities and how she came to meet Heremon ir-Caldy. Although Episode 1 is a commercial project, Episode 0 will be released for FREE upon completion.

ABOUT WOODSY STUDIO

I (Jenny Gibbons) run Woodsy Studio along with Malcolm Pierce, and this will be our fifth released visual novel. You can find more info about our previous games on our website, which include Serafina's Saga, Serafina's Crown, Quantum Conscience, and Echoes of the Fey: Episode 1. Although we're usually the sole developers of our projects, we hire out for voice acting in our games, and we occasionally recruit other people such as artists and sound designers to help us out.

DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS

Currently Episode 0 is about 75% done, and the remaining 25% primarily consists of UI touch-ups, bug fixing, and adding features. The script is written, VA is complete, *most* artwork is finished, most of the code foundation is in place, and almost all the scenes have been coded in.

This is the first visual novel we've made in Unreal Engine 4, so it has been an interesting adventure so far! Naturally, it was difficult getting started setting up our own visual novel engine within UE4, but now that we've got the hang of it, we're really loving the engine altogether. We've actually had a lot fewer problems so far than we experienced with Game Maker, our previous engine. Before that we used Ren'Py, which I still think is a fantastic engine, and there are a lot of times I miss it.

We've been sitting in Greenlight for awhile, but we're hoping we can get Greenlit by the time we're finished with the game, so we can release it free onto Steam as soon as possible!

DESIRED FEEDBACK

Because this is our first foray into the realm of 3D, we're curious to hear what people think of the current art style and the way we try to blend 2D sprites into a 3D world. I'd also be curious to hear what people think of the trailer and overall story pitch above - does it leave you wanting to play the game? If not, why?