Lemma Soft Forums

Lev Venyaminovich/Lyubov Venyaminovna Morgenshtern isn't anybody in particular; a small-time writer of pulp horror, a dabbling mystic, once the star pupil of Svet Dmitrin's best yeshiva, poised to become a notable rabbi ... but that's the past, and Lev/Lyubov, genderfluid, genderfucked, gay, is now homeless.

Until one Anzu Tamiratovich Menelik takes pity, provides a place to stay. How can one not fall in love, then? Anzu is a necromancer, a dandy, and he's got his own secrets to keep.

As Lev/Lyubov recovers from a rough run of months, Anzu reveals that he's uncovered something rather eldritch going down in the city ... but following the trail will cost the two of them dear.






Currently, we're a writer/narrative designer and an artist! The wonderful GUI was done by a freelancer, potoutp.






Our artist is working on the sprite sketches; the writer has begun writing the first two chapters, that will be released as a demo in October 2018.

• Does the story sound appealing to you?
• What kind of thing would you be interested in exploring in a fantasy city?
• Would you be interested in playing a test build, e.g. one with the final GUI, but no backgrounds or sprites, just the dialogue and narration text?
• Would you support a Patreon if you could play such early test builds as part of the rewards?
• In a story that isn't just about romance, do you prefer sex scenes to be explicit or fade-to-black or having the choice between the two?

CHANGELOG:
- July 9, 2018: shiny new thread, with brand-new graphics and information!
- July 15, 2018: added feedback questions

Right, edited the OP so it's better-written and also incidentally a mirror of the OP I'm using for my TIGsource DevLog forum thread. Anyway, there's a small preview of a demo out and the actual demo's coming soon—exact release date depends on how fast I can write it.

The story sounds very unique and interesting! I checked out a little bit of the demo and I like how there are some highlighted words you can mouse-over to get a definition for - that's a pretty cool feature. I look forward to seeing the art you get for it later on! I wouldn't be surprised if having some nice art to show would get some more people interested too.

Thank you! I'm very glad you like it and I'm glad the tooltip feature is working out! A lot of people have commented on how nice/neat it is, which pleases me.

I was originally going to do the art assets myself, but I'm not so sure on that right now. In any case, the text-only demo is the priority, for the time being. I'm not bad at art, but I'm not very quick and I need to improve quite a lot before I can take on an illustration project like this one.

But hey, art of some of the characters does exist! A friend of mine drew Anzu and Lev for me a short while back!

Anzu and Lev were the two characters in minor fall MAJOR LIFT, right? I liked that game, it'll be cool to see the two of them make a return.

Hello everyone, this is the writer of this project! I've updated the OP with shiny new graphics and information. Keep an eye out for progress screenshots and character introductions soon!

Zelan wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:34 pm Anzu and Lev were the two characters in minor fall MAJOR LIFT, right? I liked that game, it'll be cool to see the two of them make a return.

Yes, they were indeed!

Latest achievements in development:

• finished the GUI, with the exceptions of the Gallery menu (nothing to test it with, yet) and the Musicbox (don't have the assets yet)
• successfully changed the fonts to a more suitable typeface that is also free to use, package and distribute
• implemented a fairmath relationship system to track how much various NPCs like the narrator
• alongside that, implemented a way to track the mood of each character, so I can vary responses based on mood, relationship status, etc. as well as on what's been said
• aaaand implemented a way to track how hopeful/hopeless the overall situation is, which also influences the choices you get and so on.

Next up is redesigning the demo around these new mechanics, which might take like half an hour or a few days. There's kind of no way to tell, unfortunately.

I thought I'd add a few feedback prompts! There's a couple of things I'd like to know, for example if people want to see early builds w/out graphics. The feedback questions have been added to the OP!

Does the story sound appealing to you?: Yup!

What kind of thing would you be interested in exploring in a fantasy city?: Small businesses are where it's at, all of the time. The demo for the game Arena Circus has a really cool city exploration phase that is pretty much exactly the kind of stuff that I like to see. (It doesn't necessarily have to be an open-world exploration, but the interlocking storylines of all the citizens are really cool.)

Would you be interested in playing a test build, e.g. one with the final GUI, but no backgrounds or sprites, just the dialogue and narration text?: I would be, but I don't have a lot of time in my schedule nowadays to play demos considering how many full games I still haven't finished.

Would you support a Patreon if you could play such early test builds as part of the rewards?: Unfortunately, I'm unable to use Patreon or similar services at the time.

In a story that isn't just about romance, do you prefer sex scenes to be explicit or fade-to-black or having the choice between the two?: I think the choice is always good to have - it's not too too difficult to program and it will broaden your audience to allow for those with different preferences to enjoy the VN.