Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

Ideas and games that are not yet publicly in production. This forum also contains the pre-2012 archives of the Works in Progress forum.
Message
Author
Kazegen
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:18 am
Contact:

Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#1 Post by Kazegen »

(The title's tentative, I don't really have a better name right now.)

The world goes dark at the 13th hour. Right between 11:59 and 12:00 AM, time freezes. Here, shadows play.

In this world there is a War, with 7 Participants, each with their own Shadow.

Their Shadows represent the worst parts of themselves, the parts they hide from the world.

To eliminate another Participant, another must go into their mind and break them from the inside out.

Only one can win. Nobody knows all the rules. The winner gets one strings-free wish from the heart of humanity.

You have to be heartless to win. Good thing our protagonist fits the bill.

-----

(no image currently)

At 17 years old, Saigi Elsee finds life boring. An arrogant individual, he thinks he can predict how people work. He sees the people around him and sees archetypes and cliches. He searches for the "twists" in people, becoming their friend to see how they tick, then abandons them like old books. His own words are, "If it's a closed system with defined rules, I can break it." The War is his perfect playground, and he's the favorite to win.

-----

Image

Michi Nagasumi is the childhood friend of Saigi Elsea. She has a crush on him, and he knows it. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't care. He's long since figured her out. He's only her friend because she won't go away. Saigi finds taunting her with half-flirts entertaining, so she won't give up. A "tsundere" according to Saigi.

-----

Image

Naya Nagase is a friend of Saigi's who can only be described by the word "aloof". She acts cool, and always distant. Saigi is currently trying to figure her out, so she's included among their little friend group for now. Her mystery lures Saigi in, and right now it's the only thing keeping her interested. A "kuudere" according to Saigi.

-----

On the first night of the War, Saigi awakes to find a man who looks exactly like him hanging over his bed, silouetted by the light of the moon. He asks: "Are you the real me?" He calls himself Hidora, and says that he is Saigi's shadow. Little does he know, Hidora is actually the human form of the Hydra, from the labors of Heracles. From there, they go on to find secrets they thought never existed, to find and eliminate the other Participants and have their wish granted.

****************************************************************

If this seems similar to Fate/Stay Night, that's because it was inspired by it. However, I gave it a more psychological twist. One thing I didn't mention indepth in the synopsis there was the "mental worlds" bit. Saigi has to explore the mental worlds of the participants, and to defeat them he has to deconstruct their defense mechanisms and expose who they really are to the world.

The story's underway in Renpy, but right now I don't have a demo. Current lint report says:
Statistics:

The game contains 864 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 10,798 words,
for an average of 12.5 words per screen.
The game contains 11 menus.
All images are placeholders right now until I can get an artist.

So, anybody interested in this? Any artists willing to contribute something until I can get my art to resemble professional quality?
Last edited by Kazegen on Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

Fawn
Moe Imouto
Posts: 911
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 10:38 pm
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#2 Post by Fawn »

Oh god, that red-headed girl is a re-color from a hardcore guro game... *shivers*

HigurashiKira
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 832
Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 9:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#3 Post by HigurashiKira »

*allofmymoney.jpng*
This sounds like a game I'm going to love. A lot
And yay, a character from Yandere
I have moved to a new account. Please contact me here from now on. T/Y~

PrivateEyes
Regular
Posts: 83
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 5:46 am
Completed: House 666
Projects: Shattered Eternity
Location: The Bowels of the Human Mind
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#4 Post by PrivateEyes »

Sounds very interesting. Is it just me or is the 'hidden hour' concept from P3P (Persona 3)? :D
Why live if in the end, we all die? I guess to suffer? I really have no clue.....


Please visit my Youtube channel! :D http://www.youtube.com/user/YugiohGX913?feature=mhum

GJsoft

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#5 Post by GJsoft »

*CONTENT DELETED*
Last edited by GJsoft on Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
TsukiShima
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 778
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:47 am
Projects: Heartful Memory
Location: Malaysia
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#6 Post by TsukiShima »

Oh wow, it does sounds like F/SN when I first read it, and I'm one of the fan :'D (playing F/SN Realta Nua recently) but with a badass character! Which is different from Shirou Emiya.
And the girls ,they suppose to look 'cute' eh, I'm sure I won't mind getting heartless to play this and maybe get to kill even one of those girls? lol -has a gory image in mind-

I shall be looking forward for this game!

User avatar
Auro-Cyanide
ssǝʇunoƆ ʇɹ∀
Posts: 3059
Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2010 9:02 am
Completed: http://auro-cyanide.tumblr.com/visualnovels
Projects: Athena
Organization: Cyanide Tea
Tumblr: auro-cyanide
Deviantart: Auro-Cyanide
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#7 Post by Auro-Cyanide »

Reminds me a bit of Mirai Nikki. Sounds cool, and I like the idea of exploring the psychology of the characters. Chuck in some gore and I am sold.

Kazegen
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:18 am
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#8 Post by Kazegen »

Ok, so what's the general consensus on demos here? I've got a small section working but I'm not sure what an acceptable length for a demo is here. Can anybody fill me in on that?

User avatar
azureXtwilight
Megane Procrastinator
Posts: 4118
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:54 am
Completed: Fantasia series (ROT and ROTA), Doppleganger: Dawn of The Inverted Soul, a2 (a due), Time Labyrinth
Projects: At Regime's End
Organization: Memento-Mori VNs, Team Sleepyhead
Location: Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#9 Post by azureXtwilight »

Congratulations, Sir. You have piqued the interest of a lurker oWo

I really like psychological games, and this one looks good! Wish to know more!

About demo, how about 20-30 minutes? Or any length is fine, at least we can already form opinions about each characters...
Image

Kazegen
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:18 am
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#10 Post by Kazegen »

Well, you'll be pleased to know that work on the demo is underway, so hopefully I should have a workable amount of story available for 20-30 minutes.

It's just that writing in a straight chronological line isn't really what I do. I like to write the parts of the story as they come to my head, and most often they aren't in the beginning. So I'm trying my best here to make a solid storyline for the first 20-30 minutes.

Just wanted to give you an update.

Also, just know that most if not all images in the demo are going to be placeholders, unless someone would like to contribute art, which likely won't happen until I put forth the demo. Catch-22!

Kazegen
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:18 am
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#11 Post by Kazegen »

Hey, I'm almost done with the ending of the game!

Unfortuntately, the demo will not contain that...
why can't i just write in chronological order :cry:

Also, the images in the opening post have been replaced.
I should have actual art up soon!

User avatar
TsukiShima
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 778
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:47 am
Projects: Heartful Memory
Location: Malaysia
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#12 Post by TsukiShima »

You are working well! I shall wait for the new demo to be release.

I want to help you, but unfortunately I'll be gone for a long time in November, so I can't really offer my help. But I'll tell you you have my support because I like your game! xD

Good luck!

Crusher
Regular
Posts: 72
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:17 am
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#13 Post by Crusher »

Sounds wonderful. I was always fascinated by the idea of "walking into the minds of others" as well, I actually planned a SciFi story where you do that with androids to deactivate them.
It does sound pretty much like persona, but in my opinion the persona games didn't execute the psychological possibilities of that (in fact it wasn't "deep" at all), so I'm very curious how this will turn out. However, the similarity may become a huge problem for you since it is more than obvious you copied from Persona with the dark hour and the shadows.

I hope the 10k words are not the whole story though? There's certainly a need for character development, that takes a little while.

Kazegen
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:18 am
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#14 Post by Kazegen »

Actually, the idea of the dark hour comes from a great series of novels I once read called "The Midnighters". They're pretty nice books, so I would reccommend checking them out at least once if you are interested in that kind of thing.

However, I'm trying to at least put my own creative spin on it, so the dark Hour isn't so much the main focus of the book as it is an alternate setting. The focus of the story (for the beginning at least) will be more on the rules of the War and how knowing or not knowing those rules can affect how you fight in the War. Also, there are loopholes in the rules that give advantages to people who can figure out the hidden secrets in the wording.

A good example of this:
One rule states that objects cannot be moved in the Hour unless they were being touched by a Participant when the Hour started. Time is frozen in the Hour; the only things that aren't frozen are light, air and microscopic particles so you can see, breath and move. Only the Participants and their Shadows can move around in the Hour. However, Shadows can move objects in the Hours. So, if your door was closed and you needed to open it, you would need to get your shadow to open your door for you.
Another rule states that there is a fixed location at which you will always spawn when the Hour begins. If a person is killed, but not mentally broken (through the method of going into that person's mind), you respawn at the end of the Hour. However, at the end of the Hour you go back to where you were a second before the Hour started.

So, combining these two rules: If you know where the exact location of where somebody spawns, and you know they aren't there; go find a bucket of water. Then, one second before the Hour starts, throw the water onto where they spawn.
If you've done it right, and you're lucky, congratulations. You've just killed them through suffocation. (The water is displaced so the person can spawn, but they're surrounded by water they can't move. If you're lucky, you've surrounded their head with water so there's no air for them to breath. It's probable that if their Shadow isn't nearby that they'll suffocate before the Shadow can move enough water.)

Also: I'm not a psychologist. I know a great deal about psychology, but I haven't been formally trained in psychology. I also have a great deal of love for Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. I recognize that they're outdated, but the concepts that they came up with fascinate me. So, don't expect a whole bunch of jargon and complicated explanations (unless it's Saigi, he does that). Expect the Psychonauts version of psychology.

Also, NOW the art has been replaced. I was having a problem with photobucket a while ago, but now it's fixed.

Veniae
Veteran
Posts: 461
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:01 am
Contact:

Re: Kage no Kokoro [Modern Fantasy Psychological Thriller]

#15 Post by Veniae »

This sounds really, really interesting. I can't wait to see more!

A quick question though, before I get my hopes high: Is it going to be free or commercial?

Either way, good luck!

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users