Goetia Club [Horrorish Dramedy] [All types romance]

[Hyraculon]

Hello! I've been lurking awhile, but I figured it's about time I finally posted something. I'm currently working on a non-commercial visual novel and I figured I could use some support (and some accountability), so here we go!

Goetia Club

Story

The year: 199X.
The setting: A tiny town in the American Midwest
The story: Four teenage outcasts decide to end the school year with a bang: by summoning demons at the junior-senior prom.

Characters

Main Character (name and gender chosen by the player)
Recently moved from LA due to parents' messy divorce. Likes to write stories about vampires, draw comics about vampires, and pretend to be a vampire. Wears a trench coat even in the summer.


Penny
A playful, energetic girl whose dream in life is to become a comedian. She might seem like she's always goofing off, but she's actually very hard-working and ruthless in her ambitions. She is the founder and tyrant of the Goetia Club.


Louie
The aspiring rock star. He can be irritable at times, and he's a little rough around the edges, but he's a kind-hearted boy who is always thinking about others. His dark secret? Louis is actually his middle name. His first name is Lestat, because his mother was a couple decades too early for Twilight.


Freddie
Freddie's a young Wiccan who accidentally planted the idea of demon-summoning into Penny's head. She's extremely intelligent and speaks four languages, but does poorly in school, mostly due to her cripplingly low self-esteem. Her hobbies are reading fantasy books and trying to make herself invisible via sheer willpower. It hasn't worked yet.

Planned features

- Date the characters or try to get them to date each other
- Affection points system
- Puzzles
- Multiple endings
- Custom GUIs

Current word count: (as of Dec 29, 2013): 11,987

[gekiganwing]

You've got a premise which I haven't seen before, a defined setting, and a concept that I've been hoping that someone would try (the main character as a matchmaker, encouraging relationships between NPCs). And even though I like ridiculously cute art, I'm also on the lookout for VNs with distinct and different styles.

A question that will likely bring about spoilers, and which might be too early: is it even possible that the characters can summon demons? Or might they be limited to creating a special effects show? If the former is true, then horror is a very real option. If the latter is true... or if demons turn out to be inept / harmless, then that offers comedy opportunities.

- Affection points system
- Puzzles

How much story do you want to write, and how much gameplay do you want to create? This is an important question, because if you prefer to create either story or gameplay, then you don't want to spend time making the one which you like less.

[Hyraculon]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment.

A question that will likely bring about spoilers, and which might be too early: is it even possible that the characters can summon demons?

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that they will be summoning demons, especially since I have some nice demon art to show off once it's been colored.

I think I probably didn't manage to convey my tone properly, huh? I'm shooting for something along the lines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; drama at the core, but with plenty of humor and the occasional moment of genuine horror.

How much story do you want to write, and how much gameplay do you want to create? This is an important question, because if you prefer to create either story or gameplay, then you don't want to spend time making the one which you like less.

I had to chew on this one a bit. Writing is the part I enjoy more, but my major motivation by starting this project was to teach myself how to design and program a game. So right now it's creating the gameplay that I need to concentrate on. I don't worry about writing slowing me down, though, since I do most of that on my breaks at work, which means that whenever I'm working on it at home, I can devote my time to programming and graphic design (I have a couple of magnificent friends helping me out with the sprites, but the rest I need to do myself).

[Katta]

I like your story. The art is really nice too, but isn't Penny looking a bit too young?
And I liked Buffy) (thought I'd mention it)

[Hyraculon]

I like your story. The art is really nice too, but isn't Penny looking a bit too young?

She does, doesn't she? She's just a little short for her age...

Maybe she skipped a grade, too. She's a clever girl.

[Katta]

I like your story. The art is really nice too, but isn't Penny looking a bit too young?

She does, doesn't she? She's just a little short for her age...

Maybe she skipped a grade, too. She's a clever girl.

Oh, I know! It's a curse from a demon, that she stopped growing up)

[Meneil]

I like where this story is going too, but I want to know more! The title says it's horror-ish, but what makes it horror? Is it the demon-summoning part? The characters and descriptions make me think it's more comedy, especially since the main character likes pretending to be a vampire, and the other two look quirky in a cute kinda way. Good luck to you and your project

[Hyraculon]

I like where this story is going too, but I want to know more! The title says it's horror-ish, but what makes it horror? Is it the demon-summoning part? The characters and descriptions make me think it's more comedy, especially since the main character likes pretending to be a vampire, and the other two look quirky in a cute kinda way. Good luck to you and your project

Thank you!

And the demon-summoning part is the horror, yes. The demons will drag each of them into a nightmare world of their own creation, and they'll have to depend on their friends to break them out of it. They'll get to fight against personified versions of their own teenage angst.

[Hyraculon]

Real life slammed me hard in November, but I'm still chugging along on this. I kept wanting to wait until I had something polished to post again, but maaaybe that defeats the purpose of having a progress log.

So I thought I might share my lovely title screen, not quite to scale, but at exactly the perfect size for viewing:

titlescreen.png (33.03 KiB) Viewed 3682 times

And my wonderful text box styling. VERY TEXT BOX, SO TUTORIAL:

Whatever else can be said about it, I'm pretty sure I'm at least learning something! Probably not graphic design, though. I don't appear to be picking that up at all.

[gekiganwing]

I remember this project, and I'm glad to see that it's still being written.

The demons will drag each of them into a nightmare world of their own creation, and they'll have to depend on their friends to break them out of it. They'll get to fight against personified versions of their own teenage angst.

That's pretty similar to the premise of Persona 4. That can be a good point of comparison. If you're familiar with the game and its adaptations, think about how your story compares and contrasts. (If you're not familiar with it, look at its tvtropes.org entry, since it automatically blanks out spoilers. Some walkthroughs on gamefaqs.com omit spoilers. Its Wikipedia article and Megami Tensei Wiki article both spoil the entire plot!)

[Ferdokki]

I think the concept sounds pretty cool!

2 criticisms:
1. Um, no offense, but Penny's outfit kinda makes her look like a hick.
2. The title menu looks kinda messy. The font, border framing, and menu options look fine, but I think the rest of the background looks kinda lame.
No offense. >.<

[Hyraculon]

That's pretty similar to the premise of Persona 4.

Persona 4 was in fact one of my inspirations, along with Silent Hill/Disgaea 3/Psychonauts. I really like that idea of wandering around through the physical manifestation of somebody's emotional issues. I hope people don't end up thinking that I ripped P4 off, since there are more similar themes than just that, but I don't want to tell the same kind of overarching story so I think I should be okay.

I think the concept sounds pretty cool!

2 criticisms:
1. Um, no offense, but Penny's outfit kinda makes her look like a hick.

2. The title menu looks kinda messy. The font, border framing, and menu options look fine, but I think the rest of the background looks kinda lame.
No offense. >.<

Thank you!

1. Penny's overalls are supposed to look super 80s rather than hickish, though I can see what you mean. Her terrible fashion sense is actually a minor plot point, though!

2. The title page is only a placeholder. I meant to mention that but I seem to have forgotten. I needed to get the coding hashed out so I threw together something I figured would make me smile every time I launched the game. To its credit, it works in that capacity.

And no offense taken, of course! I welcome whatever criticisms people may have.

[Ferdokki]

Ah, I see, you're making Penny's outfit something like this:
http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.48073409 ... =1&pid=1.7

right?
In that case, I guess it's fine. Or maybe you could make the overall strap fall off her shoulder instead of having it completely unbuttoned.

[Hyraculon]

I'm making slow but steady progress! I have the NVL textbox all setup with a nice placeholder image in there. Beating all the menus and boxes into shape has been rough, but at least I feel like I'm learning. I'm looking forward to finishing so I can get back to work on the parts that are a little more fun.

[Ferdokki]

The textbox looks great! =D
I especially like the Calavera you've got in your doodles. n__n