There have always been stories about Touchstone, the little town on the isle of Asherah.
They say the island is cursed. That strange and terrifying demons wait on its shores.
And the only thing that can keep them at bay is the strange lighthouse on the other side of the forest...
and the Eternal Flame that burns within.
Nobody knows how long the lighthouse has been there, or who first kindled the Eternal Flame.
But the only one that can keep it burning is the lighthouse keeper.
A monster with cursed blood running through their veins.
It's a melancholy little story about isolation, connections, fate and memory. It focuses on The Keeper, the creature tasked with taking care of the Eternal Flame, and what happens when his solitary, ostracised and resigned life is disrupted by a young woman who is fascinated by the stories of the monster in the Lighthouse.
The Keeper (namable)
Our narrator. A quiet creature who gave up everything to tend the Flame. Feared and shunned by the other islanders, he keeps to himself. He seems to have given up on his past and his future in favour of throwing himself into his work, but may not have come to terms with his fate as much as he thinks he has.
Sienna
A young woman with unusual opinions about the monster who tends the Lighthouse. A bit of firebrand with a deep curiosity and a heavy dose of wanderlust, she's stubborn and likes to tease people, but is kind at heart. Sienna is the daughter of a noble family but has little interest in her fathers plans for her, instead searching for the answers to a mystery from her childhood.
Kendrick
As far as he is concerned, Kendrick is Sienna's fiancé. A well-to-do young man with an angry streak who is quick to turn to violence and has been taking out his frustrations on the Keeper's shrine. While he may have nothing but scorn for the Keeper, he does care for Sienna deeply and is concerned about her wandering and infatuation with the Lighthouse
Rusty
Sienna's little brother. Lacking in real confidence, he's easily taken in by Kendrick's bravado and looks up to him like a big brother. Cares for his sister a lot but does not always have faith in her decisions.
Iona
A girl from the Keeper's past. Brave and kind, and the person who most reached out to him in his darkest times.
In-game example (BG slighly in progress)
Textbox example (with VERY PLACEHOLDER background)
Main Menu
System UI example
Music
The Lighthouse has a fully custom soundtrack. Here's a little crossfade of some of the completed tracks.
The Team
Starship ★ Palindrome is a transatlantic duo and The Lighthouse is our first big project together. We are powered by coffee, spiral energy, over the top scifi/fantasy, and being mean to protagonists. We're hoping to carry on into a bunch of other little VN/KNs after this. Meanwhile, I better introduce us:
TK (Octopuddle on here)
Space pirate princess and lead pixel-slinger. Last seen off the coast of andromeda, or somewhere in America. It's easy to get the two confused. TK is in charge of the sprites and backgrounds on this one. She made most of the pretty pictures up there.
KT (KiloTango, the muppet writing this post)
Time traveling detective from another universe (called England). Possibly. If you squint. KT is on words, code, music and UI design on this one. And drawing celtic knotwork over everything so TK doesn't break my legs for specifying so much fiddly nonsense in the design ideas.
Everything Else
We had totally planned to do this all in March but... well, frankly I got a bit carried away and we bit off a bit more than a 2 person team, one of which works a day job, can really get done in a month. Still we've been blitzing it hard enough that I figured we were allowed to share things in here even if we're going to take a few extra weeks to finish her up.
STAT TIME (We all love stats. Don't you love stats?)
Mr Lint says: "The game contains 927 dialogue blocks, containing 14,157 words and 75,624 characters, for an average of 15.3 words and 82 characters per block."
- Words: 60% done
- Code: 60% done
- Audio: 40% done
- Sprites: 60% done
- BGs: 30% done
- CGs: 10% done