Herald, an interactive period drama about colonialism.
Teaser Trailer:
Genre:
Visual Novel + Point & Click
Herald is a two-part interactive period drama for PC, Mac and Linux that plays as a mix between a visual novel and a point and click adventure game. You are Devan Rensburg, a man of mixed heritage, assigned to work as a steward aboard the HLV Herald.
Features
In short, Herald offers:
An Interactive Period Drama with a heavy emphasis on character development.
A branching narrative that changes depending on how you choose to play.
A gripping tale about finding your identity in a world divided by race, class and religion.
A beautiful hand-painted art style mixing 2D animated portraits with 3D environments.
A world inspired by historical events that took place in the final days of the Age of Sail.
In short, Herald offers:
An Interactive Period Drama with a heavy emphasis on character development.
A branching narrative that changes depending on how you choose to play.
A gripping tale about finding your identity in a world divided by race, class and religion.
A beautiful hand-painted art style mixing 2D animated portraits with 3D environments.
A world inspired by historical events that took place in the final days of the Age of Sail.
Content-wise the game is about 60% VN and 40% Point and Click, most of it takes place on board The HLV Herald, a micro-cosmos of 19th century society.
As its steward you are responsible for the well-being of all passengers, the rich and the poor, the important and the downtrodden. Your job is best done without anybody noticing, so if a conflict should arise, you better solve it before the captain gets wind of it.
What side of morality will you be on? Are you going to stand up for the oppressed, or will you watch idly how authority abuses its power? Either way, you are responsible, so you will carry the consequences.
As its steward you are responsible for the well-being of all passengers, the rich and the poor, the important and the downtrodden. Your job is best done without anybody noticing, so if a conflict should arise, you better solve it before the captain gets wind of it.
What side of morality will you be on? Are you going to stand up for the oppressed, or will you watch idly how authority abuses its power? Either way, you are responsible, so you will carry the consequences.
Setting
In an alternate 1857, the West stands united as a single empire: the Protectorate.
As a republic with a colonial empire, the Protectorate is ruled by an elected leader: the Lord Protector. Each colony of the Empire is a potential new province, but to earn membership, a colony has to adapt to Protectorate law and custom.
Lately, things are amiss in the realm. With the onset of modernity, the Protectorate is struggling to maintain order, as tensions arise resulting from great inequality and prejudice. Colonial governments are slowly losing grasp on their territories and rumors of a coming rebellion run rampant.
As a republic with a colonial empire, the Protectorate is ruled by an elected leader: the Lord Protector. Each colony of the Empire is a potential new province, but to earn membership, a colony has to adapt to Protectorate law and custom.
Lately, things are amiss in the realm. With the onset of modernity, the Protectorate is struggling to maintain order, as tensions arise resulting from great inequality and prejudice. Colonial governments are slowly losing grasp on their territories and rumors of a coming rebellion run rampant.
Inspirations
With Herald, our main inspirations were drawn from period-drama's and the story-driven gameplay brought forward by the games from Telltale, Obsidian and Bioware.
But as development continued we ended up working on a game which had more in common (gameplay-wise) with monkey island and the visual novel genre.
I was introduced to this forum by our artist and will be posting more info, screenshots and eventually the demo!
Updates
-We will be releasing a Demo on the 19th of April in conjunction with our kickstarter!
-Our lead writer, Roy, also is also busy writing a blog about the design of Herald's story: http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/post/11460 ... story-blog
-Our artist, Aïda wrote a 5 part "making of" for the 2D animated portraits: http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/post/11317 ... nimated-2d
-And to give you an example of how our portraits work:
I'm really interested in hearing what you guys think of the moving portraits!
Do you guys know of any western Visual Novels with animated portraits?
Cheers,
Nick
Designer at Wispfire
Website:
http://heraldgame.com
Tumblr:
http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/
With Herald, our main inspirations were drawn from period-drama's and the story-driven gameplay brought forward by the games from Telltale, Obsidian and Bioware.
But as development continued we ended up working on a game which had more in common (gameplay-wise) with monkey island and the visual novel genre.
I was introduced to this forum by our artist and will be posting more info, screenshots and eventually the demo!
Updates
-We will be releasing a Demo on the 19th of April in conjunction with our kickstarter!
-Our lead writer, Roy, also is also busy writing a blog about the design of Herald's story: http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/post/11460 ... story-blog
-Our artist, Aïda wrote a 5 part "making of" for the 2D animated portraits: http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/post/11317 ... nimated-2d
-And to give you an example of how our portraits work:
I'm really interested in hearing what you guys think of the moving portraits!
Do you guys know of any western Visual Novels with animated portraits?
Cheers,
Nick
Designer at Wispfire
Website:
http://heraldgame.com
Tumblr:
http://heraldgame.tumblr.com/
