＜/reality＞ [Sci-Fi][Fantasy][Philosophy] Demo Available

[RedOwl]

Marketing for the Kickstarter has been distracting me from actual development - but what can you do. Making some progress on the game itself again today.

Finally finished the supporting characters! New character sheet (the old version is a few posts above):

[terra0nova]

The Kickstarter looks great! And wow, I didn't realize how many games you guys had out already. I definitely need to play some of them when I've got some time!

Awesome! This is our first visual novel, but we've made many games of all different genres and ideas (that's what I like most about game development - experimenting with what's possible and trying new ideas). I hope you'll enjoy the games!

I definitely recommend Quotidian and A Different Color if you're into story based games, and they are very short if you don't have a lot of time.

[RedOwl]

Our Kickstarter is live!! Aaah excitement! ^_^

Even if you can't back us, we would greatly appreciate any sharing on social media, using the buttons below the video, on the Kickstarter page. Help us spread the word!

And, our Greenlight page is also live:


Thanks so much for your support, everyone! ^_^

Here are some chibis I made for the KS page:

[RedOwl]

We are one week into the Kickstarter campaign, at 45% funded with 80 backers!!

Here is the latest background completed:


You can read more about our progress here --> our latest Kickstarter update.

Thanks for your support!!

[RedOwl]

＜/reality＞ has been greenlit! A big thank you to everyone who voted for us on Steam!



In other news, the Kickstarter campaign is still underway (15 days left!) - we are currently at 54% funded with 112 awesome backers!
Check it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/da ... novel-game

[RedOwl]

Latest Kickstarter Update! We're nearly at 60% funded, with 126 backers and 9 days left.



We have started up a Thunderclap “crowdspeaking” campaign in order to help spread the word about </reality> in the last few hours of the Kickstarter. We need everyone’s help to make this a success - please sign up to take part in the social media blast! It’s safe, free, and will simply post one tweet or message to your Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr - with our voices together we can make our message heard! But, if we don’t make it to 100 supporters by Dec. 8th, the message won’t go out. Sign up here: http://thndr.me/LJ74AX.

We have been working on a new text-delivery design for the “mentalnet.” In the story, the mentalnet is an interface-less, thought-driven “chat room” made possible by the Penta device. Yes, it is basically telepathic communication - pretty cool, huh? But it’s not that surprising given that the Penta is already able to read and write your thoughts!



Click here for a higher quality, non-animated version.

^ Here's Jacob chatting with Kumori over the mentalnet. Would you enjoy being able to communicate telepathically? What would you use it for?

There are now only 9 days left until the end of the Kickstarter campaign. Can we make it?! We have a feeling that the next few days are going to be a whirlwind of frantic activity, spreading the word, getting stressed out, and being incredible grateful and elated by all of your generous support and encouragement. Let’s do this!

[RedOwl]

We now have just one week left until the Kickstarter deadline! We are currently 62% funded, with 136 backers!

Here's an inspiring new screenshot of a CG from chapter 4:



We're ready to race towards our goal!

In development news, we have been continuing work on chapter 2. Here's a screenshot with Umi, the first AI inhabitant of Vitalia the beta testers meet:



We’re hoping to have Chapter 2 ready shortly after the end of the Kickstarter campaign so that backers of the beta access tier or higher ($35+) will immediately have something new to enjoy.

Finally, both for fun and to hopefully raise awareness, we have launched a caption contest featuring Lilya’s frightened expression:



Why is she so afraid?? What does she see? Feel free to edit the image and add your own caption, then post it on twitter or tumblr with the tag #CaptionReality and #visualnovel so that we can see what you come up with! Let's go wild and have some fun!

If you’d like to help out, please back the project (every little bit helps) or share it on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr! And don't forget to sign up to join the Thunderclap! We currently have 49 supporters there - can we reach 100 supporters in 6 more days?

[Rossfellow]

Have you considered reaching out to Indiegames and VNsnow? They can help put the word out.

[RedOwl]

@Rossfellow - thanks for the tips - sent you a PM.

Kickstarter Update!

There are only 4 days left until the end of the campaign! We are now at 73% funded - can we make it?? If you haven't checked it out yet, the Kickstarter page is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/da ... novel-game

We’ve had several questions about romance in ＜/reality＞, so we are sharing a little about that - and a work-in-progress CG of Lilya and Ben, below.



Relationships in ＜/reality＞ are entirely optional and driven by player choice, and can be pursued from either Lilya’s or Jacob’s perspective (who each have two romance options). There are several different types of outcomes for each pairing. Similarly, your choices will affect Lilya and Jacob’s relationships with non-romance-able characters such as friends and family members.

In other news, ＜/reality＞ was featured in an article on NerdybutFlirty!

And, our Thunderclap now has 86 people signed up! Can we reach 100 in the next 3 days? Hopefully, or the message won't go out.

Wish us luck!

[RedOwl]

We are now in the final 48 hours of the Kickstarter campaign! We are currently at 95% funded, and feeling optimistic!



In terms of development, thanks to lots of insightful player feedback, we have begun a large, ruthless editing pass on Chapter 1 (the demo). We’ve trimmed it, rearranged it, and focused it, to create a better “hook” and keep the pacing exciting. These changes are feeling really good so far - we can’t wait to share the updated demo with you! If you have more feedback, please send it our way!

We’re still working on Chapter 2 as well, and hopefully within a few weeks we will have an early draft of that to share with Beta-access backers.



^11 of the 14 characters - nearly the full cast!

We’ve been putting a lot of effort into this game and we want to make sure it ends up being something truly special. We are so completely grateful to everyone who has supported us and believed in us. So, whether we succeed or not, we’d like to extend a big thank you to all of you from our team!

[LeonDaydreamer]

Hey RedOwl, congratulations on a successful KickStarter campaign! :)
I checked out the demo, it's really cool. I like the immersiveness in the 3D game within the game (how did you integrate those renders?), and the writing and artwork is great.

I'll also say that Maggie's character design is particularly sweet, and it seems like she might not appear again in the story, which would be disappointing (until the very end?)... The only criticism I'll make is that the BG at InterMense felt kind of bland - just blue-grey-white. We spend quite a bit of time there, so I might recommend making it a little more interesting visually.

P.S. I'm from Toronto! Is it a cutting edge cyber heaven in the future? :P

[Rossfellow]

I expected no less.

[Zelan]

Fully funded!! Congratulations, you guys!

[RedOwl]

@LeonDaydreamer - thank you! And thanks for checking out the demo - glad to hear you enjoyed it! The MMO scenes are video footage of open-source 3D assets we assembled.

You're not the only one to feel that Maggie deserves a larger part! We'll do our best to give her more screen time. And thanks for the feedback on the InterMense background - you're right! I'll be revisiting it later in development.

Haha, it's always possible that our story could be prophetic...

@Rossfellow -

@Zelan - Thank you! ^_^

Everyone - thank you for all your support, feedback, and help spreading the word about the project! You're all awesome!!

Current feelings:

[RedOwl]

Update time!

Happy 2017, everyone! We are excited to announce that the beta version of chapters 1 and 2 have been released! Chapter 1 has been through more edits and updates, and is freely available here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/reality1/d ... -demo-0163

Chapter 2 has been released to beta-access backers via Steam keys.

Here are some screenshots from Chapter 2:








Development Progress
Here’s what we’ve been up to during the last few weeks:

• Chapters 1, 2 and 3 have all undergone major script editing.
• More sprite work was completed - character sprites are now nearly done!
• Two new backgrounds were completed - backgrounds are now nearly done!
• Two new CGs were competed.
• Several new expressions for Ben and Lilya were made.
• Ben’s sprite was revised/updated.
• A new music track was completed and added (Vitalia theme #1). You can listen to it here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/reality1/v ... ld-unknown
• New sound effects and transitions/visual effects were added.

January Plans
We are looking forward to making a great deal of progress on this month. Here’s the plan:

• The next two weeks will be spent doing a major editing pass through the entire script. We will be finalizing all of the endings, tying up some loose story threads, and making sure everything from our long list of story notes and ideas has been thoroughly addressed.
• Once the script has reached a really clean state, we’ll be on-boarding a new artist to create the Ending Panels. This will help us stay on schedule!
• Chase (our composer) will be working on getting us more music tracks - finalizing music for Vitalia and making some new beats for time spent at InterMense.
• Somewhere around the 18th, we’ll be moving our focus back to art - creating new characters, backgrounds, CGs, and expressions for Chapter 3.
• We hope to release the beta version of Chapter 3 by the end of the month!
• We also plan to open late-backing and pre-order options within the next week.

As always, thank you for all your support! We can't wait to share this story with you!