[DEMO RELEASED] Unsound Minds: The Clarevine Epoch [18+][GxG][Dark][Lovecraftian][Christianity]

[NocturneLight]

Plot:

Long forgotten are the Dreamlands. Long forgotten are Heaven and Hell. Humankind as we know it, is as good as gone. In our place are half-angels on the surface and half-demons on the seafloor. The two groups are unaware of each other's existence.

A beam of light shines on our protagonist: Clarevine. A girl that's lived a rough life in the underwater colony Gettlesteam. All her existence, she thought herself to be unimportant. Events conspire to prove her wrong.

A Great Horror responsible for mankind's end will be free from its prison soon. The Old Guard keeping It in check, is at His limit.

The time to usher in the New Guard draws near. The key to the future lies with Clarevine.

So starts The Clarevine Epoch.

Download the Demo Here


Characters:






Music Tracks:





About the Game:

"Unsound Minds: The Clarevine Epoch" is a yuri visual novel and is the first piece of a larger story. It's a game that I began working on after being inspired by visual novels such as "VA-11 HALL-A", "Doki Doki Literature Club", "Sweetest Monster", and "The House in Fata Morgana", among others. Though they are inspirations, that does not mean "Unsound Minds: The Clarevine Epoch" will be some freakish amalgamation of a bunch of different games. No... It explores something rarely touched on in games in general. My aim for "Unsound Minds" as a whole is to combine Christianity and the Cthulhu Mythos to tell a deep, dark, story that people will enjoy. At the moment, I'm working on the demo. When that is complete I intend to take the demo to Kickstarter and, with the help of the publisher DEVGRU-P, create a Kickstarter campaign to gather funds to finish, at the minimum, the rest of this first epoch.


Social Media and Other Links:

Reminiscent 64 Tumblr Development Log.
Clarevine Epoch website.
Reminiscent 64 Itch.io.
Reminiscent 64 Twitter.
Reminiscent 64 Youtube Channel.
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Who all is Working on the Game?

Creator/Programmer/Co-writer: NocturneLight
Co-writer: QAN_TL
Character Artist/CG Artist: Amaco Studios
Background Artist/CG Artist: DeadFishDream
GUI: NocturneLight/DeadFishDream
Composer: drs__
Game Logo Designer/Website Designer: Austin S.
Publisher: Reminiscent 64 (Self-Publishing)
Marketer/Advertiser: Barzini


Progress on the Demo so Far:

Script: 100%
Character Art: 100%
Music: 100%
Background Art: 100%
GUI: 100%
CG Art: 100%
Creating Each Scene: 100%


Questions for the Reader:

Do you typically use mono or do you use stereo when it comes to audio?
How does the premise sound to you?
What are your thoughts on the character's art style?
What are your thoughts on the background's artstyle?
How does the GUI for the textbox look at the moment to you?
How does the two music tracks shown so far sound to you?
Which character looks the most interesting to you?
What are you expecting to see in the Lovecraftian aspect of the story?
What are you expecting to see in the Christian aspect of the story?
What are your overall thoughts?

[Lodratio]

This is actually a really cool concept! I especially like the idea of using the contrast between two fundamentally different mythologies as a basis for the central conflict - especially if you do it both aesthetically and thematically.

[parttimestorier]

This sounds like exactly the kind of thing I like! I love the general concept of Lovecraft's works, and I love when people take inspiration from that and add all kinds of other things. I'm really interested to see how combining that with some aspects of Christian mythology will work out! The characters look very cute but they also look pretty normal - will we eventually be seeing some weirder character design for more supernatural characters? And are you planning this as a linear story, or one that branches based on choices?

[NocturneLight]

This sounds like exactly the kind of thing I like! I love the general concept of Lovecraft's works, and I love when people take inspiration from that and add all kinds of other things. I'm really interested to see how combining that with some aspects of Christian mythology will work out! The characters look very cute but they also look pretty normal - will we eventually be seeing some weirder character design for more supernatural characters? And are you planning this as a linear story, or one that branches based on choices?

Thank you!

Clarevine is supposed to look normal... for now. There's a story reason.

Elina, isn't actually so normal in design. It's hard to tell, but her hair has a particle effect going on. It dissolves towards the end of her hair. She's a demon hybrid. Keep in mind though, that not all demon hybrids in Gettlesteam look this human. Some have more demon like features like horns.

And Aracelia may look normal for an angel hybrid, but she's not. I'm not spoiling it, but you'll likely see when I release the demo. If not then, then you'll definitely see in the full game.

But yes, you'll see weirder designs for Clarevine. There won't be any weirder designs for Elina or Aracelia in this epoch.

"The Clarevine Epoch" is a fairly linear story. The choices you make will reveal story details but it doesn't put you on a completely different story path. But future epochs may or may not be so linear.

This is actually a really cool concept! I especially like the idea of using the contrast between two fundamentally different mythologies as a basis for the central conflict - especially if you do it both aesthetically and thematically.

Thank you for thinking so!

[NocturneLight]

Another question I have for the lurkers out there has to do with audio: Do you typically use mono or do you use stereo? I'm deciding what the default should be for "The Clarevine Epoch".

[papillon]

Interesting...

[Dovahkitteh]

This sounds very cool! I love Lovecraft, explorations of Christianity, and have been interested in seeing more dark yuri games--so this sounds like one I'll be keeping an eye on for sure. I really like your logo, by the way.

Do you typically use mono or do you use stereo when it comes to audio?
Stereo, and headphones.

How does the premise sound to you?
Very quintessentially Lovecraftian. I like the twist with angel/demon types instead of just humans.

What are your thoughts on the character's art style?
The characters are a little too cute/cartoon stylized for my liking, since the context/story sounds like it'll be quite dark. Even a more muted color scheme/saturation levels might make it feel darker. As it is, out of context, I would think the characters are from a fluffy school setting or the like.

BG Art/GUI questions
Can't really answer these because I haven't seen enough (any?) yet.

How does the two music tracks shown so far sound to you?
They're interesting--they feel quite thin musically by themselves, but capable of being fairly eerie/atmospheric ambient.

Which character looks the most interesting to you?
Clarveine herself, for sure, and whatever happened in her childhood.

What are you expecting to see in the Lovecraftian aspect of the story?
Eldritch monstrosities and insanity! Would be cool to see a unique twist on the "old horror unleashed" as well.

What are you expecting to see in the Christian aspect of the story?
Not sure yet, but I am curious what aspects you plan to delve into (morality, belief, mythos, etc.).

What are your overall thoughts?
Promising start and concept! I think art and music will play a key role because ambiance is really a core part of Lovecraft inspired games, for me--Amnesia, The Last Door, the new CoC game all pull it off very well.

[NocturneLight]

Interesting...

Curious. Interesting good or interesting bad?

This sounds very cool! I love Lovecraft, explorations of Christianity, and have been interested in seeing more dark yuri games--so this sounds like one I'll be keeping an eye on for sure. I really like your logo, by the way.

Do you typically use mono or do you use stereo when it comes to audio?
Stereo, and headphones.

How does the premise sound to you?
Very quintessentially Lovecraftian. I like the twist with angel/demon types instead of just humans.

What are your thoughts on the character's art style?
The characters are a little too cute/cartoon stylized for my liking, since the context/story sounds like it'll be quite dark. Even a more muted color scheme/saturation levels might make it feel darker. As it is, out of context, I would think the characters are from a fluffy school setting or the like.

BG Art/GUI questions
Can't really answer these because I haven't seen enough (any?) yet.

How does the two music tracks shown so far sound to you?
They're interesting--they feel quite thin musically by themselves, but capable of being fairly eerie/atmospheric ambient.

Which character looks the most interesting to you?
Clarveine herself, for sure, and whatever happened in her childhood.

What are you expecting to see in the Lovecraftian aspect of the story?
Eldritch monstrosities and insanity! Would be cool to see a unique twist on the "old horror unleashed" as well.

What are you expecting to see in the Christian aspect of the story?
Not sure yet, but I am curious what aspects you plan to delve into (morality, belief, mythos, etc.).

What are your overall thoughts?
Promising start and concept! I think art and music will play a key role because ambiance is really a core part of Lovecraft inspired games, for me--Amnesia, The Last Door, the new CoC game all pull it off very well.

Thank you! I quite like how the logo turned out myself!

Stereo and headphones? I'll remember that.

Thank you! The Angels and Demons came about because I wanted to incorporate Christian mythology in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Noted. The characters are in the style they are in because I wanted to go for an updated "Ever 17" style. You can't please everyone, of course.

You can see the backgrounds on the website. But, for a full view here are two backgrounds here and here.

It was very rough for Clarevine. This first epoch is going to touch on that a bit.

Insanity? You're going to like this. Eldritch monstrosities? You'll see a brief glimpse of it in "The Clarevine Epoch". Stick around for all the epochs to get the entire story, and you'll probably like the Eldritch monstrosities I have planned.

I mainly plan on bringing in the Christian mythos for "The Clarevine Epoch". Considering the setting and the time period of the world in this game, I didn't see a way to incorporate Christian morality or belief. However, I do see a way to incorporate morality and belief in the second epoch if "The Clarevine Epoch" does well.

I'm glad we're on the same page there. I tried to channel my inner Lovecraft for the art and am trying to channel my inner Lovecraft for the ambiance.

[papillon]

Largely 'interesting' in the sense of marking the thread to check up on it more later as I try not to get invested in things that are a long way from done.

[NocturneLight]

Largely 'interesting' in the sense of marking the thread to check up on it more later as I try not to get invested in things that are a long way from done.

Oh... I'll try not to take too long getting at least the demo out then!

[NocturneLight]

For those of you interested, I have another development log post up on Tumblr! You can get to it from here.

[nerupuff]

Ah, I've really been looking forward to this and it's so nice that you have a devlog! I really like the music you have posted so far. I think I'm really excited for Aracelia though, she is so mysterious. GUI and art looks great so far and I'm absolutely thrilled to see lovecraftian mythos being mixed with christianity ; I can't wait to see what the team comes up with.

Best of luck!

[NocturneLight]

Ah, I've really been looking forward to this and it's so nice that you have a devlog! I really like the music you have posted so far. I think I'm really excited for Aracelia though, she is so mysterious. GUI and art looks great so far and I'm absolutely thrilled to see lovecraftian mythos being mixed with christianity ; I can't wait to see what the team comes up with.

Best of luck!

I'm glad you're so excited! I think you'll like what I have planned for Aracelia. That's about all I can say without giving anything away.

[NocturneLight]

For those of you interested, Devlog 1B is out! You can read that here.

If you're the type of person who likes to know how certain characters from your favorite video games were created, you might like this one!

[NocturneLight]

So Development Log 2 is out here!

Besides being a progress report, it basically goes into detail about how I'm approaching the game's development.

It's got a bit of game play footage too that you might find interesting. It's not too much though. Only about 40 seconds.