I’m Colin Campbell, the writer of The Ghost of Alcantra. I’m a doctoral candidate in philosophy and probably wouldn’t have picked teaching philosophy as my career path without having read Umineko before undergraduate. As such, I’ve always wanted to contribute to the visual novel sphere myself. What I love about visual novels isn’t necessarily route structures or multiple endings, but the synthesis of text, artwork, and sound to create unique stories. The Ghost of Alcantra is a vn meant to reflect a love for the specific type of storytelling visual novels can provide.
The Ghost of Alcantra is a free kinetic romance/mystery vn that alternates between two perspectives, one taking place in 1987 and one taking place in 1997. In 1987, Nick Fox meets the mysterious Alexandria (who seems to know more than she lets on) at the Summer Festival of Alcantra. They become closer, but at the same time, Alcantra finds itself the center for a series of murders. In 1997, an unknown narrator gets hit by a motorcycle and ends up in the hospital with amnesia. A detective, Scarlet Storm, informs him that a murder has just occurred and gives him a note found with his belongings that says: “Her blood is on your hands.” He joins Detective Storm to assist with the case in hopes that doing so will help him recover his memories. As the events progress, it becomes clear that the events of 1997 are connected to those of 1987.
The Ghost of Alcantra is a passion project made by four people. The town of Alcantra is a fictionalization of Houghton, Michigan, a small town in the northern tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Given this, the visual novel is very Midwestern, which is not only reflected in the setting, but in the way the characters talk and behave. Sprites and CGs were done by YuukiPudding and Rhealess. There are 14 sets of character sprites and 26 CGs. The vast majority of the backgrounds (around 150 of them) are actual photos of the UP taken by the creators (who grew up there) to invoke aesthetic sensibilities utilized in old visual novels done by Type-Moon and 07th Expansion. The soundtrack consists of 72 classical music pieces covering nearly all of the most famous composers, so there is a large variety of music to listen to while reading The Ghost of Alcantra.
Check out the Steam and Itch pages if you’re interested! Additionally, if you’re interested in following the project till the release date, I’ve linked the social media accounts you can follow.
Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3603 ... _Alcantra/
Itch.io: https://ghostofalcantra.itch.io/the-ghost-of-alcantra
YuukiPudding Website: https://yuukipudding.wixsite.com/yuukipudding
Rhealess Social Media: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:oejgjv ... hww5svr5so
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ghostofalcantra.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghostofalcantra/