This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Complete!!!]

A place for game announcements, and for people to discuss games being made.
Forum rules
Please read the sticky before creating a new topic. Linking to Kickstarter/Crowdfunded games requires a demo. Updates to Patreon-backed games may be posted once every 2 months. Adult content should not be posted in this forum.
Message
Author
User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Complete!!!]

#1 Post by ebi-hime »

Image

Download:
After rather too much time, the whole VN is finally finished! You can download it on Steam for mac/linux/windows here, for $7.99!~
The demo can be downloaded here~ The demo is 55k and comprises almost all of the game's common route!
I'll make it available on itch.io soon, too~

Story:
Peace is scarce in the country of Aslande, and it has been at war with the neighbouring country of Eressia for centuries. When one battle ends, another inevitably begins, either months or years later. To Rhea, however, war is a distant concept; something she has heard about, but never witnessed. Born in a small, secluded village, Rhea occupies her life with more mundane concerns: her job at the local hospital, her playful bickering with her friend Asa, and her prayers for a successful harvest come autumn.

However, when Rhea's childhood friend, Luca, returns home to the village after fighting in one of Aslande's many wars, Rhea is suddenly faced with a problem. Why is Luca suddenly so cold, so distant? What did he see out on the battlefield, and how did it change him?

At the same time, new worries plague Rhea, as one of the patients at the hospital is suffering from a rather perplexing illness - and a failure to cure him could have some unpleasant outcomes...

About:
This World Unknown is a fantasy-themed otome game where the player assumes the role of the first person narrator, Rhea, and can romance four available guys. Which route you end up on depends on the choices made during the common route.
The character routes themselves are rather long, and have a lot of plot twists and world building (and lots and lots of characters).
The screen resolution is 1280x720.

Main Characters:

Image
Rhea:
Age: 17
A nurse at the local hospital. Rhea is a serious, hard-working young girl, but she gets flustered easily. She’s often too nice to her patients, and can get caught up talking to them instead of doing her job. She takes her faith very seriously, and prays at church almost every morning.

Image
Asa:
Age: 16
One of Rhea’s childhood friends. He wants nothing more than to be a cool, suave lady-killer, but (to his embarrassment) he has never had a girlfriend before. Even more humiliating, the only girl interested in him is Luca’s nine year old sister. He has a lot of strange, seemingly irrational phobias – particularly spiders and toads – and loathes carrots.

Image
Luca:
Age: 20
Another of Rhea’s childhood friends, he is looked up to as a big brother like figure, being the oldest of the three. He’s calm, thoughtful, and dependable in a crisis, and has a wealth of general knowledge. He joined the army one year ago, and returns a markedly different man. Just what did he do on the battlefield, and what did he see? Given he won’t say a word about what happened, it’s difficult to tell.

Garrett:
Image
Age: 15
A young boy staying at the local hospital with a broken leg. He claims he broke his leg during a march with the army, returning from the battlefield to the capital to report upon the progress of the war. Garrett is a very energetic boy who hates lying down or keeping still, though his boundless enthusiasm only hinders his recovery. Despite being such a young soldier, he is unerring cheerful and optimistic, and dreams of someday becoming a real hero.

Image
Valerian:
Age: 29
The doctor at the village hospital, Doctor Valerian is mistrusted by all as he was not born and bred in the village. He makes himself even more unpopular by being rude and abrasive, and his disdain for the church is markedly obvious. He appears haughty and aloof, but he has an unexpectedly childish side, and he enjoys arguing with people (but only if he can win the argument).

Side Characters:

Image
Clair:
Age: 16
A nurse at the hospital, Clair is cheerful and outgoing, always telling stupid jokes and getting into petty arguments with Doctor Valerian. She loves meat more than anything – so much so she sometimes raids the kitchen cupboards during her sleep. She doesn’t leave the hospital very much as the other villagers are wary of her, suspecting her to be a demon because of the two horns that protrude from the top of her head.

Image
Selene:
Age: 17
A seraph acting as the current head priestess of the church whilst her father, Sion, is ill. Selene is a shy girl who hates being in the spotlight, and finds it difficult dealing with the responsibilities that come with being a priestess. She’s very hard on herself, and often works herself into such anxious states she has panic attacks.

Image
Meirin:
Age: ???
A seemingly young woman who owns the village bakery, the Sacred Heart. She moved to the village at the time Doctor Valerian did, and the two appear to be very close, though the exact nature of their relationship is unknown. Given her pointed ears, it is obvious she is not a human being, but most people are too intimidated by her to ask. Meirin loves teasing people and is almost never seen without a sardonic smile, so it’s difficult to tell what she’s really thinking.

Image
Sion:
Age: 41
Selene’s father, the priest of the local church and the most respected man in the village. A strong public speaker, supremely confident, and unwavering in his beliefs. He was inflicted by a strange disease a few months ago, which aged him rapidly overnight, turning him into an enfeebled old man. Doctor Valerian is searching for a cure. It doesn't seem to be life-threatening, but...

There are several more characters (around 20 of them), but several of them only appear in certain character routes, and not in the common route. All these characters appear in the common route.

Screenshots:
Image

Image

Image

Image

Credits:
Writing, programming: Ebi-hime
Sprites: Adyrn (if you want you can look through her gallery and see all the sprites for this game... b-but wouldn't that be cheating?)
Music: Amachamusic & DLsite
SFX: Sounddogs, soundjay
Backgrounds: Various. There is a full list of every single BG used, and credited, in a .txt file with the game.
Last edited by ebi-hime on Fri Sep 02, 2016 3:29 pm, edited 19 times in total.
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
Fenrir34
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 560
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:39 am
Completed: Escaping Sorrow
Projects: Crisis Beat,Lynarsia-The Broken Song
Location: California
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#2 Post by Fenrir34 »

Oh yay! Another game from you XD. Its funny though. I actually saw your blog about this earlier today was wondering when you'd post it :lol: . Anyway, once again you've got a really interesting game =). I'm excited to play it. The concept is really good and I love the art ^^. I wish you the best of luck with this :) .

PS-I think it said on your page this is going to be about 400,000 words 0_0?

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#3 Post by ebi-hime »

Fenrir34 wrote:Oh yay! Another game from you XD. Its funny though. I actually saw your blog about this earlier today was wondering when you'd post it :lol: . Anyway, once again you've got a really interesting game =). I'm excited to play it. The concept is really good and I love the art ^^. I wish you the best of luck with this :) .

PS-I think it said on your page this is going to be about 400,000 words 0_0?
Thank you n_n;
I don't like posting about anything I'm working on until I've already done a lot of it, since this makes it more likely I will actually finish things and then not disappoint anybody who might have been looking forward to it haha. I decided not to post this on lemmasoft until a demo version was mostly ready.
And the art is so cute! Ehcs is so talented ;_; Everything is so colorful and cute and squishy >w<

Yeah, the story is going to be... rather long... At the moment, in its unfinished state, I think it's already around 300k words. Maybe 400k was too much, it's probably going to end up more like 360k... But this is still a lot of words...
Reading the whole thing might be something of an undertaking XD
Writing the whole thing is also something of an undertaking, since I am only one person... But I can do it! n_n;
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
Fenrir34
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 560
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:39 am
Completed: Escaping Sorrow
Projects: Crisis Beat,Lynarsia-The Broken Song
Location: California
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#4 Post by Fenrir34 »

ebi-hime wrote:
Fenrir34 wrote:Oh yay! Another game from you XD. Its funny though. I actually saw your blog about this earlier today was wondering when you'd post it :lol: . Anyway, once again you've got a really interesting game =). I'm excited to play it. The concept is really good and I love the art ^^. I wish you the best of luck with this :) .

PS-I think it said on your page this is going to be about 400,000 words 0_0?
Thank you n_n;
I don't like posting about anything I'm working on until I've already done a lot of it, since this makes it more likely I will actually finish things and then not disappoint anybody who might have been looking forward to it haha. I decided not to post this on lemmasoft until a demo version was mostly ready.
And the art is so cute! Ehcs is so talented ;_; Everything is so colorful and cute and squishy >w<

Yeah, the story is going to be... rather long... At the moment, in its unfinished state, I think it's already around 300k words. Maybe 400k was too much, it's probably going to end up more like 360k... But this is still a lot of words...
Reading the whole thing might be something of an undertaking XD
Writing the whole thing is also something of an undertaking, since I am only one person... But I can do it! n_n;
But you're inspiring. Like with The Way We All Go I can tell you put a lot of work into this. I'm really surprised that you did all this by yourself. It's really a motivation for me =).

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#5 Post by ebi-hime »

Fenrir34 wrote:But you're inspiring. Like with The Way We All Go I can tell you put a lot of work into this. I'm really surprised that you did all this by yourself. It's really a motivation for me =).
Aw, thank you! T-that's nice of you to say ehe n_n;;
Although, the version of The Way We All Go that's currently online is pretty terribad... So many poorly constructed sentences, repeated dialogue and spelling errors...
The new, updated version (which should be released soon) will hopefully be a lot better >_<

Maybe I'm just accustomed to writing a lot since I wrote so, so, so much fanfiction since I was 11 haha XD So I got into the habit of writing almost every day.
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
Fenrir34
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 560
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:39 am
Completed: Escaping Sorrow
Projects: Crisis Beat,Lynarsia-The Broken Song
Location: California
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#6 Post by Fenrir34 »

ebi-hime wrote:
Fenrir34 wrote:But you're inspiring. Like with The Way We All Go I can tell you put a lot of work into this. I'm really surprised that you did all this by yourself. It's really a motivation for me =).
Aw, thank you! T-that's nice of you to say ehe n_n;;
Although, the version of The Way We All Go that's currently online is pretty terribad... So many poorly constructed sentences, repeated dialogue and spelling errors...
The new, updated version (which should be released soon) will hopefully be a lot better >_<

Maybe I'm just accustomed to writing a lot since I wrote so, so, so much fanfiction since I was 11 haha XD So I got into the habit of writing almost every day.
But that's quite a lot ^^. I even have trouble with just a story with 50,000 words XD. And I saw you were releasing an update. I'm excited for it ^^. Also for this. Good luck with both =).

User avatar
mayshing
Regular
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:37 pm
Completed: Once an Artist, E-Depth Angel: Pinocchio's Murder
Projects: Be Mine Mr. Divine, Mizuchi, Assess K
Organization: Altabe Studio LLC
Deviantart: Mayshing
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#7 Post by mayshing »

This looks like a really cute game! Love the art style! Hooray for nurse MCs! (The heroine in our latest game is also a nurse)

Best of luck with this! It looks like a very diverse and well thought out game! Plenty of fun!
That's the way life outta be

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#8 Post by ebi-hime »

mayshing wrote:This looks like a really cute game! Love the art style! Hooray for nurse MCs! (The heroine in our latest game is also a nurse)

Best of luck with this! It looks like a very diverse and well thought out game! Plenty of fun!
Thank you~
I think one of the main reasons I wrote this is because I wanted a cute nurse as an MC haha. A lot of my story choices are just based on aesthetics...
If your game has a cute nurse MC maybe I should take a look at it o:

And, I just thought I would use this post to say that the demo is out n_n;
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
n0tgin
Regular
Posts: 97
Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 12:05 pm
Location: Vietnam
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#9 Post by n0tgin »

Ohhh the art looks so good!
I remember seeing a post for the game on tumblr once!

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#10 Post by ebi-hime »

n0tgin wrote:Ohhh the art looks so good!
I remember seeing a post for the game on tumblr once!
Thank you n_n;
Echs' art is super cute. It's so stylish!
I have to thank her for desinging all the male charactes, too. I designed all the female characters (cause I like designing cute girls hurhur) but I'm dreadful at desgining male characters, so she did those for me.
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
mayshing
Regular
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 10:37 pm
Completed: Once an Artist, E-Depth Angel: Pinocchio's Murder
Projects: Be Mine Mr. Divine, Mizuchi, Assess K
Organization: Altabe Studio LLC
Deviantart: Mayshing
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB]

#11 Post by mayshing »

ebi-hime wrote:
mayshing wrote:This looks like a really cute game! Love the art style! Hooray for nurse MCs! (The heroine in our latest game is also a nurse)

Best of luck with this! It looks like a very diverse and well thought out game! Plenty of fun!
Thank you~
I think one of the main reasons I wrote this is because I wanted a cute nurse as an MC haha. A lot of my story choices are just based on aesthetics...
If your game has a cute nurse MC maybe I should take a look at it o:

And, I just thought I would use this post to say that the demo is out n_n;
Hopefully you'll find our MC Angel cute!

Image

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 43&t=30846

Congrats on finishing the demo!
That's the way life outta be

User avatar
Hazel-Bun
Eileen-Class Veteran
Posts: 1010
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 6:03 pm
Completed: Sunrise: A Dieselpunk Fantasy & Ultramarine: A Seapunk Adventure
Projects: Thrall: A Dark Otome Visual Novel
Organization: AURELIA LEO, LLC
Tumblr: authorzknight
itch: authorzknight
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#12 Post by Hazel-Bun »

The art style is killing me <3 will check out after NaNo!
Black bookstore owner. Diverse fiction reviewer. Bestselling romance author. Award-winning fiction editor. Quite possibly a werewolf, ask me during the next full moon.

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#13 Post by ebi-hime »

Hazel-Bun wrote:The art style is killing me <3 will check out after NaNo!
Echs' art is super cute n_n;
Maybe I should have put the demo up before or after Nano, since so many people will be busy writing their own stories, haha n_n;;
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

User avatar
pyongtaro
Newbie
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:21 am
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#14 Post by pyongtaro »

Hello. I played your Dejection: An Ode and The Way We All Go but have only finished few endings from the latter so coupled with my shyness I couldn't work up enough courage to say anything (haha). And I heard that one would get an update anyway so I thought I'd wait until that's out. But I see you with a new project so I thought I'd get out of my lurker mode for a bit. I didn't see the word count before downloading the demo, so I was surprised by its volume ww

1) Do you think the pacing is too slow? The common route has a lot of slice of life, so I hope it doesn't drag too much.
My opinion is probably not what you're looking for since I'm quite fond of the SOL aspect of the traditional common route that the longer is actually the better for me, haha. I thought it was just fine. If there's something though, I guess it's because I keep clicking through transitions, but I feel the scenes are sometimes a little too disconnected and jumps around too much? I don't understand why Rhea would suddenly be in a bakery when she was in church before at first, for example, though as I went I began to learn her schedule. Since the readers were just getting introduced to the story, maybe it'd be nicer to have Rhea mention at the first few scenes where she's going after this and what for? And when transitioning from day to day, maybe there would be benefit in having some sort of special transition screen indicating day change? idk but I think you're doing fine as it is too.

2) Do the personalities of the characters seem distinct/unique enough?
Yeah. Everyone's fun. The dullest so far is probably little miss heroine, but she's a good girl and cute enough that I'd be willing to pinch those soft cheeks anytime. Though I have to say I look at her with slight disdain for thinking maggots are cute (laughs). I thought the character interactions are amusing as well, especially once it involves Meirin.

3) Which guy is your favourite? :'D
Have this present which will answer your question. Asa's a cute dork. Doctor is also a dork. They're so fun they actually make Garrett and Luca pale in comparison haha. I thought about putting Selene since she's cute and... quite something, but just drawing those three took too much time.

I guess putting pause after every sentence is a stylistic choice from you, but there were times I felt it wasn't too necessary to pause this and that line - but eh, it's nothing game-breaking. Other than that, good luck on your game. I think you've put a lot of effort into this so if you're thinking of going commercial you should go for it. It's pretty polished.

User avatar
ebi-hime
Veteran
Posts: 401
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:18 pm
Completed: Asphyxia, Blackberry Honey, The Language of Love, etc
Tumblr: ebi-hime
itch: ebihime
Contact:

Re: This World Unknown [Fantasy, Otome, GxB] [Demo out]

#15 Post by ebi-hime »

Aww, thank you so much for the feeback! I appreciate it, it's very useful n_n;
Ehehe~
pyongtaro wrote: 1) Do you think the pacing is too slow? The common route has a lot of slice of life, so I hope it doesn't drag too much.
My opinion is probably not what you're looking for since I'm quite fond of the SOL aspect of the traditional common route that the longer is actually the better for me, haha. I thought it was just fine. If there's something though, I guess it's because I keep clicking through transitions, but I feel the scenes are sometimes a little too disconnected and jumps around too much? I don't understand why Rhea would suddenly be in a bakery when she was in church before at first, for example, though as I went I began to learn her schedule. Since the readers were just getting introduced to the story, maybe it'd be nicer to have Rhea mention at the first few scenes where she's going after this and what for? And when transitioning from day to day, maybe there would be benefit in having some sort of special transition screen indicating day change? idk but I think you're doing fine as it is too.
I like SOL stuff a lot, too - but sometimes I think it can be little too much. Like Grisaia no Kajitsu's common route, which seemed to drag on forever, and absolutely nothing important happened in it (that I can remember).
That would probably be a good idea. Sometimes I thought the scenes were rather disconnected, they didn't flow together well. The first day, which has the most stuff happen, is probably the most guilty of this, heh...
There is a special transition that changes for the day, it's the uh... I labelled the transition as 'clockwipe'. The wipe which moves around in a circle like the hands of a clock. First it wipes away the old date & changes the screen to black, then brings in the new scene & date. Knowing me though, I might have used it in some places I shouldn't have done by mistake...
pyongtaro wrote: 2) Do the personalities of the characters seem distinct/unique enough?
Yeah. Everyone's fun. The dullest so far is probably little miss heroine, but she's a good girl and cute enough that I'd be willing to pinch those soft cheeks anytime. Though I have to say I look at her with slight disdain for thinking maggots are cute (laughs). I thought the character interactions are amusing as well, especially once it involves Meirin.
I am really, really bad at writing first person heroes/heroines TT__TT I always find it so hard to make them interesting... And a lot of the time they end up just listening in on conversations, rather than taking part in them themselves. This problem is also there with poor Atcchan from The Way We All Go.
I need to work on writing interesting main characters, who are 'characters' just as much as everybody else. I mean, the MC should be the most important character, since their personality is going to shape the entire writing style... This is probably why it's easier to have mild-mannered and resonably bland MCs, though. It means their narration is less likely to seem biased, and they'll have a more 'reasonable' tone which lends itself better to lots of information dumping, haha... But it's probably not the most interesting thing to read.
Meirin is one of my favs. All that aloofness XD
pyongtaro wrote: 3) Which guy is your favourite? :'D
Have this present which will answer your question. Asa's a cute dork. Doctor is also a dork. They're so fun they actually make Garrett and Luca pale in comparison haha. I thought about putting Selene since she's cute and... quite something, but just drawing those three took too much time.

I guess putting pause after every sentence is a stylistic choice from you, but there were times I felt it wasn't too necessary to pause this and that line - but eh, it's nothing game-breaking. Other than that, good luck on your game. I think you've put a lot of effort into this so if you're thinking of going commercial you should go for it. It's pretty polished.
Aaah, s-so cute! ;__; I-It's adorable!
I squealed when I saw this, you have no idea! Just looking at it makes me smile hahaha XD
Do you have it on tumblr? I would love to reblog it! o:

Val is my fav character haha. I was worried my favouritism was too apparent in the common route, since I think he might get more scenes than the other guys... Heheh...
Poor Luca doesn't get to do much in the common route other than being distant and grumpy XD And Garrett is kind of annoying. I think that might be one his defining characteristics...
It gets pointed out a fair bit by various characters in his route.
I always pause after every sentence. I'm not even sure where I picked this up from, since the majority of VNs don't do this... I think maybe Umineko, which also likes to pause a lot between lines - but that's because it's in NVL mode, not ADV, and having a whole paragraph pop up on your screen all at once would be overwhelming.
If having to click after every sentence is really a bother, I could just remove it. Adding in all these pauses actually takes a really long time to code in, it's super tedious...
It also messes up the F. Skip function.
If people don't like it, I guess there isn't much point keeping it in.

Again, thank you for your comments! And for the really lovely art! I-I appreciate it a lot! n////n
I have a lot of free & commercial VNs available on Steam and itchio.io if you want to check them out! ☆

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users