Lemma Soft Forums

QUESTIONS:
- Do the gameplay features sound appealing to you?
- Which characters are you most interested in romancing (based solely on appearance), if any, and with which protagonist?
- What do you think makes up a good mystery game/story?

* Sprite artwork by nadechiya
* Promo image by azolitmin

gamerbum wrote: 1. What do you think of the premise?

Are the characters trapped in the mansion? What exactly is keeping them from leaving?

gamerbum wrote: 2. Which character do you find the most interesting so far?
3. What would you like to see in the story?

I assume that your story has an emphasis on girl x boy relationships. That said, it looks like your story will include at least four non playable female characters. Varona and Rebecca sound like fascinating, complex people. I'm interested in seeing how they will be involved in your story. It's your choice whether these girls will be friends, rivals, foes, love interests, or something else.

gamerbum wrote: 4. Any questions or comments?

What content rating are you aiming for?

Your main character is described as a "computer science student." If she's in a university, then she is probably between eighteen and twenty-four. About how old are the other characters?

Are the characters trapped in the mansion? What exactly is keeping them from leaving?

The characters are indeed trapped inside the mansion. None of the windows or doors will open. In fact, one of the characters even tried breaking through a wall, but that didn't work either, haha. I can't say too much more about that without spoiling stuff.

I assume that your story has an emphasis on girl x boy relationships. That said, it looks like your story will include at least four non playable female characters. Varona and Rebecca sound like fascinating, complex people. I'm interested in seeing how they will be involved in your story. It's your choice whether these girls will be friends, rivals, foes, love interests, or something else.

There are both GxB and GxG relationships, actually. Raira's sexuality isn't really something that comes up, so there isn't emphasis on her being straight, gay, or bi either way. In that same sense, I didn't want to put emphasis on the romance-able characters over the others when all of the characters in the mansion are extremely important. However, I will say that you will end up with different rivals and friendships depending on the route you're on, so that's something to look forward to. You also won't have to end the game with a romance depending on the route. There'll be at least two endings where you can end the game alone. Other stuff... characters without routes don't necessarily not have an ending either. I haven't quite gotten that far, but it's likely there will be a few like that.

Basically... while the romance is something important to me and IMO adds a lot to the story, there are other options for those who want them, regardless of the romance genre tag.

For the sake of anyone who wants to know the romances, they're: Leon, Zhou, William, Varona, Rebecca and a secret character (available in the demo, but hard to find). If the crowdfunding goes really well, there's also the potential for two extra routes.

What content rating are you aiming for?

Good question, this is something I had to think a lot about while I was working out the outline. In the end, it'll be roughly 16+. You can expect violence, blood, references to alcohol, and sexual themes. There isn't going to be any outright pornographic scenes or really disgusting corpses or anything like that, but you can expect slightly smutty scenes/implied sex, and bloody images will be about as bad as Monochrome Heaven, so you won't really see anything. I may even put in a blood filter just in case. We'll see.

Your main character is described as a "computer science student." If she's in a university, then she is probably between eighteen and twenty-four. About how old are the other characters?

That's correct. Most of them are in their early 20s. Rebecca and Raira are the youngest. Varona and Leon are a bit older than them. Zhou and Will are the next oldest, and the mystery characters is older than them. The maids are in their late 20s and Rubio is in his 30s. While not a focus at the moment, I will likely come back and add ages and birthdays for all of the characters before the demo is finished.

Weekend update (maybe I'll keep doing this regularly?).

- Tigerblossom and I are working together to create a vocal song that'll be in the demo, bringing the custom song count up to five. I couldn't do this without her, so here's a big thank you!
- The current word count is at 15,800. About half of the current scenes are actually missing their choices and variations -- this is an odd decision I ended up making because I want to finish the base events section of the demo ASAP. I only have about two base scenes left before I have to go back and add in the choices, variations, and then finally the free time episodes.
- I'm finally working on getting up a Tumblr page for the project.
- Two character designs and one sprite are WIPs.
- The GUI saw some progress - it's looking mighty adorable so far, so thank you Atomic-Invasion!

In general, I'd just like to say that players can expect around 30,000 words total for the demo when I'm done, but the first play through will probably last about 40 minutes to an hour.

Ahh this looks great! <3 I'm really excited to see the character designs.

1. What do you think of the premise?
I like it! It sounds intriguing, and I really look forward to uncovering the truth and figuring out what's going on.

2. Which character do you find the most interesting so far?
Interesting... Have to say Rubio or William. That doesn't mean I like them most though xD I think my favorite character so far is Leon.

3. What would you like to see in the story?
Hmm... will they ever leave the mansion for dates? I think I would like to see a change in scenery sometimes for dates, because otherwise the romance scenes might feel too similar when they're all situated in same places haha. But that's just personal preference!

4. Any questions or comments?
The logo looks really lovely! The art in the banner is gorgeous, really. Is that what the MC is supposed to look like? Will that art style be used for the game?

Good luck! <3 I'll be stalking this thread for updates

3. What would you like to see in the story?
Hmm... will they ever leave the mansion for dates? I think I would like to see a change in scenery sometimes for dates, because otherwise the romance scenes might feel too similar when they're all situated in same places haha. But that's just personal preference!

I don't think scenery will be as much of a problem as it seems since there are tons of BGs planned out (last count I did, I think there were like 11 for the mansion interior? xD and that was excluding a few rooms I forgot to add...), but beyond just endings and the prologue, certain routes may have scenes outside of the mansion, yes. I can say with absolute certainty that all the base routes will remain within the mansion until at least the later portions, though.

The logo looks really lovely! The art in the banner is gorgeous, really. Is that what the MC is supposed to look like? Will that art style be used for the game?

Thanks! It's just a temp. logo, sadly. I need to add some details to it or have someone redo it eventually, haha.

Yup, the banner art's character is indeed Raira. The demo's art will mostly be temporary. For the final version, I still have no clue - the banner is mostly for promotional purposes and as a promise of commitment for quality art in the full release. I'd like to keep it that way, but it depends on whether or not the studio I hired for that commission is available when I have the funding ready and whether or not they're willing to take on the semi-ridiculous work load. I may even need to hire separate artists for the sprites and CGs just because of the amount of art that needs to be done.

Still, I won't know until the very last minute when agreements are made and money is exchanged; either way, you can expect that the art will be high quality even if the game switches artists! That's something I've promised myself. But yeah, when that's finalized after the KS campaign (well, if it gets funded, otherwise it'll take a while longer for me to fund that stuff), you can bet I'll be announcing the final artist(s) straight away.

Good luck! <3 I'll be stalking this thread for updates

Thanks !

It feels silly reviving this after so long, but the thread has been updated with new details. There's actually one more character, too, but she's not ready to be shown off yet. Should be ready soon, though, as the sprite work is winding down.

I wouldn't bet on the game coming out before 2019, but I'll try to update this thread as we lock down details and finish up artwork phases.

It feels silly reviving this after so long

I'm glad you did, since it meant I noticed it! The synopsis sounds fascinating, and I love VNs with multiple protagonists and both male and female love interests. All of the art looks lovely, and Katya and Rebecca are especially cute in my opinion. I see that it says you don't want to reveal too much about the characters' personalities, but I'd still love just a sentence or two about each of them - that might help get more people interested as well. Good luck with the rest of your development process!

parttimestorier wrote: ↑Mon Sep 18, 2017 9:06 pm

It feels silly reviving this after so long

I'm glad you did, since it meant I noticed it! The synopsis sounds fascinating, and I love VNs with multiple protagonists and both male and female love interests. All of the art looks lovely, and Katya and Rebecca are especially cute in my opinion. I see that it says you don't want to reveal too much about the characters' personalities, but I'd still love just a sentence or two about each of them - that might help get more people interested as well. Good luck with the rest of your development process!

Thank you for that!

I do have a bit of info I can share, but like it says, it may be subject to change as we tweak the outline. Characters without little blurbs are still having their roles experimented with.

Celeste ("Celes")
Personality: soft spoken, guarded, logical
A young woman who prefers to hole up in her room rather than go outside with her friends.

Fai
Personality: ambitious, curious, intelligent
A journalist who ended up stopping by the town while researching for an article on “undiscovered” towns.

Katya
Personality: outspoken, clingy, cocky, sweet, romance-oriented
A foreigner who likes to cling to men and play the damsel in distress. However, she makes it obvious it's just an act.

Leon
Personality: sensible, competitive, rational
A young man who seems to have gotten stuck in his small hometown without ever realising it. He seems sour about losing out on greater opportunities.

Matthis ("Matt")
Personality: soft spoken, gentle
A man who’s grown up in the town since childhood, alongside his sister, Lily.

Lily
Personality: calm, quiet
Matthis’ sister. She doesn't seem to leave the house very often.

Ares
Personality: serious, mysterious, stoic

Rebecca
Personality: quiet, cheerful, calm
The girl who works at the motel. She seems rather out of place in the town.

Mia
Personality: inexpressive, quiet, brooding

Noelle
Personality: silly, cutesy, childish

On that note, I got Noelle's sprite last night, so I'm going to attach it here.

- Do the gameplay features sound appealing to you?: Yes, although I hope they aren't too unforgiving. I'm all for VNs with gameplay, but it's frustrating when my inability to play the game makes me unable to get to the story.

- Which characters are you most interested in romancing (based solely on appearance), if any, and with which protagonist?: Lily is a babe and I love her. So is Noelle.
I always pick the female protagonist when I have a choice of gender (since I am female), although if the male protagonist's route is significantly different I'll usually play his after. On the other hand, I really like dudes with dark hair. I may not be above picking him just for the eye candy potential. <:

- What do you think makes up a good mystery game/story?: A good mystery! I've never written one, so I can't give you a checklist on how to go about doing so, but something that gets tossed out a lot when talking about mysteries is making it so that anything *could* be a possibility based on the clues, but that it's also not totally out of left field when the actual answer is revealed.

Zelan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:29 pm - Do the gameplay features sound appealing to you?: Yes, although I hope they aren't too unforgiving. I'm all for VNs with gameplay, but it's frustrating when my inability to play the game makes me unable to get to the story.

- Which characters are you most interested in romancing (based solely on appearance), if any, and with which protagonist?: Lily is a babe and I love her. So is Noelle.
I always pick the female protagonist when I have a choice of gender (since I am female), although if the male protagonist's route is significantly different I'll usually play his after. On the other hand, I really like dudes with dark hair. I may not be above picking him just for the eye candy potential. <:

- What do you think makes up a good mystery game/story?: A good mystery! I've never written one, so I can't give you a checklist on how to go about doing so, but something that gets tossed out a lot when talking about mysteries is making it so that anything *could* be a possibility based on the clues, but that it's also not totally out of left field when the actual answer is revealed.

On the story and gameplay: we'll be trying to develop the game such that there's not really any wrong way to play unless you're doing it intentionally (ie, not actually trying to solve anything). Basically, there'll be multiple ways to finish the game and get "mystery solved" endings.

That's a good point. Hopefully we can find a nice balance where the answers aren't too obvious, though.

Thank you for the comment!

Small update!



We've got a gorgeous promo artwork by azolitmin, featuring the game's two MCs.

Ah, I thought I recognized Lacha's artwork! Will they be doing more art for the VN?

Mikomi wrote: ↑Tue Oct 17, 2017 10:07 pm Ah, I thought I recognized Lacha's artwork! Will they be doing more art for the VN?

Potentially, but likely not as a main artist, since we already have plans for the CG and BG artists. This was only supposed to be a one-off piece, but we've hired them on as our resident artist, so it's definitely not out of the question.

The art looks nice. Not interested in the guys, but out of girls Mia is my pick, probably followed by Lily. I love inexpressive/stoic girls in VNs. Eagerly waiting for more.