A free-to-play sci-fi dystopian short story visual novel about solving issues and changing life perspectives
Video teaser of Stellar Reflections
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/badgercanfly
Mastodon: https://peoplemaking.games/@badgercanfly
Release plan
By the time this thread is posted, I am done with almost all art, music, and script. Currently, I am putting it all together and polishing. I am very confident I will be able to release the novel on December 10th, 2023
. Unless of course some cataclysm occurs, but then you will for sure hear from me .World and setting
The VN is set in a fairly distant future, where Earth and Mars are used exclusively as mining facilities, while most of human population resides in space stations around the planets and the Moon. The world is governed by a centralized, autocratic government managing most of life choices for every existing human.
The action takes place entirely on board an old and decrepit space station.
Main characters
Protagonist - Aurelia
The VN will feature a female protagonist, Aurelia, a nobody who spends her days at a bar, playing games, or at her junkyard job. The story begins when the government makes a decision directly affecting her life, and she's far from being a fan. The VN will show her dealing with it, growing, and changing in the process.
Heroine - Pixie
Aurelia comes to meet Pixie by accident, and soon discovers they can help each other with their respective problems.
Bartender
A semi-friend of Aurelia (but can she really trust him?). Listens to her problems and offers advice as a mentor figure.
Technical
- 3 endings: bad, neutral, and good. Late branching plot depending on readers' choices.
- Age rating: no idea
. There's no sexual content and no nudity, but there are sexual references, strong language, alcohol and drug use, crime references, and talking about self-harm. So i guess probably 12 or so.- About 17k words in total.
- 15 scenes (aka 'bits'), excluding endings.
- Language: English
- Voice acting: no
- Soundtrack consisting of 16 original tracks and a fragment of Blue Danube by Strauss
. - Supported OS: Windows
- Resolution: 3840x2160
- Noncommercial, free to read.
- No DRM.
- Built with Ren'Py 8.
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Other remarks
Stellar Reflections is a free-to-read short story VN created almost entirely by one person (me), mostly as a means of learning Ren'Py. I am putting a lot of care into making it a decent enough read though, so I promise it won't be half-assed in any way
. Since it's a divisive topic in this community, even in the context of completely amateur freeware works, I want to be clear that I have used generative AI when creating backgrounds and soundtrack. It's not a requirement to disclose it, but hey.... Also, while it's still a short story, it is a bit too long (and took too long) to fit in the 'Short Noncommercial Games' section, that's why I decided to put it in this section.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or comments, I would be more than happy to hear them
. Otherwise, I will simply post a separate announcement when I'm done, or if the release plan changes (hopefully not!).
