#amadeus: a riddle for thee

[amadeusgame]

Cashing in my "occasional salty post on the public-facing Amadeus blog" to announce that apparently Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz is not a visual novel. Steam is of course the expert on these things and has decreed as such.

(I would be more willing to accept this verdict if the festival were clearly consistent about disallowing any and all games with any non-pure-VN gameplay, but since Danganronpa is on there... lol.)

Anyway if you would like to check out a game that is apparently not a VN—news to me, its developer—you can still do that! Play as Amadeus, a young werewolf who sells his memories to a Witch in exchange for a promise... free demo out now!

🐺🌕 ( Steam | itch | more ) 🌕🐺 Major inspirations include Umineko, Final Fantasy VIII, and the Hound of the Baskervilles.

[sibyl-of-space]

I cannot sleep so here's a transformed Amadeus concept on the house

[spritedude]

A friend of mine is developing a visual novel, so I thought I'd do some fan art of the main character, a werewolf named Amadeus.

It's called Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee, made by @sibyl-of-space. There's a demo out on Steam and itch.io, go check it out!

[monriatitans]

MonriaTitans

Let's Play Some Demos! - Part 25

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Welcome to Part 25 of the Let's Play Some Demos! | LPSD series! For those who are new, I aim to provide commentary and feedback on game demos for educational purposes! In addition, with how saturated Steam is, let's get these indie games some attention, shall we (and the occasional AAA game I think isn't getting enough attention)? For this episode, I used some of the demos I had grabbed from the Myths & Legends & Women's Day Sale Steam Events!  RULES! Typically, there are 4 demos. Each demo gets 30 minutes, not including the adjustment of settings and character creation. I might up it to 5 and/or play a great game for longer if there are technical issues. Or a demo finishes before the timer goes off. And NO AI's spit, aka. plagiarism laundering.

Today, I, attempted, to play 4 demos for your enjoyment:

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee by ArcanaXIX - Planned Release Date: 2025 Play as Amadeus, a young werewolf struggling to understand his condition, as he navigates a tale woven by Witches. In desperation, he sells his own memories for a notebook and a promise. A linear narrative Visual Novel + Adventure Game. Episode 1 of 5. CONTENT WARNING: This game deals with topics including: child abuse/neglect, death, murder. It also involves body horror with respect to the main character's werewolf transformations.

Lord Ambermaze by Potata Company - Planned Release Date: To be announced Lord Ambermaze is an adventure RPG with a turn-based combat system and time manipulation mechanics – only your steps can force the flow of time to move. Delve into the depths of the underworld to challenge the evil Lord and restore time.

Night Dessert by mystific - Planned Release Date: 2025 Night Dessert is a sultry talking simulator set in a cozy pixel-art pastry shop. Chat with intriguing characters, enjoy flirtatious conversations, and indulge in sweet secrets - all while a city under new prohibition laws tries to keep desires under wraps. CONTENT WARNING: This game features suggestive dialogue, flirtation, dating scenarios, occasional depictions of nudity, and playful innuendos. While exploring romantic and sensual themes, the content remains non-explicit and focuses on character relationships, personal dramas, and emotional connections. The tone is chill and atmospheric, blending humor, sultry undertones, and a touch of intimacy. The game does not contain violence. AI-GENERATED CONTENT DISCLOSURE: We are a small indie team without a dedicated composer, so we are currently using AI-generated music. Our goal is to replace it with original compositions as soon as our budget allows, and we would love to collaborate with talented musicians in the future. The ONLY REASON I played this is because they INTEND to replace the spit with original compositions, aka. human art.

Through the Nightmares by Sandman Team - Available: Coming soon Help the Sandman to overcome all fears in the hardcore action-platformer Through the Nightmares. Find and rescue the children, fight all their phobias! Defeat the almighty Morpheus! Test your skill in a world where everything is trying to kill you. Die, resurrect, learn from mistakes and try again!

The links above are to the games' Steam pages. Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee, Lord Ambermaze, Night Dessert, and Through the Nightmares' demos are on itch.io!

Overall, I want Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee, and Lord Ambermaze, and they are on my wishlist. When the spit is replaced in Night Dessert, I'll wishlist it.

For anyone interested in a mini-review, it will be available on the Opinions & Truth | O&T blog later today, or this week, here!  

If you don't see Part 25 when you click the link, it means I'm still working on it. Feel free to look at other videos while you wait!

And that's it for the mini-review of Part 25! Thank you for reading! If this series of videos is something you're interested in, they're available on YouTube, The Titans' Discord, Steam, Rumble, Odysee, Ko-fi, and on multiple blogging platforms! Don't forget to hit the Subscribe and/or Follow buttons to know when there's more!

—

—

TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Welcome Gamers! 2:34 - Artist Shout-Out 4:29 - Demos' Intro/Rules 11:06 - Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee 45:04 - Lord Ambermaze 1:17:12 - Night Dessert - Mature 1:40:58 - Through the Nightmares 2:02:54 - Demos Line Up 2:07:21 - Artist Shout-Out 2:09:02 - Thank You/Links2:10:20 - Rendezvous Point Bookshop Plug 2:11:20 - Up Next: Let's Play Some NSFW Demos! - Part 4/Password: LPSNWD 4$ 2:13:00 - Farewell

—

"Let's Play Some Demos!" Video Series YouTube Playlist "Let's Play Some Demos!" Video Series Blog Posts

Pilot: CrossCode, Dumpy & Bumpy, Ynglet, Zero Ranger

Part 2: A Dance of Fire and Ice, 2064: Read Only Memories, Death and Taxes, Underhero

Part 3: TEKKEN 8, Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition, Secrets of Grindea, Forspoken

Part 4: Death's Hangover, Fae Farm, Fate/Samurai Remnant, Mini Settlers

Part 5: All-Star Fruit Racing, Indivisible, SaGa Emerald Beyond, Visions of Mana

Part 6: Glorious Companions, Tales of Arise, Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge, Cozy Island

Part 7: The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, Cursebane, Dex, The Lady Puppet

Part 8: Detroit: Become Human, Little Goody Two Shoes, Luma Island, Tinkerlands

Part 9: Backpack Battles, Glaciered, Ratopia, Slime Rancher

Part 10: Captain Contraption's Chocolate Factory, Maid Cafe on Electric Street, Neon Noodles, Tiny Glade

Part 11: Critter Café, Grimoire Groves, Pixel Cafe, Wizdom Academy

Part 12: AdventureBarStory, Bone's Cafe, DELTARUNE, Mudborne

Part 13: Food Truck Simulator, Magical Bakery, Magical Delicacy, Seaside Cafe Rush Hour

Part 14: Chef's Tail, Espresso Tycoon, Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo, Tavern Talk

Part 15: Chicken Journey, FANTASIAN Neo Dimension, Terra Memoria, Until Then

Part 16: Cornucopia®, Hipster Café, Let's Café, Spells & Secrets

Part 17: Doloc Town, Feed the Cups, Manitas Kitchen, Mushroom Picnic Party, Rift of the NecroDancer

Part 18: Meadgard: Beer and Plunder, BOKURA: planet, Teeny Tiny Town, Tower of Babel: Survivors of Chaos

Part 19: Dungeons of Hinterberg, The Mildew Children, Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island, Yaoling: Mythical Journey

Part 20: AI LIMIT, Harmony's Odyssey, Last Time I Saw You, Whiskers & Wizardry

Part 21: Constance, Dragoon Ascension, Kara Fantasy, Welcome to Elderfield

Part 22: Crowncity, Dungeon Alchemist, Parliament of Hell 1796, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars

Part 23: The Bear - A Story from the World of Gra, Crime or Punishment, The Star Named EOS, There's No Monsters, Emblems: Sunless Vow

Part 24: Angeline Era, ctrl.alt.DEAL, Find-o'-Lantern, Imperiums: Greek Wars

Part 26: Tuesday, April 1st

Part 27: Tuesday, April 8th

—

MORE INFO & TO SUPPORT - About MonriaTitans | WGS - Rendezvous Point Bookshop - Artist Shout-Outs Criteria - The Titans' Discord - Throne Wishlist - #SubOffTwitch - YouTube - Rumble - Odysee - Twitch - Steam

[amadeusgame]

Posting these as they are in fact relevant to this month's devlog (coming very soon).

The following track is from the very first online-only all-pencil prototype I made for Amadeus, and has been axed from all subsequent versions. It was meant to evoke the kind of energy you often get in visual novels after certain reveals, where characters are deciding where to go from here and what it all means.

A mix of nostalgia and optimism, forward momentum; that sort of feeling.

...But admittedly, the composition is also very blatantly just an imitative counterpoint exercise:

I have always liked parts of this track, but it didn't fit into the game Amadeus has now become.

Well, I'm pleased to announce that a transformed version of it has made its way into the final game. I'm really excited about it. I'll only post a snippet here, because it's not finished, and because it is a track that plays very late in the game and I don't want to give away too much. But I do want to share this snippet as a sort of "celebration" of the fact that I have finished the core build of this entire game.

Uncertain Fate ~ Finale:

This version is very blatantly ripping off of inspired by "You - Destructive" from Higurashi When They Cry, and considering how important Higurashi has been in my process of creating this game, I think that's fitting.

Full devlog coming very soon, and know that after some ups and downs, I'm getting really excited about finishing it.

( Steam | Itch.io | More Links )

[amadeusgame]

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz

Feature-complete demo is OUT NOW! (Mac | PC | Linux)

✨ 4 scenes of hybrid visual novel + point-and-click ✨ big braining encouraged

All links here. Available on Steam and itch.io!

Play as Amadeus, a young werewolf struggling to understand his condition, as he navigates a tale woven by Witches. In desperation, he sells his own memories for a notebook and a promise...

Play & Wishlist on Steam | Play & Follow on itch.io

[amadeusgame]

See if you can spot the differences between the top screenshot from the new Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee demo, and a different screenshot from very first build that was made as a fun experiment after learning how buttons work in Unity.

(It's very subtle, but if you look closely, you might note a few improvements.)

New Demo Out Now - MacOS, PC, Linux

[amadeusgame]

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz... Is Built!

Well, we did it, gamers. Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz is built and playable from start-to-finish.

That's the long and short of it.

...But obviously, I have more to say than that. The bulk of this update is not so much about tangible accomplishments, but about how maintain passion and focus for this project and see it through now that I've come this far. For a very, very verbose meditation on what still lies between now and release, feel free to read on!

( Steam | Itch.io | More Links )

June Devlog: A Very, Very Verbose Meditation On What's Next

The fact that the whole game is built is a little insane to think about, but there's still so much to do to get it actually release-ready that it doesn't feel as much like an achievement as it should. I've written previously about how motivation is incredibly valuable currency for one person making a whole game, and I've been thinking a lot about how to sustain it all the way to the final finish line.

I believe the answer lies in the problem itself: the game's incomplete art and music.

I have spent the past 6 months solely dedicated to building the remaining scenes. It's gone by so fast that I had to double-check that number, but it's accurate! I've been putting my head down and knocking out a huge scene-by-scene checklist nonstop since January. For half a year, my primary focus has been in-engine game development.

Of course, that development work included the creation of art and music assets to implement, but many of those are very... placeholder-y at the moment. The bulk of the work I have been doing is just Getting It All In And Working. After 6 solid months of this I was definitely getting burnt out, enough that I still can't appreciate the enormity of what I've achieved.

I have built the entire game! But all I can think about is what still needs to be done, and how unfinished some scenes still look.

When I got the last scene in the game working, a milestone I had been working towards for half a year straight, I found myself just feeling drained. There was no sense of pride or accomplishment. So I told myself to take the rest of June "off," and really thought about how to get myself pumped up for the final steps of development. How to turn the source of my dread and anxiety—"there are still so many placeholders in this game, will I actually finish it on time?"—into a source of motivation.

I first considered continuing as I have been, focusing on a certain handful of scenes every month and getting them from "built" to "release-ready" one by one. But between the asset replacements and bug fixes and mechanics tweaks that are needed, that just felt overwhelming. I need to feel excited right now; not overwhelmed.

How can I get excited about this game again?

Well, Amadeus's first prototype began development when I was in music school. The main character is literally named after Mozart. The only convention I have tabled at—MAGWest 2024 represent!—is a convention focused on game music.

But for 6 months, the music has been a backburner item.

And I really miss making music.

It's time to return to my roots. Next month, I am going to just eat, sleep, and breathe music again. The game build itself can take the backburner for a moment; I'll flesh out the BGM tracks that need more development, workshop the mixes, really give them all the same amount of love and detail that the finished tracks have. I haven't been able to do that while also splitting my attention between narrative revisions/bug fixes/implementation/thumbnailing art assets, so I want to give myself a month where I do absolutely nothing but work on the soundtrack.

(One of the tracks I need to flesh out is a reworked version of "Uncertain Fate" from the old prototype. I wrote a little about it, including a preview you can listen to, in this previous post!)

I think this music sidequest is going to be in the game's best interest, too. I take pride in every aspect of Amadeus, and some people have told me that its visual aesthetic is what drew them to it; but in my eyes, the music has always been its most important driving force.

That's the beauty of multimedia, right? The most important feature for one person may not be so important to someone else.

Once I make the game, I have no control over what it means to someone else who plays it. But because of my own motivations for making Amadeus, I really need the whole soundtrack to slap. Hearing a fully fleshed-out soundtrack will help maintain my confidence, motivate the writing and art revisions I still need to do, and guide the rest of the game's direction to the very end. It's absolutely vital.

If July goes well, my plan for August is to do the same but for the art assets. I want to give myself a month where I can just immerse myself in the medium of visual art and bring the remaining CG's, backgrounds, and character portraits to life.

All this to say: I have been a game developer for 6 months. Now, I really need to just be an artist for a while.

I still won't make promises I can't keep, but as a tentative release timeline update: if I do finish all (or even most) of the assets by the end of August, I will need September for implementation & narrative, and October for playtesting. Game release would likely occur in November. That is the goal, but I will have a better idea of how realistic it is after these two months of art focus.

I really didn't think I would still be working on this first episode so far into 2025, but here we are. I've learned a lot about development in this time. Episode 1 has taken me about 3 years. How long will Episode 2 take? Episode 3? 4? 5? I have no idea. I don't know whether I will take the foundation I've built here and the others will go much faster, or if I will move the goalposts each time and make each episode progressively more and more of a production. Only time will tell.

I'm not worrying about that yet. I said I would release Episode 1 ~ Waltz in 2025, and I am going to do just that. For now, that means it's time to make some music.

As fortune would have it, I got a little bit of a head start on this "music month." A friend asked me to score their Toxic Yuri VN Jam entry Beaconing: A Lost Cause, and I've been working on some of the most utterly deranged music I've ever made for it. It's been a great way to de-rust my mixing skills and just... have fun and go nuts. Writing music for someone else exercises different muscles than writing music for myself does, and even though the whole thing is scored with Logic Loops and random sound files I already had lying around (it's a game jam game okay), I like to think nobody else would make Logic Loops come out quite this particular flavor of fucked up. Not to mention that writing bullshit purely with Logic Loops and random sound files is just fun!

Please look forward to that game dropping soon, I'll be sure to shill it in the next update.

And as my work for that is mostly done, I intend to wrap it up soon so I can throw myself back into Amadeus. But the priority shift has worked: I'm really excited about my work for next month. It's going to be a ton of fun.

[amadeusgame]

Benchmark: as of yesterday, Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz is a fully playable experience from start-to-finish. All scenes in the game are built and functioning.

That's not to say it's in a state that's even quite ready for playtesting, as there are some scenes I haven't finished implementing placeholders, and certain others need script revisions; but this is a significant milestone regardless. I'll see what I can get done in what remains of the month. There will be a full status update in this month's devlog.

[amadeusgame]

Those of you who stopped by the Amadeus booth at MAGWest may remember that there was a "guest book" there folks were invited to sign. In this book were left some of the most inspiring, kind, heartfelt, and beautiful words I've ever read. I've debated whether or not it's appropriate to post the entries anywhere and have largely decided not to, but I do look at them frequently as a source of motivation, and I am immensely grateful to everybody who took the time to sign it.

I will post this particular entry, however, because @internetkatze truly captured Amadeus's energy...

...and because it's a good way to shill that this blog has a #fan art tag now! This is mostly so I can stare at these fondly and repeatedly, but now you can stare at them fondly too.

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz feature-complete demo is out!

[amadeusgame]

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz May Devlog

Devlog TL;DR—

BandCamp album updated & discounted!

Embeds with art & story snippets on my website here!

Game 2 scenes away from being built*!

I played through all of it. Very confident in where it's at :)

*with placeholders, but built nonetheless.

Read on for details~

Wishlist on Steam | Follow on Itch | More Links

OST Update

First, SOMETHING FUN. To celebrate Amadeus reaching over 700 outstanding wishlists on Steam (what!!), and also to celebrate the fact that I am almost finished building the whole thing; I've updated the soundtrack album on BandCamp. It now:

Contains every track in the current demo

Preserves tracks from obsolete demos

Costs $5 (but you can listen all you want for totally free)

I have also updated the "thank you for your support" page I built with the soundtrack embed, so it has all of this music with unique track art and overall better reflects what the game is now. If you want a way to experience the music and vibes of Amadeus without playing the game, this is probably the best way to do that! Check it out here: https://arcanaxix.com/PressKit/ost.html

(Disclaimer: it probably looks terrible on super high-res screens, please zoom in if that is the case. Forgive my janky webdev. Thank you in advance)

Development Status

Now—on to progress. As with the last few before it, this past month was spent building out 3 new scenes in the game to a state of "playable." The scripts are in with some revisions, a combination of final and placeholder assets were used to flesh them out, and the scenes exist now. I spent particular attention on the music implementation and timing for these ones (...including fixing a bug with the seamless looping mechanic and how it transitions between tracks) and I think that's feeling really effective.

I'm not saying much more because this is the juiciest part of the game. I don't want to set expectations or give things away in a development update before the game is even out, so I'm really holding back here. But there's nothing quite like finally getting to make the climax of this game after working on it somewhere between 2 and 3 years. It's so exciting!!

Pulling back from last month's specific goals, I also took one day and decided to play all the way through the game that I have built so far, from start-to-finish. I was starting to feel incredibly anxious about whether my "one hour before work each workday" development slots were in fact enough time dedicated to this game to actually finish it. I am very aware of how many placeholders and not-quite-fully-implemented mechanics are in the later scenes, in stark contrast to the early scenes that are fully polished and publicly available. I have been swimming in a sea of "not quite actually there" scenes, so the fear I'm not really making very much progress at all has been eating away at me.

So I decided to play it and know for sure. What state is the game in, really? How unfinished is it still? Is the writing as rough as I feel like it is?

Ohhh, I'm so glad I did this. Playing the game pretty much destroyed these fears. This game is going to be good. It is going to be good for a very particular audience, sure; but for those who are seeking what I am giving, it is going to be really special. It already is good. It already is special.

The music is great. The writing is great. The art is great. The seeds I am sowing for things that will happen much later are delicious. I laughed a couple times. And the combination of everything, in my completely mega-biased opinion, is something of a flavor completely unlike anything else out there. It is certainly inspired by very specific things, but the way they come together here is incredibly unique. I am so excited to share this with the world!

(Playing the game also had other uses. It helped me discover some bugs I didn't catch in some early scenes from edits I made to certain menu prefabs. It gave me a couple ideas on a few thematic items I can tie together a bit neater. The experience just generally gave me a good big-picture perspective that I really needed.)

And funny enough, it is this excitement and confidence, not the anxiety from before, that actually gets me to wake up a little earlier for even more development time on occasion. I started this devlog an hour before my Amadeus Slot(TM)  technically began today because I wanted to spend more time on it. Amadeus is very important to me, and dedicating time to it is important to me. Especially since I have a difficult-but-rewarding IRL job that interfaces a lot with trauma and other shit that sucks; Amadeus gives me something meaningful to work hard on that isn't so high-stakes, but is equally rewarding. It's necessary for me to stay sane. I am devoted to seeing it through to its 5-episode completion.

June Goals

For this coming month, my to-do list is very simple. I'm going to "finish" the game. Certainly not to a ready-for-publishing state, not even quite to a ready-for-playtesting state (although that should be coming soon after); but to a "you can technically play it from the very start to the very end and it contains the full experience" state.

What that means in practice is building out one last point-and-click scene, one last VN scene, and the credits. I'm looking forward to posting a devlog at the end of June that just says "WE DID IT GAMERS."

(Short aside - this next month I will also be writing some tracks for a friend working on the Toxic Yuri VN Jam, and said friend has encouraged me to go nuts and do wild shit, so that should be really fun. I will share the fruits of our labor when that is finished too.)

For today, that about wraps things up. Thank you for your continued interest!

...

......

......

..

...Okay, one final aside. It was last June that I wrote a devlog about overcoming a massive internal hurdle by means of playing Sonic Adventure and remembering what matters to me in games, gaining a huge boost in confidence and returning to development with a vigor. This past month, I replayed Sonic Adventure again and overcame a similar hurdle. Coincidence???

[amadeusgame]

The new, feature-complete demo for Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz is OUT NOW on itch.io!

Coming soon to Steam - if that's your preferred platform, you don't have much longer to wait.

Stay up-to-date at linktr.ee/amadeusgame

[amadeusgame]

"Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz" DEMO is OUT! (MacOS | PC | Linux)

Links here. Available on Steam and Itch.io!

Play as Amadeus, a young werewolf struggling to understand his condition, as he navigates a tale woven by Witches. He is equal parts desperate and determined—how can one reclaim agency over themself, when afflicted by a curse that steals it from them every time the moon Aska draws full?

Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee is a hand-drawn narrative game heavily inspired by Umineko When They Cry thematically, and Professor Layton aesthetically. Gameplay is a blend of pure Visual Novel scenes + Point-and-Click Adventure scenes. The story is linear, and will be told in 5 sequential episodes.

Episode 1 ~ Waltz will release Fall 2024. Please check out the demo in the meantime, and Wishlist on Steam to be notified when the full game releases!

All links: https://linktr.ee/amadeusgame

[amadeusgame]

reblog if the girl on the bottom is just as beautiful as the girl on the top. but also if you want to meet the girl on the top stay tuned for the new demo :)

(original design was from before Amadeus had much of a plot - I was just daydreaming about OC's while thinking about a specific Final Fantasy 8 enemy)

(new design is from now that Amadeus very much has a plot and I wanted to increase the number of unsubtle metaphors in it)

more on Amadeus - linktr.ee/amadeusgame

[amadeusgame]

never mind complaining about VN fest canceled WOMEN'S DAY SALE OFFICIALLY GOT AMADEUS THE BEST DAY IN WISHLISTS EVER

WINGS–you are legends. everyone involved in this sale is a queen, a legend, a swag-tier gamer, and I hope you get everything you want in life forever.

browse the sale here!!!

[amadeusgame]

You all get this reveal early! This will be announced in the monthly devlog as well.

AMADEUS: A RIDDLE FOR THEE ~ EPISODE 1 ~ WALTZ now has an OPENING CINEMATIC. By which I mean, yes, I re-wrote the "waltz" theme in the style of some banger anime OPs and drew a ton of new art and put this together. It is inspired by other VN openings as well as the AMVs of yore made in Windows Movie Maker.

This WILL play in-game! It should be included in the new demo build coming very soon.

Stay tuned: