#eli's devlog

[endys]

Lost soul, wandering through mist and snow...

Do you feel the touch of iron cold?

The Last Winter Knight is an atmospheric Gothic visual novel I'm currently developing, where you play as a ghostly knight haunting a suit of armour!

You wake up as a ghost, with no memory of who you were or how you died. The only clue to your past is the empty suit of armour you now possess.

As you explore an abandoned castle and piece together your memories, you’ll uncover your tale: A tale of broken promises, regret, and bonds that last beyond death.

But your story doesn’t have to die with you.

How will you write its ending?

Wishlist on Steam

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[mage-parivir]

devlog #2

Several updates with regard to A Mage Reborn...I’ve got good news and bad news.

Good news: I woke up with an epiphany this morning that will start the post-resurrection arc in a much better (and more interesting) setting. A completely random stroke of bleary-eyed imagination, but one I believe will do the project a lot of good! I’m excited to work on it.

Bad news: I already have around 10k words of the post-resurrection arc written, and upon reviewing the contents I might have to ax ~75% of it. Oopsies.

Good news: This won’t impact the release of the next demo, since the pre-resurrection arc is completely unaffected. We’re still scheduled for a mid-March update.

Bad news: There’s still a lot of gray area with regard to the new content that I haven’t really plotted out yet. This means that writing after the second demo will progress slower as I try to work out the finer details of the arc.

Good news: The revisions made to the post-resurrection arc has freed me of the need to genderlock Eli! Eli will now be a gender-selectable character, a feature to be implemented from the third demo onwards.

That’s all for the updates! But it wouldn’t be a proper devlog without a spoiler screenshot or two, right? Passage from the upcoming demo (featuring a POV switch to Sister!) under the cut.

Fun times.

Until next time, folks. Stay healthy & safe!

Parivir

[endys]

The demo for Snow White Ashes, a dark, romantic fairy tale VN, is out now!

One winter night, you meet a hunter in the woods: A man so warm and gentle you feel as if you've known him all your life.

But appearances can be deceiving. 

You'd know that well, wouldn't you?

Snow White Ashes is a romance visual novel (GxB) made for a couple of end of year game jams, and playable now on itch.io!

The demo includes:

6k words

1 ending with 2 variants*

Hand drawn artwork (5 CGs)

An original piano-based soundtrack

One charming, not at all bloodthirsty love interest

You, a completely innocent and guileless heroine.

Game link (itch.io)

(For long time friends: Yes, this is a reboot of some very, very old OCs in the Mistwalker verse. I hope you'll enjoy what their new story has to offer!)

[endys]

I had the realisation I could put whatever I want in my game so-

[endys]

Haunt a suit of armour. Find your memories.

Lay the ghosts of the past to rest... including your own.

You wake up as a ghost, with no memory of who you were or how you died. The only clue to your past is the empty suit of armour you now inhabit.

As you explore an abandoned castle and piece together your memories, you’ll uncover your tale: A tale of broken promises, regret, and bonds that last beyond death.

The Last Winter Knight is a Gothic visual novel that features:

Point and click exploration

A spooky and melancholy atmosphere

A story about love, loss and family

Mysteries to unravel

A dynamic piano-based soundtrack

Original artwork fit for a dark fairy tale

A ghost knight (you!)

The demo will be released on June 30th.

Add it to your Steam wishlist here!

[endys]

Every night, you awaken in your studio and paint your masterpiece. 

Or, at least, you try to.

Oh, if only your muse would return.

If only lifting your brush didn't fill your fingertips with agony.

“It Paints Me”, a short Gothic horror visual novel I made for Scream Jam, is now available on Itch!

It's 3k words long and includes two endings, hand drawn artwork and original music.

(The scariest part of the game is the title, I know how paintful my puns are)

Happy Halloween!

[endys]

Notice: The Last Winter Knight's demo will be taken down on Dec 20th.

Full devlog on Itch, but the tl;dr is that the story has changed quite a bit since I first wrote it and the demo no longer reflects it accurately. The mood, themes and atmosphere of the game won't change, but it still needs a rework!

Thank you for all the support you've given the game so far (especially the recent influx of players!) and I'll let you know once a new one is up. If you'd still like to see the demo, please do so on Steam or Itch before December 20th. Thank you!

Psst, that day is also when the new cover art will be revealed...

[endys]

You know how I said I wasn't going to do Scream Jam this year?

.......what if I got hit by inspiration almost exactly a week before and am now scrambling to see if i can fit it in-

[endys]

Motifs of Deception - A musical wolf in sheep's clothing

Snow White Ashes is a game where the characters aren't what they appear to be at first glance. If you have sharp ears, you may have picked up a few things in the soundtrack that play off this idea!

Note: Blog posts are now archived on my website, with audio clips included!

(side note: I could not get my software to record me playing without getting some ridiculous notation like tied 32nd notes, so the rhythms won't be entirely accurate here)

First off, this is the MC's theme (AKA the "mist queen" motif, AKA your theme) which always appears in the key of D minor, and begins with a d minor to inverted G major chord.

The way these chords interact is a sound I've always found a little bit whimsical--perfect for a fairy tale setting!

Here's how it sounds in Scarborough fair, for example...

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme...

But!

When the silver-haired man appears, your theme apparently begins to play-but this time, it goes from a d minor to g minor chord, and then transitions into an entirely new key--the hunter's key, G minor.

From here on, we get a new melody--this is when the ashen hunter's theme finally begins playing, but only after being "disguised" as your theme.

This happens again with the second mist queen theme, which starts with the same two simple piano chords:

And here's the intro to the hunter's second theme, once again imitating your theme with an inverted g minor chord:

The only time the hunter's theme appears in an "uncloaked" form is during the "wolf" theme, which starts directly in the tonic of the hunter's key (G minor) and plays a variation of his melody from the start.

The hunter's theme | The wolf theme

The hunter isn't the only character being "deceptive", though. After all, the melody for MC (ostensibly an ordinary girl) and the song that describes the mysterious "mist queen" are one and the same...

Jumping back to the game itself--did you notice the descriptions of the characters' clothing? The hunter is wearing fur; the MC is dressed in wool and sheepskin.

Who's the real wolf in sheep's clothing?

[endys]

Finished the sprite artwork and expressions for the main character in Untitled Knight Game! ;D

[endys]

Sprite art for Untitled Knight Game! Still have to touch up the MC's art and start a few side characters...

[endys]

Short teaser for the point and click VN I'm making where you play a ghost inhabiting a suit of armour!

[endys]

SEPTEMBER DEVLOG - Kit roadmap, summer knights and fairy tales

It's hard to believe chapter 3 of Kit released back in May. When I started developing Kit into a visual novel, I'd planned for it to only have four chapters and one character route... Now, it's looking to be about eight chapters long with four character routes--a lot more than initially planned, to say the least!

While daunting, I'm happy and excited to turn this story into the best version I can make it, and to give every character-including Kit-the depth they didn't have in the original outline. Kit is near and dear to me; it's a love letter to the wonderfully spooky world of Gothic literature, while also drawing from my personal experiences and feelings. Even if nobody else ever read or played Kit, writing it would still have value to me...

...But if you're reading this, chances are you have played Kit's demo, and thank you, once again, for giving your time to this game and story!

I mentioned last time that I was working on Anja's theme; I don't want to show it outside of the context of the scene it appears in, but I can share the introduction...

(You might hear the musical allusions in this piece, or glean them from the title...)

(I'll definitely do a devlog post just to go over the soundtrack, composition and recording process, but that'll be another day.)

So what's the plan for Kit's development?

It's roughly looking like this:

Draft out the full story, routes and endings (80k-100k words as a rough estimate)

Draw or update the character portraits into full sprites (no more floating torsos, alas) and update the UI

Release an updated demo that includes the beginning of each character's route (i.e. part or all of chapter 4) on both itch and steam

Figure out a proper title because just "Kit" is virtually ungoogleable (and Kit in the Cellar sounds like Kid in the Cellar...)

???

Finish the game

This timeline means that Kit won't have any publicly playable updates until well into 2024, and a full release even further off. I apologise to those who were looking forward to more-I hope that you'll stick around and find the wait worth it!

You won't have to wait too long for more Mistwalker stories, however...

Onto game jams and side projects!

Once upon a time Jam

Some of you may have seen this teaser already for the short point-and-click style VN I'm making. This is a standalone story, set in the same universe as Kit.

You awaken within a suit of armour, countless years after your death, in a castle lost to time and snow. 

Who were you? What happened to the castle and its inhabitants? Why was your spirit unable to pass on?

...And what drew you to not just a suit of armour, but this one?

Chapter one of my yet untitled knight game is already almost fully coded. I'll be releasing the demo this fall for Once Upon A Time VN Jam, along with a micro VN (4-5k words) loosely themed around Little Red Riding Hood!

Thanks for joining me on this update-I know it was a long one. As always, take care!

[endys]

Hello all, and welcome to another devlog!

First off, you may have noticed that the Kit demo received an update recently: Version 1.3.1 added two bonus features, a phonograph and gallery viewer. More details about that are in the update here.

A totally normal, not cursed at all feature.

There are currently no plans for further story updates to the demo. (I don’t think I can pull off another cliffhanger, and I don’t think anyone wants me to haha-) Speaking of story, however...

I don’t have an organized process for pretty much anything, least of all writing the script, but so far, Anja’s route has the most scenes currently drafted. Thus, I’m aiming to finish hers first, along with starting the artwork and coding some early scenes:

A glimpse of Kit and Anja’s first meeting. Hopefully there won’t be any blood...

Onto music...

Unlike Franz’s theme, Falling Leaf, Anja’s “true” theme hasn’t been revealed in the demo, but it has been written and only needs a more polished recording! It’s a piece I love and I am so excited to create the rest of the tracks for her route based on it. Those of you who picked her route in the demo will have heard parts of it already in two tracks: Kaltes Mondlicht and Rose in Bloom.

Apart from very obviously being centred around the lady herself, Anja’s route delves further into Kit’s love of and fraught relationship with music. While I don’t want to spoil too much, I can leave a snippet of a background track...

Thank you for joining me on this (somewhat shorter) update! I hope that you’re having a pleasant summer, and as always, take care!

[endys]

Hi! I was wondering if you plan to release some sheet music or a tutorial on how to play some of the OST from It Paints Me, I would really like to be able to play Solitude especially on my keyboard, but I'm terrible when it comes to listening by ear to play the notes.

I'm sorry anon, I really wish there was an easy way to make sheets available, but the short answer is that it takes too much effort and isn't something I at all enjoy doing.

I rarely use notation at all when I write, so when I work with piano tracks in my pieces, I use a .WAV recording of myself playing on my keyboard, which I then cut up or trim in my software as needed.

(I know it's not the best method, but the keyboard I have sounds better than any piano VST I'm willing to pay for haha...)

While technically the recording does start out as a MIDI, 99% of the time I ignore it completely because it looks like this:

Even if I do make my recordings at the "proper" tempo and time signature, it isn't as easy as plugging it into notation software and calling it done. There's a lot of adjustments that have to be made, from putting the correct notes in the correct clefs to fixing the note values and rests on paper thanks to my absolute lack of rhythm uh, heavy use of rubato.

For all I know there might be someone out there who's made some tool in the last few years that makes all of this a breeze, but right now as a solo dev, it's not something I feel is worth the time when I could be working on another game/project/ost.

I apologise again and hope that didn't sound like some geezer going on a long rant, haha. It does mean a lot to me that you enjoy my music enough to want to learn it! If sheets do become something highly requested from me, I'll definitely consider it for the future as well!

[endys]

The demo for my gothic horror visual novel, Kit, is live at itch io!

Left to die in an abandoned wine cellar, you recount your tale of woe, only to find you may not be alone here after all... 

The demo features:

4k words

Hand drawn illustrations

Haunting (hehe) original soundtrack

The full game will feature:

Words, a lot of ‘em.

Multiple endings

One optional romance

And plenty of Poe references

Release: TBA (2023)

Kit is currently being developed by one tired artist/writer/musician/programmer, me. Now that the demo’s out I’m gonna go take a break and sleep now jsdfhjk

Thank you for checking it out!

Link to the demo

Content warnings:

Kit is a visual novel with a focus on the Gothic and less on the horror. There are no loud noises or jump scares, but the game does include darker content such as Death, injury, alcohol, depiction of human remains, and technically being buried alive, kinda sorta.