Heroine #1: Simone

Simone Dufoix, vampire killer.

Simone was born in the year 1338 in France.  Her father was a peculiar, eccentric French nobleman; her mother was a woman who fled Africa to protect her daughter (Simone's older sister), seeking refuge in what was then the heart of a religion that promised salvation; the city of the Pope, Avignon.

When the plague came to Avignon, her father devoted his wealth to helping those in need, nearly exhausting it.  Eventually, her parents and older sister were taken by the plague, and she was adopted by the Church at age 8.

She was quite gifted, showing great promise.  She quickly learned to read, write, and speak in both French and English.  She had some aptitude for magic -- a meager aptitude, but any capacity for magic was a rarity nonetheless.  Most of all, however, she was skilled in the physical realm; athletics and combat.  She is skilled with many weapons, but relies primarily on her blessed whip.

Simone grew to become a knight of the Avignon Papacy, traveling throughout France and England to exterminate the undead and other demonic or unholy threats to innocent people.  She is committed to her work and considers it her purpose in life; when she needs a diversion, she turns to music and literature. 

Her life has taught her to be self-reliant, serious, and pragmatic, if a bit stubborn and quite distant.  How will she adjust to this new world?  Will she cling to the way she had lived till now, or will she find a new purpose in life?

On bad endings and route design

Originally, this blog post was going to be about "delayed" bad endings, in which the critical choice locks you into an unwinnable scenario.  Further choices are presented, but they are all futile; they do not allow you to avoid the bad ending.  When writing, however, I thought more about the overall effect of the ways to lead to and present bad endings.

I think what this comes down to is this: does a particular choice present you with a different story, or does it simply make you lose the game?

The visual novel is often looked at as a type of video game.  There's nothing wrong with that; video games have been a storytelling medium for a long time now, on par with very good stories in other media such as print novels or films.  They may not have achieved the level of academic recognition that Citizen Kane has, but in many cases the stories are very well done and the most important part of the game.

That said, the visual novel can also be looked at as a new medium that is an offshoot of video games, similar to television being an offshoot of film.  They use the same technologies and have similar presentation in many ways, but there are still fundamental differences.

A visual novel that is not a video game is using the interactivity to explore the multiple paths that a story can go down.  For example, take Fate/Stay Night; if you strip away all the bad endings, you are left with a story that examines three possible sets of events based on the same foundation, but a small number of crucial differences.  Spoilers below.


If Saber wounds Archer early on, he's not around to help out in the battle against Berserker shortly afterward.  Saber is then wounded in the battle, traumatizing Shirou and compelling him to see her as someone that needs to be protected, thereby deepening their relationship.  Shirou and Rin team up, forcing Archer to fight on their behalf against Berserker later on, leading to Archer's death.

If Saber does not wound Archer, he is fully functional and able to intervene in the battle with Berserker, showing his hostility toward Shirou in the process.  He is in fighting condition for the rest of the story, allowing him to take the steps which drive the central conflict in the Unlimited Blade Works route.

In neither of these cases do you lose the game.  You simply watch as events unfold in entirely different ways.  They are both different permutations of the same story. 

Contrast this with a choice which leads to Shirou's sudden death (and there are a lot of them).  In these scenarios, the story comes to an abrupt end, much like running out of health in a video game.  There is no real resolution to the story.  Game over; load your save and play again.


In light of this, Lunatic Summer is on the "video game" side of things, like Fate/Stay Night; in both cases there are abrupt endings to the story which prompt the player to go back and reconsider his or her choices.

Perhaps a future work will dispense with the abrupt bad endings entirely, removing the "game" aspect.  In fact, I should make it a point to do that.  I really do want to.

Having raised the issue, I also want to say that Lunatic Summer's routes will ultimately follow the same model as Fate/Stay Night and many other visual novels; the basic foundation of the routes will be the same, but a small number of crucial differences will lead to the drastically different events of each route.

Specifically, Ray's relationships with the heroines will be the driving factor.  There will be a series of choices identifying which heroine Ray gets along with best, and this will influence certain events in ways that snowball.

Meet our protagonist

Ray Meyers lives in America.

Specifically, the city of Willemstad, capital of the state of New Netherlands.

He's a security guard (i.e. mallcop) at a nearby shopping mall...part time.  He doesn't care about making more money or having a more prestigious job.

He experienced some bullying in school as a child and teenager, and learned that violence is a very satisfying way to solve his problems when it's permissible.  He doesn't seek out fights, as he doesn't want to see himself as some sort of violent thug, but he doesn't shy away from them if he has an excuse to get involved.

His true passion is karate; he's a black belt.  However, he prefers "real" fights to tournaments or sparring, and "real" fights have a tendency to attract the attention of the police.  With no acceptable way to exercise his true passion, Ray has defaulted to killing time with more mundane activities like video games.  With little practical ambition and few real-world skills, Ray is stuck in a peaceful but mundane life, still living with his mother at age 22.

When our story begins, he begins to see things that nobody else can.  Things that are visible and audible, but intangible; like holograms, but acting with a will of their own.

What does this mean?  Why is this happening?  Is Ray going insane and hallucinating?  What effect will this have on his comfortable lifestyle?  What will happen if people find out?

FIRST

Hello!  Welcome to the inaugural post of the blog here at our visual novel production company, tentatively titled Ox-Jaw Studios.  We'll be bringing you information and teasers on all of our projects.

Currently we only have one project, tentatively titled Lunatic Summer.

We only have one staff member (tentatively named Bairaagi), and we're not looking for any more until the first draft of the writing for our current project is complete.  To give us time to work out all the kinks in the story, so our future artists don't have to trash everything and completely re-draw it all when someone points out to me that if all the drama in the first three acts is about how magic breaks technology, I can't have the main antagonist of acts four through eighteen be a cabal of wizard cyborgs*.

Lots of things are very tentative right now.  We are dipping our toes into the frigid water of establishing an internet presence, and we might decide to go back and buy a different swimsuit altogether.

Anyway, stay tuned for news, updates, and more! 

*Edit: but what if the protagonists' awareness of cyber-magic were being manipulated by the wizard cyborg conspiracy that reaches up to the highest levels of government and industry????