woodsy_studio

Hello everyone! Our two-person team at Woodsy Studio is excited to officially announce Echoes of the Fey - Episode 2: The Last Sacrament. It's actually pretty far along in production right now (about 75% complete), but we're running a Kickstarter to help us to the finish line and fund all of the features we want to implement (such as more CGs and voice acting). The Echoes of the Fey series mixes a high fantasy setting with the mysteries and conspiracies of pulp detective fiction. Play as Sofya Rykov, a private investigator with a secret of her own: she is the only Human able to wield unlimited magic. Her country of Oraz is recovering from a 30-year war between Humans and Leshin (elves) over the use of Fey energy, so her unstable magic is best kept secret. Sofya herself is an unusual protagonist. For starters, we gave her personality traits typically given to the male leads of hard-boiled mystery tales. She sports a sassy, optimistic attitude that laughs in the face of danger, but this is a cover for the fear and helplessness underneath. As a result she sleeps around, drinks heavily, and knows she could die at any moment from the strange magic trapped inside of her. In The Last Sacrament, Sofya’s childhood love and the Emperor’s daughter, Katerina, seeks her protection from threats near the border. Meanwhile Katerina’s rival, Nikolai, needs a dangerous drug stolen from the powerful Krovakyn Church and uses blackmails to force Sofya’s assistance. Nikolai wants a dose of the Sacrament, a mysterious substance from the Krovakyn Church that can cure illnesses and extend lifespans. But repeated use of the Sacrament causes strange side effects, such as hallucinations and physical deformities. Nikolai wants to give the Sacrament to his grandmother, who has already received the maximum dosage allowed. It’s up to you, the player, to solve each case and determine its outcome. Can you track down Katerina’s enemy? And if you manage to steal the Sacrament, what will you choose to do with it? You also have several romance options in The Last Sacrament. If you proceed carefully, you can develop a romantic relationship with Katerina, Arkady, Nikolai, or Heremon. Most of The Last Sacrament consists of traditional VN scenes with choices to direct the story. You can also roam the town of Vodotsk freely as a side-scrolling environment, which opens up side quests and optional investigation opportunities. But the most experimental aspect of Echoes of the Fey: The Last Sacrament is a complex mini-game called RiftRealms. This is a tabletop game that exists in the world of Echoes of the Fey, and as Sofya you can play with other characters. We thought this would be an interesting way to showcase each character’s personality based on how they treat you as a Dungeon master. It also explores the question: what do people fantasize about in a fantasy world? What I'd love to hear from you: 1) Feedback about RiftRealms Via the download-able demo, you can see the first few scenes of the game and try RiftRealms for yourself! We'd love to hear what people think of the mini-game and whether you feel it will be an enjoyable addition to the narrative experience. If you have any other specific feedback about the game right now we'd love to hear that, too 2) Feedback regarding technical game performance Due to the fact that we're building this game in Unreal Engine 4 and implementing some fancy 3D environments, we realize that playing the game will require a better graphics card and CPU than most visual novels. You can set the Overall Visual Quality to LOW in the Options menu if you have a lower-end computer. Either way, we'd love to get a general feel for how the game performs for the average player. PROGRESS The Kickstarter sadly wasn't funded, but we promised that we would stay hard-at-work on the game and ensure it released, though perhaps without all the features we hoped to fund. We anticipated an early 2018 release date, but the unsuccessful campaign and a Steam release of our latest game, miraclr: Divine Dating Sim put us a few months behind schedule. A few months later, we're excited to be ready to give an update on The Last Sacrament. The script is finished and 95% coded into the game. Almost all the art assets are complete and incorporated into the project. The soundtrack is complete except for a couple of remixes that we hope will be a fun surprise for our players. What's left to complete? First off, the remaining portions of the script we've yet to implement in the game. That last five percent is chronologically near the end of the game and (as a result) has more branches/possibilities than most scenes. Second, we're hoping to implement a dynamic version of RiftRealms, the RPG mini-game, so that if players enjoy it they can experience it at any time, not just when the story allows. Finally, the not-insignificant testing and optimization phase, where we'll iron out every bug we can find over the final stretch. So, when will you be able to play The Last Sacrament? As long as there aren't any more unexpected delays, we're aiming for a late May or June release on Steam/itch.io for Windows PCs. Console versions will likely be later this year. Thanks to everyone who signed up to back the project last year. We're looking forward to finally making the game available to you and everyone else!

A lot of good anime suggestions on here; I need to keep a list! I've been watching the "Sinbad" and "Magi" series on Netflix. They're not fantastic, but decent enough that I seem to keep watching. Occasionally the series has some really good moments that remind me a little of "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood" in terms of epic scope, but those moments are rare. I really want to keep watching the "Berserk" series (loved the movies), but I can't find a good place to watch it online.

Well, just thought I'd throw an update on here. The game is now content complete and we're just in the polishing/testing phase! **If anyone here is interested in testing, let me know and I'd be happy to hook you up with a copy.** Here's a new trailer we put together for the upcoming release (hopefully by late January):

Hello everyone! I thought I'd post here about the project I am currently working on: Echoes of the Fey - Episode 0: The Immolation We're currently in Steam Greenlight! ABOUT WOODSY STUDIO I (Jenny Gibbons) run Woodsy Studio along with Malcolm Pierce, and this will be our fifth released visual novel. You can find more info about our previous games on our website, which include Serafina's Saga, Serafina's Crown, Quantum Conscience, and Echoes of the Fey: Episode 1. Although we're usually the sole developers of our projects, we hire out for voice acting in our games, and we occasionally recruit other people such as artists and sound designers to help us out. INTRODUCTION TO EPISODE 0: THE IMMOLATION "Echoes of the Fey" is a visual novel series following a flawed but forcefully optimistic heroine, Sofya Rykov, trapped amidst the conflict between Humans and Leshin (elves). For thirty years, the continent of Oraz has been wracked by the great war between its peoples. The East is ruled by the kingdom of the Humans, divided up into counties and family houses. Beyond the great forest of the west is the Leshin, undying men and women with a strong connection to the Fey, capable of powerful magic. Humans cannot wield Fey magic on their own, but they know how to channel it into machines called Fey reactors and manipulate it for their purposes. Deeply offended by this use of Fey energy, the Leshin have been fighting for decades to disarm Humans of their Fey reactor technology. "Echoes of the Fey: Episode 0 - The Immolation" is a short prequel to "Echoes of the Fey: Episode 1 - The Fox's Trail," already released. It reveals the origin of Sofya's strange abilities and how she came to meet Heremon. Although Episode 1 is a commercial project, Episode 0 will be released for FREE upon completion. DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS Currently the project is about 75% done, and the remaining 25% primarily consists of UI touch-ups, bug fixing, and adding features. The script is written, VA is complete, *most* artwork is finished, most of the code foundation is in place, and almost all the scenes have been coded in. This is the first visual novel we've made in Unreal Engine 4, so it has been an interesting adventure so far! Naturally, it was difficult getting started setting up our own visual novel engine within UE4, but now that we've got the hang of it, we're really loving the engine altogether. We've actually had a lot fewer problems so far than we experienced with Game Maker, our previous engine. Before that we used Ren'Py, which is still a fantastic engine for people who don't need to add complex elements to their VN beyond normal branching and dialogue. We've been sitting in Greenlight for awhile, but we're hoping we can get Greenlit by the time we're finished with the game, so we can release it free onto Steam as soon as possible! I'll try to update here as we progress. In the meantime, you can check out Episode 1 of the series, currently discounted for Steam's winter sale!

This project looks very cool. Congrats, and I hope to check it out sometime soon!

Thanks for the warm welcome and recommendations everyone! XD Kikokugai looks pretty cool, I hope to check that one out!

Hello everyone! I'm a visual novel fan and developer who hopes to see visual novels become more mainstream! I love dark and dramatic stories that are compelling and intelligent, with some romance and action mixed in. I'd have to say my favorite visual novel is probably Danganronpa 2. I'm looking forward to meeting more people here and getting introduced to new visual novels!