Greetings. I am Eiennoyume2000, a solo indie developer creating a VN-RPG titled Aletheion: Juvenile Experiments (A:JE). I do software development professionally, draw novice art as a hobby, and write stories as a wannabe. I do all three for this project and I'm learning as I go.

Presently, the itch game page is still under development and not yet ready for public release.

For now, I'm going to use the forums for my devlogs to share my thoughts and progress leading up to that first playable demo, and eventually, the full game. I aim to update this devlog periodically when I have significant progress to share, preferably once a month.

General Synopsis

A:JE is a psychological horror RPG with Visual Novel elements. The player takes on the role of an unseen Observer overseeing an experiment involving Juvenile Subjects in a virtually simulated school environment. The subjects themselves are not aware of the simulation layer.

Most of the game will have the player Observer "play" as one of the Juvenile Subjects inside the simulation. Player observes as the subjects live and interact with each other in this controlled environment, form bonds and romances, or betray and end one another.

Occasionally, the player Observer may influence a Subject's actions through dialogue choices, leading to potential branching routes. The player Observer's job is to break down the Juvenile Subjects mentally in order to mold them into useful assets for the powers that be.

You cannot save them.
Do not try to save them.
You will fail.

Planned Features

• Shift between Observer POV looking outside the Simulation and Student POV navigating school life.
• The primary focus of A:JE is narrative storytelling with branching storylines. Observer POV will have access to Flowcharts, a staple of Visual Novels.
• RPG mechanics involve exploring the campus, choosing which student to bond with, and navigating death traps to keep your Student POVs alive.
• Student POVs can acquire various collectibles scattered around the campus, later accessible through the Observer POV. Collectibles like data logs and news clippings further explain Aletheion lore.
• No RPG combat is planned. Conflicts are resolved narratively through choices.

Technical Details

• I am using RPG Maker MZ as my engine, plus various plugins notably VisuStella and Galv. I also write my own custom code whenever necessary.
• Art assets in game are a mix of original creations and modified assets purchased from vendors.
• Sound and music are sourced from commercially usable free assets and purchased assets.

Screenshots

The game is in development for almost a year now, which includes several months of skilling up. This involves learning RPG Maker to write custom code, improving my art skills for pixel sprites and CG illustrations, and doing other miscellaneous tasks like sound design and content creation for marketing.

Sharing my old build for archiving purposes.

November 2025 ~ second month of Aletheion game development.

Build was revisited during Aug 2026 for the demo video.

I mostly fixed a few introductory lines and added a temporary MacGuffin item for the demo.

The video's goal is to showcase the school environment developed.

The assets used were based on VisuStella Worlds: Cursed School, purchased then modified to fit my game's aesthetic vision. I also mixed in some original works into the tilesets, notably the smart panel objects scattered throughout the environment.

The character sprites at the time use in-engine character generator, serving as placeholders.

Presently, the environment is in a grayboxed state, as in my game is playable and navigable, but would still need significant art polish.

Right now, the background parallaxes are default RPG Maker MZ assets. I plan to experiment with some special effects where the main passable areas (school hallways and rooms) are made in RPG Maker's tile layers while the impassable areas outside the windows will be parallax layered, which may change based on certain conditions (day and night cycles for example).

Here are some more screenshots from the showcase as well as some thoughts.

Most of the other areas shown in the video still lack proper assets. Science Lab, Culinary Class, Music and Art Rooms. But the Library looks mostly okay for what I already have.

All actors and event sprites are still placeholders, but some are presently used to test out several game mechanics that I will eventually use for my death traps. Video Showcase features Proximity contact checks, movement condition checks, and behavior change on trigger. Plugins make some of the coding a little easier, though I can create my own code if there are no core code or plugin solutions existing for my use cases.

August 2026 ~ Almost a full year of Aletheion game development

Video showcases some new progress made between the second month and the first year

• Roughly half of Campus Grounds areas are now accessible.
• Created an original windowskin with cybertech theme and hexgrid patterns.
• Official character sprites were created for the main male and female leads, as well as two supporting characters and a mannequin used as a template for all of them.
• Added royalty-free music from Storyteller Pack by Joel Steudler. I also added sound effects acquired from Pixabay for basic UI sounds (Confirm, Cancel, Select).
• Custom-coded Menu that resembles a smartphone. Wallpaper still uses default RPG Maker assets.

With that said, the video showcase did not show everything I've done in the past year for the game:

• Studying pixel art, from concepts to software (GIMP and Aseprite) to implementation (RPG Maker spritesheets plus Galv's Animations and Frames), that enabled me to create my character assets as showcased.
• *Several months focused on studying art: improving my novice-level pen and paper drawing skills, and learning digital art from scratch with related software (Clip Studio Paint).
• Studying and prototyping RPG Maker MZ, learning intricacies of the engine as well as the plugins enabling me to write my own code. Some Observer POV menu UI has been created but isn't shown in the video.
• Learning basic audio manipulation (via Audacity) so I can fine-tune some sound effects that I would use in the game.
• Miscellaneous activities outside the game: Itch.io profile setup, video content creation (via Kdenlive), and some light marketing research.

Design Decisions

Here are some design decisions I have made throughout game development.

Character sprites have almost twice the height compared to the average RPG Maker size. Regular RPG Maker MZ tile size is 48x48. The default character sizes follow the same grid size with a head to height ratio of 1:2. For A:JE I settled on using 96x96 sprites with 1:5 head ratio. This ratio is not too "chibi" deformed, but not too realistically proportioned either. 

Actual character heights are approximately 78~80px tall when standing upright; with a 1:5 head ratio this leaves me with a 16x16 head size and roughly 8x8px for the face. At this scale, face sizes relative to player view may be too small for conveying emotions. As such, I plan to eventually add picture busts when they deliver their dialogues. Busts cover a character's head and upper chest, which is a larger coverage than RPG Maker's default face-only portraits.

Full body character cut-ins and CG illustrations are also planned but will be used sparingly, relative to how much I can realistically do.

I plan to implement my own Menu UI, building on the infrastructure established by the core RPG Maker MZ and plugins like VisuStella MZ. 

When properly wired, new custom scenes and windows can inherit behaviors defined in VisuStella plugins. For instance, the Item and Equipment Core plugin introduces an easier Item Category navigation using left and right keys.

Note: Most character images used here are still RPG Maker default assets or from in-engine character generator, all serving as placeholders.

Closing Statement

Originally, I scoped my game as a 1 year project, then immediately corrected to 2 years during my initial planning phase, then later on adjusted my estimates to probably 3 years when I was already working on the game. Looking back on my 1 year mark, a significant amount of time was spent on studying and improving my own skills that I can apply to my game, most notably my art.

In the upcoming months, I plan to focus on creating more art assets for the game. I plan to do character sprites for the rest of my cast in game, then make several iterations on character portraits and illustrations up to a state that is satisfactory to my own standards.

My current goal is a playable 30-minute demo sometime in the first half of 2027, featuring all of the Student cast, some death trap mechanics, and very light exploration. Observer POV with the flowcharts and Simulation layer will be showcased at a later date.

Thank you for your time reading my devlog.