itch.io

That's cool, good luck in your studies. 🍻 You can drop me a line on Discord if you ever want to talk about game development (iain00).

Hi Luthio, thanks for reaching out. The engine you're looking for is Renpy which is to my knowledge the greatest VN engine out there  (support the project at renpy.org).

For assets, it's worth looking through the credits in the About section of our game. We use a lot of different assets and it's too much to list. (Abe actually doesn't have his own sprite, haha). For sprites I'd say Sutemo on itch has good free sprite packs that are good for setting up a game. Paid I'd say Sasaichi is one of the best. 

I messaged you on discord 🙂

That's a a cool but extremely depressing interpretation of Mei's fate in the stories. I do think that motherhood (and the all-mother) is strongly connected to Mei, and that she keeps on returning to act as a matron over humanity. I don't think she needs to die after childbirth, but it is clearly something she's prone to in bad ending scenarios. (My interpretation of Mei is as good as yours in this situation, as we need to adhere to the Death of the Author.)

Those edited panels are pretty good. You mentioned writing short stories of your own, let me know if you ever need advice or help making them into a VN. 🍺

And thank you for all the work you're doing promoting the game on TikTok and other platforms! 🍺

Hi Dave, glad you liked the games! 🍺

With final canon, you mean like a 'true ending', right?

I think it's up to the player, just choose your favorite protagonist, and that's your final canon. We haven't preselected an ending that's more true than the others. 🙂

Hi Gabriel!

Thank you for reaching out to me with your feedback. Hearing that you liked the game means a lot to me, and it's not often that you get detailed feedback like this, so I appreciate that you took the time to write down your thoughts. Also great cat pics. 🍺 1

To answer your questions:

1. After finishing the first game (ToCW), we had lot of ideas and stories left for the setting of Abbotsford. Enough to make a second game. Continuity-wise, the player is free to interpret it as either a 'parallel universe' reboot of the game. But there are also some anchor points to consider it a soft-sequel to Mei's good ending. (eg: Mei is living with Karin, no longer on the farm.) Of course, some things don't carry over between games. (As you noted, the Sigurd arc is forgotten.)
If you want you could probably also place StfD after Ina's good ending, but I feel it would take a little more plot amnesia. 

2. Abe can be a bit passive at times. I hope to do some games with stronger protagonists over the next years.

3. Point noted. We've done a few minor improvements to the ToCW sprites. More may follow in te future. In SftD the sprites are a bit more zoomed out from ToCW. What was your opinion on that change? (I'm considering returning to the more zoomed in sprites in future games, but I'm interested in receiving feedback.)

Incorporating AI art in games is still a controversial subject. We're not opposed to it by principal, but we would like to make games with as much human-drawn art as possible. StfD is currently at 2% AI art, and we may reduce it further in future updates.

4. We had big plans for the May Queen in SftD, but due to scope concerns we had to cut them from the base game. (Otherwise the game would have ended up twice as big as planned.) Due to this Mei has been relegated to side-character status.

We're currently working on the Mei ending route DLC, which will contain two endings from her and total 1+ hour of gameplay. It should probably release in September.

What happens at sleepovers stays at sleepovers. 🙂

Thank you again for playing our games and reaching out!

Cheers, lain 🍺

Great game, cool combination of platformer elements followed by a chilling horror story.

Thank you for playing! 

Hi Gracenote! I just put out an improved Android build. It should run well on small screens without dialogue overlapping the namebox.

I've tested it and everything seemed to work. Let me know if you encounter any other issues. :-)

Thank you for playing our games and taking the time to write down your thoughts. It's highly motivating to hear that you enjoyed Deluge, especially coming from an avid VN reader!

As for the bug: the android version still does that on small screens (phones). Tablets are okay. It's actually quite easy to fix (Game 1 should run fine on phone), and as we have an update planned soon I'll make sure to take care of it. I'll notify you when it's done, in one or two weeks.

Thank you for the Youtube coverage and the help you have provided with translating! Cool that you played 'The Raintime', it's set in the same universe as Deluge. :)

Translation AI has become pretty good lately, although you'll need a last check by a human translator for the language not to feel 'off'.

I could probably generate an AI translated Arabic translation file for this game for you to check. The main thing I'm worried about is how the game will handle RTL and LTR text in the same file. 

For the game itself we should probably be able to set config.rtl conditionally. But I'm wondering about the translation file specifically.

If you'd like to help with this project, you can contact me at leaves@socah.org :)

Bug has been fixed, game runs smoothly on mobile.

Thank you for showing interest in Deluge. We're committed to bringing this game in as many languages as possible. Currently, teams are working on a German and a Turkish language release. 

If you happen to know people who'd like to help with creating an Arabic language translation, please let me know. :)

Thank you, I think this is it: Caption Tool for Ren'Py by npckc (itch.io)

I'm going to look into how big of a project it would be to implement this (without completely refactoring the game.)

From what I've found I have a feeling it may be a bit of a project, but maybe I'm being pessimistic. If anyone from the blind community (or otherwise) is interested in helping with this please feel free to contact me.

Hi, sounds like a good idea,

Would you be interested in helping me find out if the Renpy engine supports this natively? It has quite a few accessibility options, so I can imagine there would be something in place.

Thank you for reaching out :)

We received a report about the latest Android build crashing unexpectedly. 

We are currently assessing and fixing this bug. I've made the previous Android build available until it is fixed. (The 1.2 GB version of the .apk)

That's right. I updated the build info :)

From the depths I call to thee—
—Lord, hear my cries for mercy.

Deluge: Sermon for the Dead by socah (itch.io)

Abbotsford is struck by a string of abduction cases targeting high school girls. When Ina enlists Abe to help with her investigation, they become ensnared in a web of conspiracy and horror that pulls them into the deepest depths of the sea.

In the meantime, campaigning has begun for the town council elections. While political infighting rises to an all time high, Marisa — the new girl in town — takes center stage. She promises stability, but an appetite for uncontested power glistens in her eyes.

Deluge: Sermon for the Dead is an interactive visual novel with psychological and lovecraftian undertones.

Game page: Deluge: Sermon for the Dead by socah (itch.io)

and thank you for playing!

Hi Hadlandish, Thank you for your kind words and for the coverage you have been doing on youtube. We've enjoyed watching your gameplay videos over the past few weeks. Also: the last ending route is coming out soon.

Plot summary

At first glance, William is a lazy college student. He spends his days sleeping in, skipping lectures, drinking with his friends and gathering up courage to talk to Jasmine, who's on the theater committee. But over the last few weeks, a mysterious restlessness has come over him. He's distanced himself from his friends, spends his time alone in his room and harbors thoughts that cannot bear the light of day . . .

Slowly, William is coming to the realization that the world he lives in is no more than an illusion. The city, the university, the artificial island upon which he lives, thay're all unnatural abominations against humanity, that need to be undone in order for history to take its due course.

Delve into William's mind as his last links to reality slowly unravel.

https://socah.itch.io/raintime

Genre: Visual Novel, Young Adult
Play Time: 2-4 Hours
Mode: Single Player

Great that you liked the game so far! Also thanks for reporting the bug, I will try to release a patched version tomorrow that removes it. I believe it is possible to play around the black screen by entering the menu and selecting a memory to teleport to. I understand this is not ideal, I will patch it asap.)

edit: I just patched it and uploaded a new version.  I have double checked all savepoints and this was the only one with issues. (This problem came up during playtesting already and we thought we had fixed all instances, but one was left behind.)

We just released the first stable and complete build of Railroad Tracks. 

Get it here: https://socah.itch.io/railroadtracks

Railroad tracks is a 2D exploration based adventure game about a lonely circus artist who has fallen into amnesia. The goal of the game is to recover his lost memories from a large free-roaming twilight world. Certain events and areas evoke vivid episodes of involuntary recollection that recall his unsettling past. And what are those demons that lurk around?

Once collected, memories can be selected from the in-game menu in order to transport Pierrot back to the place where the memory was initially found. After collecting all 16 memories, endgame is unlocked.

Genre: exploration/adventure 

Game length: 6-8 hours