oelvn project Ever End - 2D Animated Visual Novel with Boss Battles

[Kiwi]

Hi, I'm posting on the behalf of team Amaranthine. We are a small indie team of game design students from Scandinavia and we are making a VN/game, Ever End. The game is about two sisters born with psychic powers trying to escape a militarized research organization. Our goal is to make Ever End exciting, stylish and, to some degree, thought-provoking -- exploring existential themes of meaning and purpose.

 

Gameplay

The gameplay in Ever End is separated into two types: story and battles sections. The game alternates between the two as the story progresses. Although the two are separate, they function in symbiosis and are dependent on each other. 

Story sections let the player enjoy the story through the “edgelord” protagonist, End’s eyes. Now and then you’ll get to affect the story by choosing End’s words or actions. 

Critical confrontations in the story play out as action combat encounters. Here, timing and reacting appropriately with your attacks and dodges is the key to victory.

Throughout both systems, End must balance her psyche between her orderly human side and chaotic psychic side to avoid losing herself. Every battle and every choice will drift her towards one side or the other. The state of End’s psyche will then affect both her abilities in battles as well as critical moments in the story. 

Note: The early alpha is a bare-bones version of these systems and doesn’t include stuff related to the psyche management among other things.
 

Progress

Last summer we released our early alpha on itch.io, so you can check that out here if you are interested.

The MC defeating one of the bosses with a flashy finisher move.

We are currently working on the first chapter of Ever End and have all in all 8 chapters planned. They will each be around the same length as the alpha and are going to be added for free to the base game as they release. We are aiming to release the base game, including chapter 1, sometime early spring (if everything goes as planned).

 

Support Us

In order for us to make Ever End happen, we need money . So if you can and want to support us, you can find us on Patreon here, or you can donate to us on itch. If you want to engage with the community or chat with the developers, you can join our Discord server here. If you just want to stay up to date, follow us on whatever social media or PM me an email and I'll add you to our mailing list.

But that's all for this post, so thanks for the read. We appreciate all the support we get and really hope that you will enjoy Ever End as much as we do!

Twitter Instagram Itch Patreon

Edited November 15, 2018 by Kiwi
Added a "Gameplay" section.

[UnlimitedMoeWorks]

Very nice art style. Reminds me a lot of Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill.

Judging by the gif, I'm guessing the "boss fights" will be a series of quick-time events right?

Either way, this project got me hooked. There hasn't been a single western VN that caught my interest in a long time, so I look forward to seeing your finished project in the future.

Edited November 14, 2018 by UnlimitedMoeWorks

[Plk_Lesiak]

Looks really cool and unique, I'll definitely keep an eye on this one. Good luck with the development. ^^

[Kiwi]

2 hours ago, UnlimitedMoeWorks said:

Very nice art style. Reminds me a lot of Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill.

Judging by the gif, I'm guessing the "boss fights" will be a series of quick-time events right?

Either way, this project got me hooked. There hasn't been a single western VN that cuaught my interest in a long time, so I look forward to seeing your finished project in the future.

I'm thrilled to hear that! And yeah, Gainax/Trigger stuff has definitely been a big source of inspiration. 

When it comes to the boss fights, more or less yes, but not in the traditional sense. The battles borrow elements from action games like dodging, attacking and health. But there is no movement, so the overall thing works out sort of like a series of QTEs.

[UnlimitedMoeWorks]

22 minutes ago, Kiwi said:

When it comes to the boss fights, more or less yes, but not in the traditional sense. The battles borrow elements from action games like dodging, attacking and health. But there is no movement, so the overall thing works out sort of like a series of QTEs.

Just make sure you don't go overboard with the QTEs alright? This was a huge trend for video games back in 2008 (at least in North America) which saw an overabundance of games using QTEs as a method to "enhance" cutscenes. It ended up being overused to the point that QTEs in-general got backlash by gamers who were upset about cheap deaths triggered by unsuspected QTEs they didn't even see coming. Just limit them to boss fights, and you should be fine.

[Kiwi]

Mm yeah, I would hate for the QTEs to feel unfair. Right now the only actual QTEs play during battle when you have the chance to attack. For that to happen you have to trigger them yourself by either dodging or parrying (you can see a parry in the gif before the QTE starts). The better you time the dodge or parry, the better the QTE-attack. 

The dodge/parry system itself also works like a QTE, although it's a bit more subtle. Depending on what attack the enemy is doing, you do the appropriate defencive option and try to time it correctly -- press the right button at the right time. This is technically a QTE too, which is what I meant by the overall battle system working like a series of QTEs.

The heavy reliance on QTE like systems is admittedly a bit boring though, so we have been reworking the battle system a bit for a while now. Main thing that we are changing is to separate defencive options from offence. This makes battle progression a bit more organic and based on player agency, compared to just following a QTE railroad to victory. 

Sorry for the ramble 

[Kiwi]

Added a "Gameplay" section that delves a bit deeper into what the, well, gameplay will be about.