Ebullience Games

Hey everyone!

As mentioned before, we would be releasing an extended demo exclusive to backers / Patrons (who have pledged for more than $5 in total), as an apology for pushing back the release date of the game. We are happy to announce that it is ready!

Some quick information about the extended demo:

Important content warning: This game contains violence, blood, death, alcohol and references to gambling and physical or emotional abuse / child abuse.   It may not be suitable for all ages (and the game is self-rated as T). Player discretion advised.

This extended demo contains:

Lots of new assets, such as new poses, outfits, sprites for side characters, backgrounds, music, animated CGs...etc.

Updated and changed common route scenes (so please play through the whole thing once again from start to finish because some of the plot and details have been changed!)

First 3 scenes of each route (13k-16k per route), making it a total of 88k words for the entire extended demo

There was a slight delay due to technical problems with the Itch.io email system, but it has been fixed now, so every Kickstarter backer should have received an Itch.io email with a download link / key at the bottom that will lead you to the page to download the exclusive demo! Please note that you will need an Itch.io account to redeem the key.

If you still haven't received an email, please do let us know with a message on Kickstarter immediately! We'll send you your key through Kickstarter messages as soon as possible.

Additionally, if you do not see your name under Kickstarter Backers in the Credits section of the extended demo, it likely means you did not reply to our backer survey or email asking you what you want to be credited as. Please respond to our message / email / survey as soon as possible! If you have already done so but still cannot find your name in there, please do message us as soon as possible to see if there has been a mistake or mix-up.

Please note that this is still just a demo, so not all assets or script content is finalized! Also, please do not use old save files from the original public demo since most will not work in this new version.

Please also note that this extended demo is exclusive to all Kickstarter backers and Patrons who have supported us for a total of $5 or more, so please do not redistribute this demo anywhere else!

If you have any questions or bug reports to make, please feel free to send us a message on Tumblr or Twitter or leave a comment on the extended demo's Itch.io page!

Hello! Thank you so much for the question and your interest in our game :D We’re really happy to hear that!

We are hesitant to set a firm release date yet for The Masquerade Killer, but we are aiming for a release in summer 2018. So just a few months away, if everything goes well! :) Hope that isn’t too long a wait for you! Haha

Hi anon! Thanks for the great question!

Well, for some of the characters, I actually just went researching to see what are the most popular names in Victorian era. And then I basically scrolled through the list, looking for names that I liked and felt would fit each character. E.g. Julius, Rosalind, Lydia, Helen, Ophelia, Viola...etc. were all named that way. Sorry, not very exciting, I know.

For others, like August and I believe Elvira, it’s basically just names that I personally like, and then I look through said reference list above or Googled to see if these names are actually used in Victorian era and not too modern. If I do manage to find them on the list, I then go ahead and name the characters that.

And then there are times when I do a poll on Patreon for our $30 tier patrons to vote for the names of characters like the dog (now Noira), a little boy at the orphanage (Jerry) and Julius’s mother, the duchess.

So yep! Sorry, not a very interesting or helpful answer, but I hope this satisfies your curiosity anyway!

Hi anon! Thank you for the question!

Apologies for the late reply; we were busy polishing and finalizing the exclusive extended demo for release. Now that that’s finally done, we’ll be back to answering questions every day!

The topic of naming the organization actually does come up in the game! Seth is very much for naming the organization properly, and he keeps suggesting terrible organization names to her, while Boss thinks the opposite. More explanation will be given in game by Boss to explain her reasoning.

As for influences when figuring out how it works… Honestly, I didn’t refer to any specific organization in mind, but I just started off with the general idea of a for-hire gang of assassins and slowly started adding more details by constantly asking myself questions like “What is the hierarchical structure in the organization? What are the roles and who is in each role?What kind of missions do the members do? What do they do when they’re in-between missions?“ Basically just stuff like that until I manage to flesh out the organization and its operations!

Sorry for the boring uninspiring answer :( Thank you very much for the question!!

Hi! Thank you for the interesting question :D

Elvira: It depends why I need to wake him/her/them up, I suppose. If it’s an actual emergency, for example, if we’re in danger and need to make a run for it immediately, then I would do whatever it takes to wake him/her/them up. I’m sure a bucket of cold water is preferable to being stabbed in bed. If it’s not actually anything urgent, I will just leave him/her/them be. I do not really care if he/her/they wake up or decide to sleep for three days straight.

Seth: Aw, don’t say that! I know you’d miss me if I slept that long, right?

Elvira: I’d be grateful for the reprieve.

Seth: What? Elvira, that hurt me deep right in the heart.

[Seth starts pouting at Elvira’s deadpan response while the others look on in varying degrees of amusement and glee, entirely forgetting the fact that Elvira’s statement about not caring how long they slept applied to all of them equally.]

Hi! Thank you for the question <3

Seth: D-did you just forget about me? How could you?! I’m clearly the best one here.

[Seth sits down in a corner and begins to pout, doing a bit of self-reflection to figure out why his charm is failing.]

Charlotte: Since Seth is currently unavailable, I will go first. A trait I find attractive is persistence or determination. I find it very admirable when someone would always keep going, no matter how hard it is. I think it shows a lot of strength in that person’s character, so I would want to get close to that person and learn from them.

August: Oh, my turn? Well, I think being passionate is a wonderful, attractive trait! When you see someone talking about things they love and are passionate about, and you see their eyes light up in joy and they look so in their element… I think that’s when they are most attractive.

Julius: An attractive trait…? I’m not certain. Perhaps diligence. I admire those who work hard and take their responsibilities seriously. This shows their reliability, in my opinion, and I will be more likely to trust them and be willing to get closer to them.

[Seth finally becomes aware of three people’s gazes on him, and he tilts his head, thinking about his answer.]

Seth: A good sense of humor! I think it’s attractive when someone can joke around and have fun with me. Life is too short to spend it being sad, you know?

[Julius: Says the one being dramatic and sad over being accidentally left out in the question at first.]

Julius: Oh, thank you very much for being so kind! That’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard all... year, actually. I very much look forward to meeting you officially as well. I can only hope I will live up to your expectations.

[Julius flashes his most charming smile possible and winks.]

Hi! Thank you for the interesting question!

August: Oohh, someone is asking about our friendship, Julius! Aren’t you excited?

Julius: Who says we are even friends? We were friends.

August: Psh. Don’t listen to him. I know he secretly cares for me a lot still, though he won’t admit it because we’re going through… a rough patch in our friendship right now.

August: Since he’s determined to keep up his facade as a cold jerk, i suppose I’ll have to answer your question! We’ve known each other since we were schoolboys, actually. We went to the same boarding school, and we sat next to each other in class. He was always a proper, boring little boy, just like how he is now, and I found great joy in pulling pranks on him and riling him up. Of course, I could tell he secretly enjoyed my games —

Julius: I did not enjoy your constant pranks, August. Who would like to wake up to three snakes slithering in the same bed?

August: Those were screams of pure joy, I know. You don’t need to thank me.

[Julius stares blankly at August before shaking his head and looking away.]

August: Anyways! So that was how our unlikely friendship began! So we’ve been friends for a very long time, almost like family. And well, clearly, things haven’t been going well between us these couple of years, but… Maybe that will change. He’s important to me, even though we aren’t as close as we were back in our childhood.

Hey everyone!

It's been yet another month, so as usual, here is a quick update of our progress this month! (Originally posted on Kickstarter, just reposting here for those who are not following us on Kickstarter).

So as you can see, art has been progressing nicely this month. Greenace has been working hard on the CGs, and so far the CGs for 3 out of 4 routes have been mostly linearted. We would show more previews, but we don't want to spoil them, so unfortunately, we can only include one above. The background artist we commissioned has also been working speedily, and right now, everything is done except the night versions for around 12 backgrounds.

Writing is still going, but since it's currently exam period for college, Windchimes has been extremely busy. As soon as the semester is over, though, she'll be able to work on the script full time, so if everything goes well, you guys will see a massive increase in the % complete for writing in the monthly update next month!

As for music, we've received more finished background music tracks from our composer. The most exciting bit of news: as mentioned before, the theme song (also for the opening video) was completed, and this month, the lyrics have more or less been finished as well! There are still tweaks to be done to just a couple lines, and then afterwards, it'll be recording and mixing. Hope you guys are as excited to hear the theme song as we are!

Annnd that's it for this month!

-

Moving on to more important matters, we must first apologize for the slow progress and delays in production. Unfortunately, there has been unexpected real life issues these few months that severely cut down on our free time to work on this project. To give a brief explanation, Greenace's father passed away suddenly, and she needed some time away to handle her negative emotions. Meanwhile, Windchimes had a horrible semester at school and also had to deal with health problems herself. As a result, the core team members have been unable to do as much work as planned on The Masquerade Killer.

We are planning to work day and night to catch up as much as possible over the next two months, particularly during the holidays. However, unless we want to sacrifice quality for speed, we are pretty unlikely to meet the original deadline of February / March 2018. Since we really want to make sure The Masquerade Killer is as great as possible, we want to take more time to work on the game. Therefore, we have decided to push back the release date for The Masquerade Killer.

We can't quite give a concrete release date at the moment, but we are expecting to finish everything and release the game by summer 2018. Meanwhile, we'll continue to keep you guys posted every month with our monthly updates to let you all know that we're still working hard on the game. We have also decided to release an extended demo (probably up to first few scenes of each route) exclusive to our Kickstarter backers and our Patreon supporters (only patrons with a lifetime support of over $5), perhaps some time around our original release date (around February - March 2018), as an apology to you all for the delayed release. Hopefully, the extended demo will be able to tide any impatient fans over until the full game is released!

Again, we apologize for letting you guys down. We will work hard and do our best to finish the game as soon as possible!

Thank you very much for your understanding and patience! We hope you guys will continue to support us throughout our journey.

Hi Anon, Greenace here.Thank you for your kind words and I am doing better.  :)I have been meeting up with old friends and talking to some of my ex-colleagues and other game developers, it helps me to get better .

Hi anon!

Thank you very much for the kind message! We’re glad to hear you liked the demo for The Masquerade Killer ^^

We haven’t quite decided on whether we’d make a longer demo, since the current demo is already quite long (like 20k words and the entirety of the common route). We miiiight make a longer demo including the first couple scenes of each route exclusively for our Patreon, but as for the general public, maybe yes maybe no. We’ll make a final decision probably by Jan when we can have a better idea of how much assets have been completed and when our estimated release will be.

Since you requested, we can probably do a video of a romance scene at some point! Maybe. No concrete promises yet until we’ve got more assets done and figured out which scenes would be appropriate to be shown and whether all the assets for that scene are completed, but we’ll try our best to accommodate your wishes and do a quick video of a romance scene at some point (probably not a whole scene since it’s like 5k words a scene which would take like 10 minutes of recording, and I want to avoid giving too much spoilers). When we finalize our decision on whether and when we’ll do it, we’ll probably let you guys vote on which love interest you want to see a romance scene of first!

Hi anon!

Thank you so much for the compliments! We’re really happy you enjoyed the demo for The Masquerade Killer! ^_^ I personally also like fantasy more too, but historical romance has been really fun to write, so I’m super glad that you like it so far as well! :D We’ll definitely continue working hard on the game!

Hi Thank you for concern, I am doing ok. 

Just that I feel l bad that I have to delay TMK for a few months so I feel it is my responsibility to explain what had happened . I just don’t want to betray the trust/support everyone given to the project.

I will be dropping by Tumblr again after more Cg stuffs are done.