Starlit Void

A fallen Star needs to defeat the Darkness threatening the kingdom so they can go home to the sky. 

Will you follow the prophecy, or break free from fate and choose your own path?

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Starlit Void is a story driven RPG in which Spica, a young Star who just fell from the sky, is tasked with saving the world from a mysterious Darkness taking over it.

Follow Spica as they learn about the beauty and horrors the world has to offer. 

When interacting with the world, they will feel Hope and Despair. Will they stay hopeful through their journey, or crack under the pressure?

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My game Starlit Void is now out for FREE on itch.io! I've been working on it for about a year now and it's been a blast. I'm really happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to see people playing it!

Happy pride month!!!

More doodles (/memes) under the cut

The side characters!!! I'm so in love with each of them. This is gonna be a bit long, sorry in advance! Also, spoiler warning, but I’m gonna be paraphrasing several quotes from memory!

Kuna and the PTPS! She’s so fun. I loved the side quest, and the reveal that the tree was there all along! I always love a character who’s obsessed with something as a coping mechanism. Also, her book being able to be given to Azmidi was so wonderful — when I was playing the despair route and she mentioned wanting a new book I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get it to her, but I wanted sooooo badly to help them out. I had to use the guide a bit for that, and it let me know some fun stuff like the secret passage!

Azmidi, now. Wow, I loved finding stuff out about her through conversations with Lost in particular. Actually, this can be a general analysis para since characters like Lost and Az are so connected. The ten stories got me theorizing like a madman. Certainly, Lost seems to be the one before The First, the one who landed in the sea. And Az’s story was wild — reaching that tapestry in the castle and seeing “That… doesn’t seem right” wrt Vastéri’s backstory had me gnashing my teeth. Ohhhh and “do you ever get lonely?” Wrt lost! And the diary on Az’s nightstand! They probably can’t come live with me. It’s been twelve years, so they should be coming soon. You should go see her! Maybe, maybe. God, this nb/nb yuri (to me) william-year-slowburn romantic drama goes so hard. And they both lost their Shepards, but in completely different ways! Of course they’re different — Lost didn’t even know he had a Shepard, much less lost them. And Az worked so so so so hard to finish their wish, but it wasn’t possible. So Greek tragedy of them.

And the differences between Lost and Mira!!!!! God, my poor friends have been subjected enough to my yapping about this. They both lost their light. It makes me crazy. But Lost wasn’t subjected to the trauma and torture that Mira was, and they eventually had Az! They’re completely different in their relationship with the world and with connections, but so similar in their outcomes — stuck stars, lost light, endless listening. I have a lot of lore questions regarding the eating starlight thing: it could be just a joke about black holes, or it could be about how, after turning into black holes, they are constantly craving connection even more so than the non-turned stars. Also…. Lost knows the difference in taste between Darkness and Star-given starlight. Hm. So many stars fell… I’m curious how he got to taste it before Mira escaped.

Similarly… There are so many darknesses that are turned conscious. And their names: nebula, asteroid, comet, etc etc… are they just unfinished stars that fell, or are they something else entirely? Is it a situation like the tree, where Darkness somehow simply possessed a previously soulless Cosmos-fallen thing?

Also. I don’t know if you count this as a character or not. But The Cosmos. It is what I would consider to be Starlit Void’s equivalence to God, and it is so interesting to me. It’s not kind. It’s not benevolent at all, actually, even when it’s helping. It just is. It follows some sort of logic or rule pattern that it itself is bound to, and it’s not all powerful in that sense. However, it has some level of emotion — it grants the Stars for wishes. It made love. It guaranteed to Az a successful destruction of the Darkness. Still, it allowed the torture Mira went through. And it refuses the Stars back into itself. And it sent every Star from where they belonged down to the earth. What a good portrayal of an imperfect god!

Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you again! I really, really enjoyed this game. Have a good day/night!

Thank you for your wonderful analysis!!!

I love Lost and Azmidi ... Their relationship is very interesting to me. I really want to explore it more eventually! I'm really glad you got the nb/nb yuri vibe!!

For the Darkness, the idea was that it was created by Mira's magic, and it resembles stuff you can find in space (comets, planets, galaxies, etc) because Mira misses the sky, so his magic takes the shape of what he wants the most. Also it just looked cool!

I have completed all side quests and main endings. Spoiler warning!

This is now one of my favorite games. I really love the environmental storytelling, especially with regards to Az's relationships -- they're terrible at drawing. she has lovely handwriting. there are rocks from a friend. he collects rocks.

The reveal of information and items given from exploring is so exciting -- I love when multiple "levels" of the game later I find something I know I can go back and use for that thing I was curious about (flowers for people you like... oh, Aganthe! a small key for a small lock, etc). There are so many things I missed first try, like how to get the tiny chest and the magic book in the smaller library and the path to the legged tree. Going through the game several times felt genuinely as fun or more so than the first runthrough.

The gameplay is genuinely really intuitive -- the hope point thing should have been more obvious to me. I like that the fights aren't too difficult, but require genuine thought. As I played multiple times I figured out how each of the enemies fought, and I had so much fun collecting high level skills. Getting rid of nebulas was easy and rewarding, and lets me focus on the other enemies. I liked running around them after they respawn lol. And levelling up isn't too hard but still requires a lot of fights, which I found fun.

The amount of dialogue trees was super impressive. I'm always very awed by people who can make such complex conversation pathways -- I've tried to make one several times before, and it's so overwhelming for me.

The story is incredible. I'm probably going to cut this short and make another ask actually analyzing characters and storylines when I have the time, but this more objective, tech-crew appreciation ask is long enough😭😭😭😭😭 sorry lol! Anyways, I love your game and I'm gonna be back later with more yapping 🫡

Thank you for your ask!! It makes me so happy to know Starlit Void is one of your favorite games. I'm glad you enjoyed it! :)

The dialogues were really fun to write, but also really hard sometimes, especially the endings. Writing is hard!! I really wanted the game to have some replayability so people wouldn't be bored having to replay the game to get new endings so I'm glad it was fun for you!

I think you might just be missing some hope points! Hope points are different from the hope stat you can see on the status window. You basically need to get the "you feel hope!" dialogue 15 times. Your hope stat is high because it can be changed by equipment/level, and Spica's hope stat is raised every time they feel hope. I know it's a bit confusing, sorry! You can get some hope points by talking to Lost (ask for happy stories), and interacting with a bunch of stuff (on the top of my head there is Hazel's dog, the cat in Moonpeak, talking to the crying dad in Moonpeak after clearing the Darkness there, giving a flower to Agathe, eating the candy at Kuna's house, the tree stumps, the tapestry with the moon and the doll (in the castle), hearing about all of kimon's constellation stories (with the "ask kimon" skill), etc). I hope it helps!