#bellaflightvn

OtomeJam is well underway and so our next project! Here’s a look at the logo for Belladonna’s Flight! 

Belladonna’s Flight is a poison dealing romance visual novel and a passion project by Night Asobu and a talented team of creatives. We were inspired by a real historic case of a poisoner network in 17th century Paris!

We look forward to sharing more of the project with you in the upcoming days! 

Be sure to follow us, so you don’t miss the first taste. 🍷

Socials 

🔗 night-asobu.itch.io 

🐦 twitter.com/nightasobu 

We’ve been working on our own slice of dark and delightful, we can’t ignore some other amazing devs working on their own tasty dark fantasies in the visual novel realm.

We wanted to spotlight some devs whose work we really 💜!

Rotten Raccoons 

Rotten Raccoons are the devs behind the dark fantasy romance game, OBSCURA. 

Why we enjoyed playing Obscura: The dark atmosphere and incredible banter between the side characters pulled us in, but the amazing writing and intriguing world kept us bound to it. The only downside is that there isn’t already more. 

Did we mention that the writing is seriously good?

🔗https://rottenraccoons.itch.io/obscura 

💙 https://rottenraccoons.tumblr.com 

Red Spring Studio

Red Spring Studio are the devs behind the gothic horror romance, TOUCHSTARVED. 

Why we enjoyed playing TOUCHSTARVED: 

Their latest demo is full of deliciously beautiful characters you can romance, and promises a cursed MC to love them. There’s just something about that little glint of hope in a dangerous world that has us hooked with their demo.

If you love monsters, danger, and picking the backstory of your MC (,we see you Dragon Age fans), you may want to check out their game TOUCHSTARVED.

🔗 https://redspringstudio.itch.io/touchstarved 

❤️ https://www.tumblr.com/redspringstudio 

Just Write Studio

Just Write Studio  is behind the dark fantasy horror VN, Catalyst: Blind Faith.

Why we enjoyed playing Catalyst: Blind Faith: 

Blind Faith takes us back to our days of reading fantasy books and a hero we can root for as he fights all kinds of monsters. Wonderfully dark and woefully nostalgic, everyone should really give this a shot. 

🔗 https://just-write-studios.itch.io/catalyst-blind-faith 

💛https://just-write-studios.tumblr.com 

Where does that leave us?

As you know, we’ve been working on our own jam entry, Belladonna’s Flight! A passion project created with a talented team of individuals. 

We’re hoping to deliver a slice of passion and deceit, just in time for Otome Jam!

All of these games are available to check out on itch.io, where you can find many other indie devs to support!

While brainstorming for otome jam, I wanted to write a story about poison. I just kinda find it fascinating, its history, who used, its effects, ect. After going through various historical figures like Locusta, a female poisoner during Ancient Rome, I ended up finding a court trial in Paris during 17th century, that exposed a whole poisoner network. The Affair of Poisons. The investigation involves the king, his mistress, various nobles and peasants who climbed up their way through their shady services. The book I've read for research multiple times, to really understand how everyone is involved, is the following:

The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV 

by Anne Somerset 

If I remember correctly (it's been a few months now since I've read it and summarized it) it involved around 50 people and spanned over 20 years. It was fun to read because real people come up with their own very interesting plans, schemes, scams and most eloquent disses about other nobles. Petty nobles are my thing in fiction, lol.

Some of my favorite disses were:

"she was ‘beautiful as an angel, stupid as a mule"

"he described Feuquières as Luxembourg’s ‘damned soul’ and noted he had the ‘fatal physiognomy’ of a man who deserved to be hanged."

Today's disses aren't as eloquent anymore, but we can all still be as petty, imo, hahaha.

I had to summarize it multiple times, to really shave it down to the bits I actually needed and then made my own creative changes, to make my shady love interests for our game Belladonna's Flight. It was so fun to do that, but also a lot of work.