#luce makes

Cogito is the second oldest of the Voces, she enjoys silence, gardening, and record-keeping. They can be the second or third of the Voces we meet other than the player character.

They hold logic and growth as important values. She dislikes disorder, dishonesty, and bullies.

Cogito feels closest with Votum and admires it's adherence to the rules and intelligent mind. She finds Fabula's lies and embellishments to be frustrating and gets angry when they hurt the other Voces. They find it difficult to be around Amor due to the illogical nature of her emotions, and respect Spero's drive to help others.

As the Keeper, Cogito helps the player remember everything they have experienced within the game. They keep track of unfinished puzzles, unfollowed leads, and hint towards unfound things. They assist Spero in learning from their mistakes and failings.

Cogito's associated game mechanic, Reflection, is the ability to utilize the past to work towards the future. It is what grants the player access to memory progression and can be used to create mirrored copies of themselves.

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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

System Records

Cogito keeps the Library of the Helix, a place where they meticulously track information to do with the Mindscape, it's inhabitants, Memories, and the Runaway Trains of Thought that the player has experienced. It is a diegetic log keeping track of the players progress.

The player can view this information at any time they have access to the Library after Cogito is rescued, and checking your progress frequently is essential to progressing Cogito's memory.

Memory Access

Memories are the main meta-progression system of Voces Lucis. Each Vox has forgotten their core memory which formed their ideal, and helping the Voces remember themselves unlocks new abilities.

Each Vox's room will light up alerting the player as to when their memories can be progressed by entering their room. In order to progress memories, prerequisite puzzles and interactions must be fulfilled.

Mirror

Mirror is the puzzle mechanic of Reflection, allowing the player to manifest mirrored copies of themselves in order to solve complex position-based puzzles. As the player gets stronger they gain greater control over mirrors, including the ability to: - Freeze mirrors - Create additional mirrors - Shatter mirrors - Switch places with mirrors

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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

Fabula is the second youngest of the Voces and they enjoy making impulsive chaotic decisions. They are the first of the Voces we meet other than the player character.

They hold creativity and adaptability as important values. They dislike people trying to change their stories or make a moment serious.

Fabula feels closest with Spero due to them both having the younger designations. Spero's innocence and whimsical spirit also grants them a natural prowess in telling Tales which draws Fabula's interest. They dislike Amor's perceptiveness and Cogito's need to put everything into neat rules, and they respect Votum's power.

As the Troublemaker, Fabula is our guide through the early stages of the game. They are initially rude and a bully towards Spero but grow to appreciate his own creativity. They place obstacles in Spero's path to help them grow and become his own person.

Fabula's associated game mechanic, Tale, is the ability to interpret the stories of objects and create new ones out of darkness. It is the primary puzzle mechanic of the game and is inherently tied to the Mindscape it takes place in.

—

Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

Destruction

Fabula's Tales take the form of physical objects of darkness that obscure and block off. Tales must be interpreted which absorbs that darkness into the player, fueling their Creativity, whilst unveiling the truth of what was underneath.

Creation

Creativity fills in the gaps of and recontextualizes reality. By using Creativity the player can create physical objects out of the darkness of Tales. The following are some examples of things the player can create from darkness: - Bridges - Levers - Boxes - Doors

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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

About: Spero is the youngest of the Voces and still harbors a youthful innocence within them.

He enjoys picture puzzles and board games, and holds freedom and tenacity as important values. They dislike making decisions, being around mean people, and seeing people in states of despair.

Spero feels closest with Amor due to their shared whimsical nature and struggles with deciphering Votum's deadpan attitude. He is often the victim of Fabula's teasing but misinterprets the bullying as silly jokes. They respect Cogito and see them as a parental figure.

As the Player Character, Spero is our window into a strange realm where thoughts govern reality and mental spirals end in only one place, back at the beginning. His drive to help others is destined to save the Voces from Malum's control.

Spero's associated game mechanic, Hope, is the main roguelike mechanic that governs the length of runs and the manipulation of that length. He can also make Candles using wax he collects from the residue of Memories that can be used to alter your runs.

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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

Interaction

Spero's Hope allows them to interact with characters and the environment. The most basic form of this is talking to other Voces and moving things in the environment such as boxes, levers, and wheels.

Drive

The main roguelite mechanic of the game, Spero's drive is represented by a number of actions they start each run with. Once you run out of actions, the run ends and you must return to the Helix to begin anew.

Actions are consumed by most things you can do in the game: interacting, making dialogue choices, using abilities, etc. There are limited ways to restore actions so they must be used wisely.

Solving puzzle rooms in the least number of actions you can is vital to progressing further into trains of thought.

Meditation

Meditating on a runaway train of thought is how the player starts each run. At first, the only option is to let the mind wander and see where you end up, but by progressing the Memories of each Vox the player earns coloured Wax which can be used to make Candles, permanent upgrades that can alter your runs.

A number of Candles can be chosen whilst Meditating which increases as your Hope grows. Candles can influence many factors of your runs, the following is a list of examples of what different candles can offer: - Cause a specific colour of room to be more common for that run - Cause unsolved rooms to be more common for that run - Alter the number of actions you start with and gain for that run - Cause only two colours of rooms to appear for that run - Alter how specific mechanics function for that run

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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.

It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.

Trains of Thought are the main gameplay loop of the game. The player meditates on a runaway thought that transports them to a series of connected puzzle rooms. There are several colours of puzzle room that correspond with each Vox and their Ideal (the puzzle mechanic that they grant the player) and the player needs to solve the puzzles and progress as far as they can in an attempt to reunite the Voces and repair the bonds between them.

Puzzle rooms are self-contained pre-determined puzzles with very little—if any—randomization, allowing skill and knowledge to contribute to better runs. Think of them like small escape rooms. However to retain replayability and depth the idea would be to have multiple *choices* in each room for how you want to solve the puzzle. For example, a block pushing puzzle that you can solve quickly and move on, or you can use extra Actions to unblock a side area with a reward in it. Or different paths to take that alter the next room. Stuff like that.

For each run, the player has a limited number of Actions they can take. Actions includes interacting with objects, making dialogue choices, using abilities, and pretty much everything else you can do in the game. There are limited ways to regain Actions, so using them wisely is required to make it as far as you can, once you run out of Actions, that run ends. The idea is that once you understand each puzzle room you can get through them in the shortest number of actions and progress further than the last time.

After a run you return to a hub space known as the Helix, a strange facility with no exit, named such due to the spiraling staircases that curl around either side of the central area. Within the Helix you can hang out with the Voces, check up on and progress their Memories (questlines), and review your previous runs. Memories are the main method of meta-progression, granting you mechanics and allowing you to expand on them through progression of the story.

There are also tons of secrets hidden throughout the Mindscape that allow you to utilize knowledge and abilities you have gained in new ways in rooms you've already been in.

The goal of the game is to defeat Malum and repair the damage it has done to the Mindscape. The game starts out in flat colours with minimal detail, but as you rescue each Vox and progress their memories colour and detail return to the realm, the best representation I can give of this right now is the player character. At the start of the game, they look like this:

Then, after the intro to the game, they gain some depth and detailing:

And with each Vox rescued, they become more detailed. The restoration of each colour adds that aspect to their design.

For the player character: - Hair = Yellow - Eyes = Blue - Sweater = Green - Pants = Black

This same layered depth applies to all characters and objects in the game, which may or may not be absolute hell for me to make but I'm up to the challenge with how enjoyable these sprites have been to make so far.

Each character is associated with an "Ideal" and a colour. For example, the player character is associated with Hope, which is associated with the colour Red, hence the basis of their design being red.

This post is already long enough so I think I'll make another post at another time talking more about the mechanics and characters and stuff. It'll all be posted under the Voces Lucis tag like this post so it's easy to find if you wanna look through everything.

If you think this idea is cool or something you'd wanna play then let me know! Who knows I might actually end up making it.