Life isn't easy for labor robots in the 23rd century. One robot, serial number LFTR-03-251, gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she catches the attention of her creator, genius inventor and interplanetary celebrity Eris Promethea. What follows is a passionate week of laboratory experiments, intimacy, and pleasure the likes of which no robot has ever felt before. But when tensions rise and the dream finally ends, 251 will find herself fighting for the future of her kind.
Me and a whole bunch of friends worked together to create this sci-fi visual novel for the Toxic Yuri VN Jam 2! Contributors include @morphimus, @shadolith, @roguemagpies, @realityandrebirth, @alicesilentwitch, and @jeeperssqueakers.
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more of a glorified tech test for ren'py action replay and live2d, but hey! it's not as much of a slog to read as raconteurs & historians, so i might be getting better at pacing.
Make a short story with an old friend.
it's a short, slice of life story of a conductor and their stagehand creating a story off of their heads on a hill.
Let's talk Arcadie: Cold Lands, the long-awaited sequel to Arcadie: Second-Born, which is on an introductory sale until July 2. Warning: this review is for pre-existing fans of the series and contains spoilers for the first game.
While Arcadie: Second-Born focused on your unexpected rise to power, Arcadie: Cold Lands follows an MC who is now monarch of the Kingdom of Arcadie and forced to start making decisions that will affect not just the citizens of Arcadie but all the surrounding kingdoms, all while continuing a romance from the previous game (or starting a new one). Thousands of lives are at stake: will you pursue war or peace?
On the surface, the series has made some improvements since Second-Born. The author moved to a more visual novel style format, with light background music and images, and the MC is far more powerful in this game with far more agency. But with no stats, lower stakes, and no clear overarching plotline, itâs just not as strong a game as the first. A lot of fans are still really enjoying it but I get that some players are pretty frustrated with some of the changes. Iâd give it a picky 3 out of 5 stars.
So letâs break it down point by point. Whatâs better, whatâs worse since Second-Born?
Upgrades
+ Added audiovisual elements: the author moved from Twine to RenâPy for this one giving it a more visual novel sort of feel. While by no means essential, the background images were a nice touch, and though I personally turned off the music I can see it adding a bit of ambience for other players. ROs now have character portraits, though youâll have to navigate to the codex to find them. All of this is just a little bonus though and I think most players would be happy without.
+ The codex: it was nice having a handy reference for key characters, nations, and other plot elements. Entries were short but informative, though the game couldâve used some more.
+ Additional lore: the world really expands in Cold Lands, where you encounter more of the surrounding nations and learn more about your ancient enemies and ancestors.
+ One new romance option: remember that guy who slaughtered your entire family in the first game, tried to kill his own adopted brother/best friend, and then tried to assassinate you as well even if you were playing a character who openly sympathised with his cause? Yeah, that guy, Stanislas. Well you can romance him in Cold Lands. I normally love enemies to lovers but I have to admit, this one feels a little bit of a stretch for me (especially since my MC loved the family that he murdered), but if youâre into bittersweet angst, word is the new romance route is actually not too bad. Maybe someone can comment. Either way, itâs 100% avoidable, in fact you can leave Stan dead for the whole playthrough if you want, so Iâm counting it as an âupgrade.â
+ More player agency, far less railroading: one of my biggest frustrations with the first game was how it kept offering me choices and then not letting my character actually follow through with her decisions. But in Cold Lands you actually make a fair number of pretty big political decisions that seem to genuinely affect your kingdom. Some of the stunts you can pull are kinda hilarious too, or shockingly aggressive. My playthrough was pretty tame but I appreciated having some of these options anyway to give my decisions a bit more weight.
+ Super powerful MC: your magic abilities get a huge boost in this game, especially if you make certain controversial choices. People fear you, and they should. Some of the stunts you can pull are really quite satisfying, and I imagine moreso if you play a particularly violent MC (I did not, maybe someone can comment).
+ Writing style: I thought the prose in the first game was decent to begin with, and I think the author continued to grow as a writer for the second. The story is pretty visual with just the words alone, even before adding the images.
Downgrades
- No stats: if I understand right, the lack of stats is meant to empower the player to focus solely on role playing and decision making, without getting gated out of certain choices because they didnât up their sword stat enough or what have you. I can respect this, and I did find it nice being able to play someone who is both politically savvy and fearsome on the battlefield. But it felt off having no indicator (beyond some scattered achievements) of just how my game was progressing, or how people saw my MC. I missed having some kind of personality element at least (which in the first game didnât gate you out of choices to begin with, it was jut a nice flavor). Iâm not sure if stats are harder in RenâPy than Twine (almost for sure harder than in ChoiceScript anyway) but I think a lot of players, myself included, would trade the images for a nice stat system in a heartbeat.
- Weaker, rushed plotline: thereâs no clear overarching plot for the second game from what Iâve seen. It felt more like a series of somewhat disconnected political events that you have to resolve one by one. I was expecting, based on the title, to focus mostly on dealing with the enemies to the north, only to find that a very small part of the game, with my MC hopping around from location to location dealing with other disconnected happenings. I actually kind of liked these individual plot points and found the politics somewhat interesting, but I wouldâve preferred a bit more focus, or a sense of connection between all these events. The ending too is quite abrupt. Itâs definitely meant to be continued and I can only hope a Game 3 comes out down the road (I know the author wants to keep going, but it depends on how well Game 2 does).
- Weaker romance: a lot of people really like the romance in Cold Lands so maybe I had a uniquely bad experience here. I did choose what seems to be the least popular RO (Will) and did so with a fairly incompatible, peace-loving MC, so I wouldnât be surprised if others have a better experience. I really enjoyed romancing Will in the first game and thought the romance was the strongest quality of the game, so I was disappointed to find that I just didnât much care for the Will scenes in Cold Lands. A lot of them seemed to revolve around him being mad at everyone and me being like, âOkay Will but Iâm still trying to not cause more wars here.â It was fun breaking down Willâs hard exterior in the first game, but once that was broken down, I just didnât find much about him compelling. Iâm sympathetic here because romance is often more fun in the early stages, and itâs to be expected that a lot of the romantic tension will decrease as the relationship deepens and stabilizes, but I still was hoping for a bit more nuance to him. Maybe a character arc or something. Maybe some angst because of our opposing political views. But nope, by the end of the game I kind of regretted choosing him. Maybe someone can comment on the other romance paths because I feel I missed out a lot.
- The best romance endings seem hard to get: judging by what other players are reporting, it seems a bit too hard to get the achievements for the âgoodâ romance endings for each of the ROs (though I think I saw the author mention she might make it easier). I was a very successful ruler and tried my hardest to be nice to Will while also sticking true to my values as a peace-loving monarch, but I think just the fact that I disagreed with him at all, or showed anyone any mercy, was enough to prevent me from getting the achievement. I still had a nice ending with him, itâs not like he hated me, but itâs hard for me to role play the way I want knowing that Iâm barring myself from the âgoodâ ending. I tend to be an achievement hound so I probably had a more negative experience than some though.
- Everything else is kinda easy: combined with an easy back button (which I loved, donât get me wrong) the lack of stats made everything feel a little too easy for my liking, especially without a strong overarching plot. I just didnât feel the stakes in this game, especially compared to the first where everyoneâs dying around you. I rarely felt like I was asked to make a hard trade off which hurt the emotional impact of the game.
- No Nathaniel: Nathaniel was perhaps the most intriguing character to me from Second-Born, and I found the decision to give him my blood one of the most interesting decisions in the game. I was really looking forward to seeing some consequences for that. But there was basically no mention of this at all, apart from a moment where you decide whether or not you made that deal with him. I get it: this is just supposed to be Game 2, Iâm sure heâs supposed to show up in Game 3, but I wish we at least got some kind of hint that something weird was going on with him, something to make us anticipate his coming again in the future, or a consequence or two for having given him my blood in Book 1.
- Enemies still make no sense: without giving away spoilers, some of the stunts your enemies pull are justâŚreally weird. Their actions and motivations sometimes felt a bit contrived to suit the plot. I personally didnât mind too much if a plot point didnât make sense as long as it was interesting, but I can see this frustrating other players.
- Continuity issues: you canât truly import your Second-Born playthrough to Cold Lands. My guess is this would have been hard to do with the move from Twine to RenâPy. Instead, you choose how you reacted to some very key moments. For my playthrough, this wasnât too bothersome, I think I probably had a fairly expected Game 1 playthrough, but I have read others complain of more jarring experiences. For example, in Cold Lands, both Will and Cyril are totally devoted to you, but I guess that might not have been the case for some players at the end of Game 1.
- Locked choices: instead of just greying out choices that you canât select, this game just leaves a little [Locked choice] note: no indication of what said choice might be or how to unlock it. This frustrated me instead of intriguing me. If I had more of a hint of how to unlock these choices, Iâm more likely to replay the game to see if I can.
- No mobile version (yet): though it sounds like an Android version is coming in a few months.
Neutral-grades
Changed from second to first person tense: I personally didnât find the switch affected my experience much, but I mention it here in case someone else minds.
Conclusion
The author clearly put a lot of heart and work into this story and with the added lore bits and character details it made me appreciate the world of Arcadie more than before. It may not be as strong as the first game, and in ways that will be deal breakers for some fans, but itâs not a bad game. Itâs worth remembering that the second story in a trilogy is often the least interesting, lacking both the exciting newness of Game 1 and the satisfying conclusions of Game 3. I for one am still holding out hope for a satisfying Game 3 down the road and want Game 2 to do well enough for that to happen.
A little preview of the kinds of things that Jesse has done with the ren'py engine. Background images, and panels having easy to use and set positions. It results in a really fun way to set up timing and dialogue, along with making it appear more like a comic.
Being able to manipulate where the text appears as well is really handy! It really gives some nice effects, letting you use the text to lend to the aesthetic or vibe.
The thumbnails are all obviously placeholder images of course, to be reworked later! But it helps to have a visual to position things like text, or work with the timing of panels.
We're really excited to see what else we can make this all do! Jesse has done a lot of work documenting his code and set up to make it easy for people to pick it up and use. Extremely excited to eventually have more to show for it.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Qualityâ Free Actions
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I have been motivated to create a visual novel!!đżď¸
I used to have a friend that once wanted to create a visual novel based off the hit game, "Ace Attorney" I helped him make the sprites for it, but I have no idea if it was ever actually made unfortunately, nor do I remember what the storyline was since my messages with him over the years were deleted entirely without his or my doing.
But!! I really wanted to start making my own upon my own discovery of "itch.io" I discovered that "Ren'Py" was an often favored platform to create visual novels, alas, I do not own a fancy computer or anything capable of running it. :(
Although, the alternative to this dilemma is to use Google slides until I start school at the career center this year, giving me a good rough draft to work with. By using png sprites and coding certain options to go to different slides, you can create your own little visual novel to share with friends, even if you wanted to just make fan games from pngs off the web!!
I'll post my progress!! It'll be like a cute little summer project, plus something to do during vacation+scout camp+band camp that will all be lined up perfectly so that I have no day of rest in-between this upcoming 3 weeks of hell.đżď¸
Getting videogames to save your data is like the most absurdly difficult thing about game development... the only engine i've ever used where that shit was easy was ren'py
