Hey everyone! We’re happy to finally confirm that we’re releasing Echoes of the Fey: The Fox’s Trail for the PC on July 12, 2016. Up until now, we’ve stuck to the cagey “Summer 2016” because we weren’t done with the game and we didn’t know just how many bugs we’d have to squash as we wrap up our development cycle. But now that we’re deep in the QA phase, we can nail down our release.
Initially, Echoes of the Fey will be available through our itch.io page at woodsy-studio.itch.io. We’re still waiting on Steam Greenlight, so if you haven’t voted there yet, please head on over and give us a thumbs up! Once we’re out on Steam, any itch.io purchasers will receive a Steam key so there’s no reason to wait.
Leading up to the release, I’ll be publishing a short story, Echoes of the Fey: The Prophet’s Arm, in chunks on this blog. The Prophet’s Arm takes place before The Fox’s Trail and details Sofya’s first meeting with one of the side characters in the game. So be on the lookout for those posts, as well as additional information about our release as it is finalized!
Yesterday, we debuted the vocal theme for Echoes of the Fey: The Fox’s Trail. Check it out!
This is the first time I’ve ever (co)written a song for a game, so I thought I’d write a bit about the thought process that went into it. It all starts way back at the beginning of development, when we were brainstorming about the aesthetic of the project. For some important story reasons (specifically the motivation behind the Human/Leshin war) there was always going to be a light steampunk element to the world. Traditional steampunk is a little played out/a bit of a cliche, so we aimed for a variation on the idea.
The fledgling machinery of our world isn’t powered by coal or literal steam, but magic drawn from Fey rifts. It’s clean energy. The world isn’t (visibly) polluted by its use. So I guess our aesthetic is Clean Steampunk? I don’t know, that sounds like a bad Skyrim mod so maybe I just need to come up with a new term.
ANYWAY, we aimed for a musical style that would reflect fantasy with an ethereal sci-fi touch. And we immediately seized upon Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack for Legend as an inspiration. Now, I realize this is a somewhat controversial work to cite. Legend was originally scored by Jerry Goldsmith, who was replaced by the studio near the very end of production on the film. Tangerine Dream was chosen to (bizarrely) appeal to a more youthful audience, because apparently the kids were way into new age electronica in 1986. A lot of people prefer the Jerry Goldsmith score and think the TD score (completed in only a few weeks to meet the deadline) is dissonant with the visuals of the film. Jenny (my co-writer, artist, and composer on this project) think those people are crazy.
A few months into production, we watched Legend again and I was struck by the over-the-top cheesy ballad that closes out the film.
Is it a good song? I’m not even sure. But it evokes a certain time in fantasy/action film making that is incredibly distinct. Legend wasn’t the first film or the last to end on a dreamy ballad that casually drops the title throughout. The Neverending Story and The Last Unicorn, for example. And if you widen the definition of the credit song ballad to take out the requirement of naming the title, you draw in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Princess Bride, and a ton of other films made from the mid 80s through the 90s.
Video games have their own version of this phenomenon. Final Fantasy games starting with VIII have prominently featured jpop ballads, and the Kingdom Hearts spinoffs have followed suit. Final Fantasy IX is probably the best one.
Final Fantasy XV is going to have a cover of Stand By Me by Florence and the Machine instead, if you want to know how bizarre things have gotten over at Square-Enix.
Thinking about these traditions gave me an idea: why couldn’t we do something like this for Echoes of the Fey? We were already shooting for a sound that invoked the fantasy films of the mid-80s. Why shouldn’t we have a vocal theme song.
This should have been a hell of an undertaking, since neither of us can sing. But we were lucky. The voice actress who plays Sofya in Echoes of the Fey, Amber Leigh, is also a singer. Once she said she was down to record the song, we knew we had to do it. Jenny wrote the composition and a version of the lyrics that, unfortunately, could have been seen as a spoiler for some of the events of The Fox’s Trail. That was fine for a song that played over the credits, but we decided that we wanted to use it as a promotional tool as well.
So I took a crack at songwriting. Let me tell you, it is not as easy as my previous experiences with penning lyrics: swapping words around in popular songs to make twitter jokes.
I'm at the tax pro / I'm at vape shop / I'm at the combination tax pro and vape shop pic.twitter.com/p9cPu4h7PD
— redbirdmenace.bsky.social (@RedbirdMenace) May 26, 2016
My first pass had the correct number of syllables on each line, but apparently it matters where you put the vowels (especially in a slow paced song) because I was trying to force Amber to hold some really terrible sounds.
So I did a second pass, and with Jenny’s help (and patience) we arrived on the lyrics we are using today. And we’re really happy with it! Our final product feels like a mix between the cheesy fantasy ballads that inspired us and the eerie Julee Cruise/Angelo Badalementi collaborations of the same era. Which is a fantastic result for me, since this project is all about mashing together fantasy and noire and making them kiss.
Hopefully you enjoy the song and I look forward to everyone playing the game that inspired it in (hopefully) a month!
I’m happy to announce that yesterday we officially launched the Steam Greenlight campaign for Echoes of the Fey: The Fox’s Trail. If you want to check that out (and vote yes!) the page is here. We’re hoping to be able to release later this summer simultaneously on all PC platforms, but Greenlight is a mysterious black box so fingers crossed!
We touched on our progress in the Greenlight page, but I thought I’d give a bit of a wider picture the current state of development. Our engine (the framework we use to put in scenes, GUI elements, items, and choices) was completed–except for some minor polish–several months ago. We’re using GameMaker Studio for the first time, so this was a fairly significant step. GameMaker can work for pretty much anything 2d, but it’s not hardwired for a lot of text input/drawing. Once that was done, we were basically just been working on content–writing, art, music, and the such–for a while. Of course, that’s what people come to visual novels for.
As of today, the script is basically done. And almost all of it is in the game. You can play through from beginning to end and pretty much the only thing you’ll miss out on is the end of one side quest and the optional epilogue scene with a character of your choice. The soundtrack is finished except for some polish on a few older songs and a vocal song that will play over the credits. We’ve received but haven’t processed/put in all of the voice acting (that’s actually a very late step in development because when we do that we have to fork off a new branch of development for the mobile version, which will have significantly less voice work).
All the character portraits are complete and in-game. The only thing left to do on them is optional dyes for Sofya’s outfit, which will be rewards for getting gold pieces from side quests. Backgrounds and the overworld are mostly complete. One building that’s part of a side quest isn’t fully interactive yet, but that’s about it. Several CGs are complete and in the game, but there are more to do. And of course there’s testing! With over 100 choices in the game, testing will be something of an ordeal but (of course) we’re going to do it to make sure we launch as bug-free as possible.
I also promised a short story prequel and that’s started but I definitely need to get to work when I have the time (thanks, Overwatch). We’re hoping to be ready in the next month, then take a couple weeks to focus on marketing and release in the very near future! Of course I’m being completely vague about release dates because (especially with a two person team) things happen and I really don’t want to set a date then miss it.
Fantasy realms are pretty shitty places for women. Women generally aren’t in recognized positions of power. They are used as chess pieces in political machinations. They are constantly under the threat of violence and that violence is used to motivate male heroes (and inspire hatred towards male villains).
In modern fantasy, there are usually exceptions–women who wield power behind the scenes or who take on traditionally male roles within society as established in the setting–but these are explicitly portrayed as exceptions. That’s progress of a sort, but it still leaves something to be desired. Daenerys Targaryen is great, but she doesn’t make up for the fact that the majority of female characters in Game of Thrones wield little-to-no power in-universe. And I don’t just mean major, viewpoint characters but also background characters. (To stave off criticism, I’ll say that the TV show at least puts the occasional male prostitute in the brothels and female warrior among the wildlings, and GoT is hardly the worst offender in this field.)
I don’t think this is a controversial statement, though I know there are plenty of people who don’t think it’s bad. And for those people, there’s plenty of books, movies, and games out there for you. I’d just like to see something different. So when I’m crafting my own fantasy setting for my own game, I want to do something different.
The sequel takes place seven years after the end of the Serafina’s Saga visual novel. Grand Prince Robil Feldren dies of illness, and a few weeks later, Queen Belatrix Grandil dies in in the midst of a “hunting accident.” Serafina Elborn and her husband Reuben Jeridar are posed to take the throne, except for one big problem: many nobles suspect Reuben Jeridar arranged the assassination of Belatrix Grandil.
You play as a new character, Odell Perin, who is unwittingly thrust into a position of power amidst the chaos of court. Due to her neutral stance, Odell Perin is elected to serve as Regent long enough to settle the ongoing disputes, and therefore determine who will become the next King or Queen of Darzia. The gameplay will feature a dynamic debate system that allows Odell to argue certain points in court based on her accumulated stats.
Branching Narrative: Every decision made as Odell will change the story — whether it’s getting closer to finding the murderer, stabilizing the kingdom, or helping the next monarch rise to power.
Stats Management: Odell’s decisions will affect her stats, which will help her debate her beliefs in court.
Debate Mini-Game:The game features an entertaining mini-game where Odell (with the help from the stats she’s earned on her journey) will debate a variety of topics to uncover new, important information.
Girl x Boy / Girl x Girl Romances: Just because Odell is ruling a kingdom doesn’t mean she won’t save some time for romance
Voice Acting:Serafina’s Crown features a cast of talented voice actors that bring the story to life.
You’ll see many familiar faces in Serafina’s Crown, including Reuben, Kallias, Arken, Nikolaos, and–of course–Serafina. You’ll also meet many new characters, as well as Picard, a major character from the Ashes of Dearen novels.
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CREDITS:
Voices: Odell: Carol Mertz
Arken: David Dixon
Kendal: Matthew Curtis
Roza: Amber Leigh
Serafina: Rachael Messer
Reuben: Jacob Anderson
Kallias: Andrew Graffham
Lorenzo: Miguel Moran
Picard: David Dixon
Nikolaos: Drew Becker
Young Serafina has spent her entire life alone in the jungle with only her guardian, a mysterious man named Arken, as company. When Arken is captured by a group of soldiers and carried away, Serafina must venture outside the forest to save him. On her journey to the heart of the kingdom, Serafina discovers a whole new world beyond the shadows of the jungle. She will also learn the dark truth of Arken’s past and thus her own. How she chooses to use this knowledge will change the fate of the entire kingdom.
This interactive novel–approximating 50,000 words in length–features a custom score of 20+ music tracks, 50+ backgrounds, and more than 10 possible endings. As the story unfolds, the reader can choose how to interact with other characters, thereby forming or breaking romantic relationships that will shape the story’s conclusion.
Rated Medium Maturity for strong language and sexual themes.
Within a galaxy of terraformed planets, a secret war rages between two intergalactic agencies. One of them—ARCHON—is developing the technology to invade people’s minds. They have already tyrannized a planet called Teballai, and hope to use their mind-reading technology to spread their power across the galaxy. A second organization—FOE (Freedom Organization of Elites)—wants to destroy ARCHON’s technology in the name of freedom. When a young FOE soldier (you choose the gender) named Blaire obtains the ability to read minds from an ARCHON experiment, she finds her loyalty torn between both sides. Whether Blaire helps the enemy or defeats them depends upon your use of her power.
The interactive novel is now released for desktop (Mac, PC, and Linux) computers!
Choose a download link above to access the .zip file of the game. Once downloaded, extract the files into a folder you can easily access later. One of the extracted files will be the “Quantum Conscience.exe” application with a small game icon. Double-click to launch the game.
If you’d like, you can download the free demo and play through Chapter 1 before purchasing the full game. When you do purchase the full game, delete the original Demo folder or Replace Files by extracting your new download over the old one. You should still be able to access your previous saves.
