You stop short, catching a glimpse of yourself in the polished surface of the headmaster’s desk.
Eyes blown wide with rage, lips pulled into a snarl. Every part of your face is contorted with hate—contagious to the point that it sends shivers down your own spine.
You visibly deflate, head hanging low as your body curls into itself; the reflection flickering with doubt and self-loathing.
“I don’t know,” you whisper weakly, squeezing your eyes shut as they start burning with unshed tears. “I don’t know.”
An upcoming modern fantasy IF for 18+ players and older. Use of elemental powers is inspired by Avatar: The Legend of Aang/Korra.
A lightning deity's blessing, a past carved by Mother. You're alive, a storm in human form, walking the halls of the prestigious Launwyce Academy for wardens.
Weavers that were once your enemies now train shoulder to shoulder with you. When your secrets come to life, can you outrun the nightmares that follow?
What does it mean to live for yourself when your life's purpose has only been to serve?
Welcome to the academy, your true story begins now.
Play as a touch-averse with a troubled past.
Learn how to use your newfound lightning powers to its fullest potential. Anything’s possible if you’re smart enough.
Become a menace in society, or be admired by your peers.
Participate in Launwyce’s many academy events and competitive tournaments. Show the weaving world what you’re made of.
A potential pet has also chosen you as their human; teach them a trick or two!
Shape your MC’s personality however you want. Certain choices also help shape the rest of your past.
How the MC deals with their trauma is entirely up to you.
Push away or make new relationships. Everyone has their own inner demons you can unveil.
Character-driven narrative and slow burn character development.
Eventually face the monster from your past, Mother.
| 18 | Fire Weaver | Freshman | A’s childhood friend
If MC is shorter than L, they’re shorter than all ROs
They were the first to notice you falling.
A warm and gentle soul. But there’s a certain air about them. A type of muted cheer, one that carries the tension of maintaining a persona, but perhaps not a façade.
Despite their unusual aura, they’re attentive and smart, not to mention remarkably insightful.
| 18 | Water Weaver | Freshman | L’s childhood friend
If MC is taller than A, they unlock height choices for J
They were the one who made sure you landed safely; and with flourish.
Behind their snark lies a vulnerability, hidden by a layer of frost and caution. You suspect that they wear the act like a mask; even if the flecks of passion flickering beneath the surface reveal a fiery heart.
They’re quick-witted and equally sharp-tongued. They never hesitate to speak their mind.
| 19 | Earth Weaver | Sophomore
If MC is taller than J, they’re taller than all ROs
Ever present on their features is a stern expression; jaw set and eyes sharp. Even with little words uttered, they carry themself with confidence that demands respect.
Their intimidating presence often gives people pause, but those who dare meet them head-on will find a proud and stubborn heart.
Surprisingly, they’re easy to read, and it makes interacting with them oddly satisfying.
Current Word Count: 120k
That's 26k words of new stuff!
Not much to say since everything's already in this post and in the Update Notes.
Hope you guys enjoy it!
IMPORTANT!
I haven't completely tested everything in this demo yet, but the game passed both quick and random tests. I tried to go through every route by myself, but there's only so much one person can do. That and the fact that re-reading the story 100 times is not doing wonders to my brain ( ﾟ，_ゝ｀)
If you spot any bugs, jank, or continuity errors, please let me know—I’d greatly appreciate your feedback!
The stats are still under construction. But it should function alright for now.
If you can, please report bugs or share feedback here!
Chapter 1 Feedback Form
idk if you've already thought all this through since your last post, but i think one problem with the current stats is that the word that best covers "suspicious, kinda rude, not totally receptive, but only sometimes (not totally) sarcastic" is actually "Aloof"? Aloofness refers to a lack of sociability, while the current "Aloof" personality attribute strikes me as being more about how you process emotions. alternatively, i think "Suspicious" covers "kinda rude and sometimes sarcastic" better than "Guarded" does.
also, i too think Genuine/Grumpy is a bit too broad and in an ideal world would be something more like Genuine/Wary + Friendly/Aloof + Emotional/Detached (which would allow more complex characterizations like putting on a friendly mask to ingratiate yourself with your "saviors" without actually trusting them), but that might be too much for the kind of story/character responsiveness you want to implement? supporting that degree of fluidity for more granular personalities gets really overwhelming really fast.
You bring up very valid points! And I agree aloof isn't exactly the right word to use. I ended up settling for Grumpy -> Guarded and Aloof -> Stoic.
Sorry, another rambling post ahead!
The idea is to have a primary and secondary attribute to define MC's overall persona. It's not meant to be limited to four personality traits, but to embody the choices and behavior MC leans into as the story goes on. Four archetypes to allow some variety while keeping the outcomes from ballooning into infinity.
The primary attributes are genuine and guarded. Genuine stands for warmth, receptiveness, and approachability. Guarded represents defiance, resistance, and skepticism.
These are then supplemented by the secondary attributes, emotional and stoic. Emotional is for intense emotions, fear, anxiety, raw reactions. Stoic is marked by composure, and/or repressing emotions.
For example, a guarded-emotional MC is more prone to project their fears or frustrations unto others. A guarded-stoic one would come off colder or more distant, resisting connection through silence or indifference.
The words are more like an umbrella term of each aspect I want to represent with each persona.
I don't really want to add any more personality attributes into the mix. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible.
Just to be clear, though, this is still work-in-progress!
I'm still experimenting with the stats right now, especially with the new manipulative and corruption stat (instead of the nice/evil type stat before). This should give MC the option to act nice to build trust for their personal benefits.
I want all of these to connect and have some form of synergy as the story progresses. It'll probably take me several retweaking... but that's the joy of development!
With the first chapter done, I’ve been easing into Chapter 2 planning over the past week. I’ve got about 24k words of draft content, super rough, but it’s something.
If you remember the zero 50k draft I did between last November and January, this is part of that. Can you believe the remaining 26k from Chapter 1’s draft ended up growing into 70k?
Yeah... me neither.
I’m still aiming to tighten up the skeleton coding before jumping into the actual writing. Now that I’m starting the next chapter on a fresh scene, I really want to keep things cleaner this time.
I'm still finalizing details. There's gonna be new concepts, locations, interactions, characters, and potential lore reveals... I'm practically swimming in notes trying to organize my shit together while listening to Epic the Musical. The legendary Odysseus and co will guide me towards my future laurels!
Also working on a skip chapter function since the game is getting pretty long. This is for the next chapter though, since there have been quite a few major changes in the latest update.
Next week is the public demo release. Excited about more people being able to see the story and check out what we have so far.
I just wanna say thank you all so much for supporting me. You don't know how much it helped me get this update out sooner :)
I was able to add more content since my last update post, all focused on Chapter 1. So unfortunately, I wasn't able to squeeze Chapter 2 content because I haven't officially started yet.
But I did add one small sneak peek at the end… ;D
Current Word Count: 120k
That's 26k words of new stuff!
What's New:
Gender and pronoun customization (eventually explore MC's identity)
MC's first journal entry at the end of Chapter 1
Slightly rewritten prologue
A few more slightly rewritten scenes
Moments with all ROs
And more...
WIP:
Chapter 2: 7 Day Training Arc
More bug hunting and minor tweaks for the public release
Once this update goes public, I’ll be focusing fully on Chapter 2, aiming for another release in 2–3 months.
About Asks
Sorry I haven't been answering for awhile! I was really hyper-focused on getting the update out. I'll start answering again in a few days~
Thank you all for your patience! I hope you guys enjoy it ( ◡‿◡ *)
Just some more expanding of draft choices and flavor text left then we're off to the next arc~
If Chapter 2 (the 7-day training arc) goes well for the rest of May, I might be able to squeeze some of it into the next update. But if there isn't enough good material, only Chapter 1 will be included.
Yes, you read right!
Early access for the next update is coming on May 31st
Public release will be on June 14th
What's New So Far:
Complete unfinished scenes: L & A group training route and ROs helping you get back to your dorm (if you're not alone)
A has their own 'getting to know each other on the grass' scene with MC now
New MC journaling tab in the statpage
Stat Changes
A few rewritten scenes
There will probably be more once I finalize everything. Stay tuned!
i randomly found your blog and the IF sounded quite interesting. i only read til the scene in chapter 1, where the headmaster leaves for the first time, but so far i really like the world, story and your writing style. i have some questions:
1.) will the stats (like personality/reputation) at some point be locked in/wont change anymore?
==> how important will the stats be? only flavourtext OR locking you out of choices/story parts?
2.) could you explain/give an example on what the 6 personalities mean exactly? to me grumpy means looking more angrily/have a frown/... but all the choices so far seem more fitting to a character, who is suspicious of everyone.
==> during the conversation with the headmaster one option, which increases the grumpy-stat is "Why? You don't even know me.". this doesnt seem grumpy, more suspicious
3.) now the reason why i stopped reading at this point. at this point in the story you are offered 4 choices. they increase the genuine, emotional, grumpy or aloof stat respectively. in addition to that the first 2 increases the healing-stat, while the last 2 increases the spiraling-stat. unfortunately i wanted to play a grumpy (suspicious), pragmatic/aloof character who slowly heals their mental state. well, now the game is telling me thats not possible. the reason i stopped reading was, because now im not sure if future choices will continue this trend (aka genuine/emotional choices increase healing while grumpy/aloof choices increase spiraling) or not.
this is probably just a me problem, and maybe the IF is simply not for me. i hope noone takes this as an personal attack/insult.
thank you.
Hi! This is totally fine, I appreciate you taking the time to even write this :)
Trying to explain as best as I can... so sorry for the super long post ahead!
1.) will the stats (like personality/reputation) at some point be locked in/wont change anymore?
Kind of, but not completely. My idea is that by Chapter 5, your MC would have an established personality. From there, personality choices will be fewer to make way for dialogue choices that adapt to your personality stat.
Personality choices that clash with your stat will still make others react differently if you pick them. I still want to give players the chance to shift their personality over time if they want to. So if you keep consistently choosing a different tone, people will notice, and MC can change again.
You're not locked in forever. It's the healing/spiraling stat that will drastically change the narrative.
2.) could you explain/give an example on what the 6 personalities mean exactly? to me grumpy means looking more angrily/have a frown/... but all the choices so far seem more fitting to a character, who is suspicious of everyone.
While how MC acts is up to you, they aren't a total blank slate at the start. Especially in the infirmary scene, which is a high-stress moment for them. They were just in a fall, fully expecting to die… and then they wake up in a strange place, surrounded by unfamiliar people, and told they were “blessed by a deity.” It’s a lot. They’re confused, overwhelmed, suspicious. That’s the baseline mental state they’re starting from in that moment, which is why options might lean more into that suspicious vibe.
But you're right. It should've been clearer! I'm going to go over the early scenes in the future. Most likely going to revise many of these choices once I start revisiting the code. Looking back on these after a year, there are definitely parts I could improve on.
As for the personalities... there are actually 5 of them, and they all come from the different combinations of genuine/grumpy & emotional/aloof.
Careful/Reckless isn't actually supposed to be under personality stat, it's meant to be its own thing.
I wrote alt text for each image with some brief descriptions :)
Example Use Cases:
Dialogue choices. I want to eventually move on from choices that build personality stats and have actual conversations with a reactive MC/NPC
MC's internal thoughts
How MC speaks or reacts to other NPCs on their own
The healing/spiraling stats are mostly tied to choices where you're accepting or rejecting an idea or character. They don’t show up in every personality choice. After the infirmary scene (where you're at), those healing/spiraling stats mostly show up in standalone choices.
Now to yap a bit...
Right now, I’m not 100% satisfied with how the personality choices are looking overall.
During my early days I was kind of winging it. Still figuring things out, code and story wise, if I could turn back time, I'd do things a lot more differently (⌒_⌒;)
I was already planning to do a rework of the general stat structure for MC in this update. I won't totally scrap what I have, only improve and make it make more sense to me. I’ve just been focusing on writing first, since code stuff also takes a lot of time.
So yeah, lots of cleanup to do here!
PS: Grumpy was originally called Sarcastic, and it’s going through a bit of an identity crisis. I think Guarded suits better...? Still looking for a word that means suspicious, kinda rude, not totally receptive, but only sometimes (not totally) sarcastic???
Hi, i just want to ask this, its completely fine if the answer is yes,
but do you have the code hidden intentionally? I prefer to read IF while being able to see the code as it makes it a little more accessible for me.
(id love to be able to access it but if you are uncomfortable with that thats completly fine too, just askin)
Unfortunately, yes, it is hidden. Mostly due to spoilers. There are some revealing variables I need to patch up first before making it public ehe~ Let me see if I can do it before the next update...
my first thought of mc's lightning/electricity weave being applied to healing went to electroshocks... it'd take A LOT of control and fine-tuning and mc would definitely end up with a headache the size of launwyce's library, but it's an interesting option nonetheless.
Lots of trial and error. Lots and lots. But hey, MC has always been good with pain.
i havent become so enamoured with an IF in so long but this broke that streak!!! im in love with ur writing, giving enough details to visualize the scene while not filling up 2 pages with just descriptions lol, and the characters are SO endearing, i need more of J immediately and the tablet scene?? was not expecting it but made me laugh tysm for writing this
Thank you!!! This means so much to me. I'm always worried if they're too long or confusing or annoying. Glad they worked out...
have you ever heard of a certain scientific railgun? when i saw you talk about our mc healing with lightning it reminded me of the protag of that show! she does a lot of cool subtle stuff with her lightning powers and im excited that we get to do stuff like that in this game :)
Yes!! I've always been fascinated with how versatile lightning is as a power (electromagnetism in particular), and that show is one of my big inspirations for it
I use the term lightning, but it's really electricity MC generates. Lightning just sounds cooler and fits the setting better ;d
I'll be honest, at first I was a little sad at not being able to play as a nonbinary MC, still kinda am and a little part of me hopes it'd be possible in some sort of way (idk, maybe finally being able to experiment with our gender, tho i know that might be hard to write, and also no pressure to do any of that), but with the way the dorms seem to be organized by girls and boys, and what you've said in a previous ask about the the MC's and the ROs' gender mattering, it makes sense
On another point, I didn't think I'd like J this much, I love them, the "has begrudging respect for you after that little speed walk marathon" you get on the impressions if you chose to run made me smile when I saw it, I had to replay through each choice we get with them on the little training scene just so I could see all the different reactions, I love how, at least with the MC I'm going with now, they and J seemed to match eachother's energy, I'm not even going to start of "you remind me of a lost kitten" (I imagine it'd say puppy if we went with finding a dog instead?) And how much it, on my opinion, feels more natural if MC really reacts a little more positively to someone being more straight forward with them rather than the made of glass sort of kindness
Back in the demo's super early stages, I thought a lot about this a lot.
It was originally possible to have a nonbinary MC, but it always felt off when NPCs just magically knew what to call them without any context. I didn’t want it to be just a variable swap. I wanted it to mean something. So I took a step back to re-evaluate how to naturally incorporate it into the story. I know I won’t be able to get it perfect for everyone, but I want to do it right.
In any case, the answer is yes! MC will eventually have the chance to reflect on and express their gender in a way that fits them best, whether that's something they’ve always known or something they're coming to understand now that they finally have the space to explore it.
I'm planning to shift some of the gender selection moments to before the game starts, to better establish how NPCs perceive MC later on.
PS: To the first ask, the dorms are actually co-ed, in case you missed it ;d As for the J interaction. You're right! I might actually just make it another flavor text depending on MC's spiraling state...
I'm still mainly on the group training route, making sure things are dynamic depending on the MC and their interactions with the ROs. In other words, it's been just me writing 3 variations of scenes (flavor texts still not included), because I love suffering. :D
Brief highlights this month!
Story
J will briefly appear during the route. It's up to MC whether they end up staying or not.
J's dynamics with the rest of the ROs. Still figuring it out.
A & L's mini comfort scenes with MC for their potential breakdown.
Did some writing revisions on earlier scenes to introduce the MC's Journal.
Resume the training parts of the route.
Stat Page
Journals! MC can now write journals at the end of an eventful day!
Images of handwritten pages. Handwriting is bad on purpose im sorry (might get better though ;p).
Each entry will depend on MC's current state of mind and relationship with other characters.
This replaced the relationships tab if you're curious.
Skill tab fixes. Preparing it for the upcoming 7-day training arc with the mysterious (?) mentor!
Lore/Outlines
Expanded the story outline a bit more. There's a lot. I'll probably have to trim it as I go. But it's looking to be one packed year for MC.
Upcoming Patreon Content
RO POVs of their first meeting with MC.
RO Side Stories of a normal date with MC (neither of them know what a normal date is)
Side Story about the day MC escaped.
Regular Demo Sneak Peeks and Journal Sneak Peeks.
Maybe some art or doodles of my MCs or ROs ( ◡‿◡ *)
This was the little side project I've been brewing for a while... now it's finally complete!
To give a little taste...
J's hair gave me the most trouble, but I'm happy with how it ended up looking ( ˙▿˙ )
The rest of the ROs are currently on early access on Patreon for paid members, but they will eventually go public on May 14!
High resolution portraits and the ID template are available for patrons. I also post progress updates every Saturday and do character side stories on Patreon if anyone's interested in that :)
Hope you guys will like them . . .
was supposed to post next month but I couldn't resist...
