I'm curious, how do you come up with the names of the characters?
Hi anon! Thanks for the great question!
Well, for some of the characters, I actually just went researching to see what are the most popular names in Victorian era. And then I basically scrolled through the list, looking for names that I liked and felt would fit each character. E.g. Julius, Rosalind, Lydia, Helen, Ophelia, Viola...etc. were all named that way. Sorry, not very exciting, I know.
For others, like August and I believe Elvira, it’s basically just names that I personally like, and then I look through said reference list above or Googled to see if these names are actually used in Victorian era and not too modern. If I do manage to find them on the list, I then go ahead and name the characters that.
And then there are times when I do a poll on Patreon for our $30 tier patrons to vote for the names of characters like the dog (now Noira), a little boy at the orphanage (Jerry) and Julius’s mother, the duchess.
So yep! Sorry, not a very interesting or helpful answer, but I hope this satisfies your curiosity anyway!
If anyone has any questions about / for the characters of The Masquerade Killer, feel free to drop them in our Inbox! <3 We promise we’ll answer at least one question a day! :)
The Masquerade Killer is an upcoming commercial otome game by Ebullience Games. It will be released for PC/Mac/Linux and possibly Steam and/or Google Play. The demo is available at itch.io or Googl…
Posting a link again this time, because I used a lot of pictures. I have my WordPress linked to Tumblr, but for some reason it posts it with a funny format. I guess cross posting isn’t for me.
Anyway, check out this demo and their Kickstarter that ends August 9th!
Release date (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Steam)
English: January 26th, 2017
"Few understand Valerie’s determination to someday make her dream of traveling the world come true, but that’s because she has never shared the real reason.
Born with the ability to see every person’s red string of fate leading them to their soulmate, Valerie is tortured by the fact that her own string is either conveniently invisible to her or so faint that it can hardly be seen, which can only mean that her soulmate is on the opposite side of the Earth. Of course, Valerie chooses to believe in the latter.
Now starting her first year in university, Valerie is struggling to balance her studies and her multiple part time jobs to save up for the money to fund her travels to search for her soulmate. Even though she has no intention to meet anyone and fall in love, it seems like fate has other plans for her -- and she might just meet someone who will make her question what she has always wanted and believed in."
This is a free game released by Ebullience Games! You can download it here, or get the Steam version here.
Hiya! I’ve been browsing the lemmasoft forums and came across the demo for an upcoming otome game, Red String of Fate by @ebulliencegames. As someone who enjoys otome visual novels of all kinds, I was really excited to give this a shot! And I can’t say it disappointed me at all.
Light spoilers ahead, but since this is a demo, you shouldn’t be too worried about any major plot points. Obviously, any images I post are directly from the demo itself and belong to @ebulliencegames.
You play as Valerie Wong, a first-year college student majoring in journalism. Interestingly enough, Valerie has the strange and unexplained ability to see people’s red strings of fate connecting each other—everyone’s but her own. She believes that her string is stretched so thin that it’s pretty much invisible because her soulmate must be on the other side of the world, which is why she has a burning desire to travel and visit Asia.
Already, I like this premise. I like the supernatural element, and I like that it isn’t over the top.
More details and light spoilers after the cut!
The story begins in Valerie’s first philosophy class, where she recognizes an old high school classmate across the room, Aaron, and meets the quiet and mysterious Luke, who is also gifted with the ability to see people’s red strings of fate.
I’ll tell you right now that the descriptions are beautifully written, and the character introductions pique my interest. I tend to go for characters like Luke more ~ooh broody~ but Aaron seems like a real cutie.
Valerie can immediately tell that Luke can see red strings like she can, but when she mentions it, he avoids the subject. Frustrated, she confronts him about it, thinking it’s exciting and important that she’s met someone else with her ability, but he gets angry and insists that it’s better to just ignore the strings. Like I said, mysterious.
Aaron, on the other hand, is like a puppy. He’s energetic, friendly, and develops crushes very easily.
However, he has a broken red string of fate, which Valerie realizes must mean his soulmate has already passed in this lifetime.
...Damn, that made me sad.
And that’s a good thing, because it means this story has already made me feel something. As someone who consumes a lot of visual novels and otome games, this means a lot.
Anyway. It’s adorable the way Aaron stutters when he’s talking to a pretty girl. One even invites him to a party, and he’s beside himself with excitement. He begs Valerie and Luke to go with him because he doesn’t want to be the loner of the party, and Valerie can choose between going with him or staying to work on the project with Luke. I’d assume that going with Aaron puts Val on his route, while staying back puts her on Luke’s.....BUT I HATE THAT BECAUSE I REALLY WANT AARON TO BE HAPPY. EVEN JUST AS A FRIEND! But I also NEED to know more about Luke. Isn’t that important? WHY DO WE HAVE TO CHOOSE THIS WAYYYY uGH
I also really like that at the party Valerie and Aaron go to, someone brings a bottle of viniq. HA. My favorite ~cheap fancy~ alcoholic drink.
If y’all don’t know what it is, it’s what I call shiny vodka.
Cool stuff.
I’m not going to get too much into what happens when you start making choices, because that’s fun and totally for you to discover on your own. One of them does involve someone getting hopelessly drunk, though. I’ll give you that.
Regarding Valerie as a character: so far, I like her. I like that she’s got conviction and goals, and I like that she isn’t afraid to speak up or speak out. She does pass a decent amount of judgement about those around her; she’s convinced that people with broken strings of fate won’t experience fulfilling love lives:
but that’s ok. I think it fits in with the story. I personally don’t want to believe in fate or soulmates, which is why this premise does make me feel a little sad and gloomy. Valerie can’t seek out love or relationships with just anyone because she knows who has a soulmate and who doesn’t. Forget about crushing on cute guys in her class. She’s left to look for her own, and though she believes he/she/they exist, she doesn’t know where. It makes me kind of sad. But it also piques my interest, and don’t get me wrong: I think it’s awesome that an otome game is addressing something as profound and sophisticated as fate in the way that this is.
Anyway! That about wraps up my thoughts on the demo. A+ to whoever @ebulliencegames got to compose the main menu music, and a job well done to the writers—the story flows well, the descriptions are strong, and the characters are likable. I highly, highly recommend giving this game a go if you’re looking for some english otome content to consume! I have high hopes for the full version.
It's been yet another month, so as usual, here is a quick update of our progress this month! (Originally posted on Kickstarter, just reposting here for those who are not following us on Kickstarter).
So as you can see, art has been progressing nicely this month. Greenace has been working hard on the CGs, and so far the CGs for 3 out of 4 routes have been mostly linearted. We would show more previews, but we don't want to spoil them, so unfortunately, we can only include one above. The background artist we commissioned has also been working speedily, and right now, everything is done except the night versions for around 12 backgrounds.
Writing is still going, but since it's currently exam period for college, Windchimes has been extremely busy. As soon as the semester is over, though, she'll be able to work on the script full time, so if everything goes well, you guys will see a massive increase in the % complete for writing in the monthly update next month!
As for music, we've received more finished background music tracks from our composer. The most exciting bit of news: as mentioned before, the theme song (also for the opening video) was completed, and this month, the lyrics have more or less been finished as well! There are still tweaks to be done to just a couple lines, and then afterwards, it'll be recording and mixing. Hope you guys are as excited to hear the theme song as we are!
Annnd that's it for this month!
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Moving on to more important matters, we must first apologize for the slow progress and delays in production. Unfortunately, there has been unexpected real life issues these few months that severely cut down on our free time to work on this project. To give a brief explanation, Greenace's father passed away suddenly, and she needed some time away to handle her negative emotions. Meanwhile, Windchimes had a horrible semester at school and also had to deal with health problems herself. As a result, the core team members have been unable to do as much work as planned on The Masquerade Killer.
We are planning to work day and night to catch up as much as possible over the next two months, particularly during the holidays. However, unless we want to sacrifice quality for speed, we are pretty unlikely to meet the original deadline of February / March 2018. Since we really want to make sure The Masquerade Killer is as great as possible, we want to take more time to work on the game. Therefore, we have decided to push back the release date for The Masquerade Killer.
We can't quite give a concrete release date at the moment, but we are expecting to finish everything and release the game by summer 2018. Meanwhile, we'll continue to keep you guys posted every month with our monthly updates to let you all know that we're still working hard on the game. We have also decided to release an extended demo (probably up to first few scenes of each route) exclusive to our Kickstarter backers and our Patreon supporters (only patrons with a lifetime support of over $5), perhaps some time around our original release date (around February - March 2018), as an apology to you all for the delayed release. Hopefully, the extended demo will be able to tide any impatient fans over until the full game is released!
Again, we apologize for letting you guys down. We will work hard and do our best to finish the game as soon as possible!
Thank you very much for your understanding and patience! We hope you guys will continue to support us throughout our journey.
TL;DR: We are extremely sorry for the delays in production due to real life issues, and the new estimated release for the full game is sometime in summer 2018. An extended demo exclusive to Kickstarter backers, as well as Patrons with a lifetime support of over $5, will likely be released in February - March 2018 as an apology instead.
We’re proud to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for The Masquerade Killer is now live!
Our campaign goal is US$3,200, which is ~SG$4435 (Singaporean dollars). We are offering many awesome rewards for various tiers, and we have many attainable stretch goals that promise to add lots of cool extra stuff to the game, such as animated CGs, more endings, opening video and partial VA! So please consider checking out our Kickstarter and backing us! We’d also appreciate any signal boost as well <3
Thank you very much for the support!
The Masquerade Killer is a mystery, regency otome game, set in the Victorian era. Join Elvira on her mission to solve a murder while attempting to blend into the upper-class society of London! Which path she takes in romance and life will depend entirely on you.
More information about the game can be found on the Kickstarter page or our website.
Full game is expected to be released sometime around February, 2018, if our crowdfunding is successful. It will be sold at a price of $14.99.
