When I worked at Nix Hydra on The Arcana, our CEO was emphatic that absolutely anyone was welcome to contribute in any way they wished. I asked him if I could potentially write a romantic visual novel I had in my head. He told me that he would greenlight IF I could get approval by every writer. After I did, he retracted this statement. Through that broken promise, this game never came to be. But here it is now…
Here is: The Emerald Night, a romantic cosmic horror.
As you can see above, the premise is that you were a journalist whose artist friend has been having weird dreams. Investigating those dreams leads you to look into a corporation that is mastering dark magics to their own benefit. In my story, they would be subtly implanting magic runes into digital media, corroding the collective psyche of the world. You choose one ally to help look into things, with the implicit understanding that said ally would fall in love with you.
A major angle this (as a product) was to try and take Lovecraftian tropes and replace the racism from “fearing the other” into sort of the fearing the bottomless immorality and greed of corporations. Dark magic, you see, isn’t “too far” when it can make you rich beyond imagination…
The three love interests would be:
- A tragic cultist man who is wracked with cult at what his family has done (and he’s allowed)
- An amoral mad scientist lady who wants the world to see her full potential.
- A shadow-tendril royal from a wicked origin who finds little about this world to cherish… but you can prove them wrong.
Of these three, only the scientist had a name (Isabelle), which even then was a placeholder.
Like I said, the CEO told me that I could make it and then went back on his word. I avoided talking about while Nix Hydra was still around, because most of the non-leadership employees are wonders worth their weight in gold.
But that era is done now. So. Here we are!
(Art of Isabelle by Cheri.)
