Vox Designation: 004
Name: Fabula
Pronouns: They/Them
Ideal: Tale
Associated Colour: Black
Memory: A Lost Lie
Archetype: Troublemaker
Fabula is the second youngest of the Voces and they enjoy making impulsive chaotic decisions. They are the first of the Voces we meet other than the player character.
They hold creativity and adaptability as important values. They dislike people trying to change their stories or make a moment serious.
Fabula feels closest with Spero due to them both having the younger designations. Spero's innocence and whimsical spirit also grants them a natural prowess in telling Tales which draws Fabula's interest. They dislike Amor's perceptiveness and Cogito's need to put everything into neat rules, and they respect Votum's power.
As the Troublemaker, Fabula is our guide through the early stages of the game. They are initially rude and a bully towards Spero but grow to appreciate his own creativity. They place obstacles in Spero's path to help them grow and become his own person.
Fabula's associated game mechanic, Tale, is the ability to interpret the stories of objects and create new ones out of darkness. It is the primary puzzle mechanic of the game and is inherently tied to the Mindscape it takes place in.
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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.
It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.
Do not repost. Do not use for AI. All rights reserved. Do feel free to reblog, do feel free to share your thoughts, do ask me questions about this project if you're interested in it. Disclaimer: I make no guarantees on the development or publishing of this concept into a full game, however I am heavily considering it.
Tale is the second ideal the player gains access to in Voces Lucis. It is the ideal associated with the troublemaker Fabula. Tale is associated with the colour black.
The design philosophy of Tale is: "We live forever in the stories we tell."
Tale represents two mechanics interwoven with each other, Destruction and Creation.
Destruction
Fabula's Tales take the form of physical objects of darkness that obscure and block off. Tales must be interpreted which absorbs that darkness into the player, fueling their Creativity, whilst unveiling the truth of what was underneath.
Creation
Creativity fills in the gaps of and recontextualizes reality. By using Creativity the player can create physical objects out of the darkness of Tales. The following are some examples of things the player can create from darkness:
- Bridges
- Levers
- Boxes
- Doors
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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.
It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.
Do not repost. Do not use for AI. All rights reserved. Do feel free to reblog, do feel free to share your thoughts, do ask me questions about this project if you're interested in it. Disclaimer: I make no guarantees on the development or publishing of this concept into a full game, however I am heavily considering it.
Vox Designation: 005
Name: Spero
Pronouns: He/They
Ideal: Hope
Associated Colour: Red
Memory: A Lost Dream
Archetype: Player Character
About:
Spero is the youngest of the Voces and still harbors a youthful innocence within them.
He enjoys picture puzzles and board games, and holds freedom and tenacity as important values. They dislike making decisions, being around mean people, and seeing people in states of despair.
Spero feels closest with Amor due to their shared whimsical nature and struggles with deciphering Votum's deadpan attitude. He is often the victim of Fabula's teasing but misinterprets the bullying as silly jokes. They respect Cogito and see them as a parental figure.
As the Player Character, Spero is our window into a strange realm where thoughts govern reality and mental spirals end in only one place, back at the beginning. His drive to help others is destined to save the Voces from Malum's control.
Spero's associated game mechanic, Hope, is the main roguelike mechanic that governs the length of runs and the manipulation of that length. He can also make Candles using wax he collects from the residue of Memories that can be used to alter your runs.
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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.
It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.
Do not repost. Do not use for AI. All rights reserved. Do feel free to reblog, do feel free to share your thoughts, do ask me questions about this project if you're interested in it. Disclaimer: I make no guarantees on the development or publishing of this concept into a full game, however I am heavily considering it.
Hope is the first Ideal the player gains access to in Voces Lucis, as it is the ideal associated with the player character, Spero. Hope is associated with the colour red.
The design philosophy of Hope is: "You'll never know what you can achieve if you don't try."
Like all mechanics, Hope is multi-faceted. It is connected to three systems:
- Interaction
- Drive
- Meditation
Interaction
Spero's Hope allows them to interact with characters and the environment. The most basic form of this is talking to other Voces and moving things in the environment such as boxes, levers, and wheels.
Drive
The main roguelite mechanic of the game, Spero's drive is represented by a number of actions they start each run with. Once you run out of actions, the run ends and you must return to the Helix to begin anew.
Actions are consumed by most things you can do in the game: interacting, making dialogue choices, using abilities, etc. There are limited ways to restore actions so they must be used wisely.
Solving puzzle rooms in the least number of actions you can is vital to progressing further into trains of thought.
Meditation
Meditating on a runaway train of thought is how the player starts each run. At first, the only option is to let the mind wander and see where you end up, but by progressing the Memories of each Vox the player earns coloured Wax which can be used to make Candles, permanent upgrades that can alter your runs.
A number of Candles can be chosen whilst Meditating which increases as your Hope grows. Candles can influence many factors of your runs, the following is a list of examples of what different candles can offer:
- Cause a specific colour of room to be more common for that run
- Cause unsolved rooms to be more common for that run
- Alter the number of actions you start with and gain for that run
- Cause only two colours of rooms to appear for that run
- Alter how specific mechanics function for that run
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Voces Lucis is a concept for a puzzle-roguelite video game about the eponymous group of beings who have lost themselves within the Mindscape. Spero—the newest of the Voces—must delve into runaway trains of thought in order to save their companions and help them remember who they are.
It takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, and AI: The Somnium Files, with a sprinkle of The Amazing Digital Circus in there for good measure.
Do not repost. Do not use for AI. All rights reserved. Do feel free to reblog, do feel free to share your thoughts, do ask me questions about this project if you're interested in it. Disclaimer: I make no guarantees on the development or publishing of this concept into a full game, however I am heavily considering it.
Okay gonna yell this out to the aether since it won't get out of my head. Came up with a concept for a puzzle roguelite game that takes inspiration from Blue Prince, Deltarune, AI: The Somnium Files, and a lil splash of The Amazing Digital Circus.
It's called Voces Lucis, a colourful abstract metaphysical story about the eponymous group of beings, the Voces (singular: Vox), and a tale of self-expression, trauma, and growth.
The player character—Spero—awakens within a strange realm known as the Mindscape, a place influenced by thought and altered by emotion. They find themself alone save for another Vox named Fabula who explains that the others were tricked into becoming lost in the spiral of Runaway Trains of Thought, tricked by a new mysterious and "evil" Vox that calls itself Malum.
The Voces have lost themselves and have been led astray from the ideals that form their being, their core memories locked away and forgotten. It is up to the player to rescue each Vox and assist them in remembering who they are through solving puzzles connected to them.
Trains of Thought are the main gameplay loop of the game. The player meditates on a runaway thought that transports them to a series of connected puzzle rooms. There are several colours of puzzle room that correspond with each Vox and their Ideal (the puzzle mechanic that they grant the player) and the player needs to solve the puzzles and progress as far as they can in an attempt to reunite the Voces and repair the bonds between them.
Puzzle rooms are self-contained pre-determined puzzles with very little—if any—randomization, allowing skill and knowledge to contribute to better runs. Think of them like small escape rooms. However to retain replayability and depth the idea would be to have multiple *choices* in each room for how you want to solve the puzzle. For example, a block pushing puzzle that you can solve quickly and move on, or you can use extra Actions to unblock a side area with a reward in it. Or different paths to take that alter the next room. Stuff like that.
For each run, the player has a limited number of Actions they can take. Actions includes interacting with objects, making dialogue choices, using abilities, and pretty much everything else you can do in the game. There are limited ways to regain Actions, so using them wisely is required to make it as far as you can, once you run out of Actions, that run ends. The idea is that once you understand each puzzle room you can get through them in the shortest number of actions and progress further than the last time.
After a run you return to a hub space known as the Helix, a strange facility with no exit, named such due to the spiraling staircases that curl around either side of the central area. Within the Helix you can hang out with the Voces, check up on and progress their Memories (questlines), and review your previous runs. Memories are the main method of meta-progression, granting you mechanics and allowing you to expand on them through progression of the story.
There are also tons of secrets hidden throughout the Mindscape that allow you to utilize knowledge and abilities you have gained in new ways in rooms you've already been in.
The goal of the game is to defeat Malum and repair the damage it has done to the Mindscape. The game starts out in flat colours with minimal detail, but as you rescue each Vox and progress their memories colour and detail return to the realm, the best representation I can give of this right now is the player character. At the start of the game, they look like this:
Then, after the intro to the game, they gain some depth and detailing:
And with each Vox rescued, they become more detailed. The restoration of each colour adds that aspect to their design.
For the player character:
- Hair = Yellow
- Eyes = Blue
- Sweater = Green
- Pants = Black
This same layered depth applies to all characters and objects in the game, which may or may not be absolute hell for me to make but I'm up to the challenge with how enjoyable these sprites have been to make so far.
Each character is associated with an "Ideal" and a colour. For example, the player character is associated with Hope, which is associated with the colour Red, hence the basis of their design being red.
This post is already long enough so I think I'll make another post at another time talking more about the mechanics and characters and stuff. It'll all be posted under the Voces Lucis tag like this post so it's easy to find if you wanna look through everything.
If you think this idea is cool or something you'd wanna play then let me know! Who knows I might actually end up making it.
Do not repost. Do not use for AI. All rights reserved.
Do feel free to reblog, do feel free to share your thoughts, do ask me questions about this project if you're interested in it.
Disclaimer: I make no guarantees on the development or publishing of this concept into a full game, however I am heavily considering it.
Came up with a new game idea the other day. I should clarify that this is a bad thing and my brain needs to COMMIT to projects to FINISH them and stop coming up with new ideas lmao.
Anyway so now I have yet another design doc on my computer. This one's a puzzle-roguelite (think Blue Prince with some Undertale and TADC inspirations sprinkled in there) where you have to help the eponymous Voces Lucis recall and process through their traumatic memories.
