VortexVN (a Life is Strange fan game)

Created by @door-insurance

[vortexvn]

Hello once again, Life is Strange fandom! I'm here to announce that chapter 2 of VortexVN is officially available to play!

Here's the link

What is VortexVN?

VortexVN is a fan game where you play as Victoria, who wakes up from a hangover with no memory of an entire week. You're tasked with figuring out what happened by talking to the characters and making choices for her.

The game offers five romantic routes: Chloe, Max, Kate, Rachel, and a fifth secret one.

What to expect:

-A lot of text, this is by far the wordiest chapter of the whole game! It has the most characters and interactions; chapter 3 will likely be breezier than this.

-This game is basically a love letter to the whole franchise, it has a lot of references/easter eggs and also there are some cameos.

-More of Taylor and Courtney offering hints, comic relief and more.

-Hella choices that will determine what kind of an ending you'll get.

Basic Info:

-Game so far is only available in English and on PC only (Windows and Mac)

-The web version is a demo as the full game is too big to be played online

-Windows size: 664 MB

-Mac size: 670 MB

Screenshots:

I hope you enjoy it ^^ thank you so much for your interest in the project and I will be waiting for feedbacks/constructive criticism, I will be updating you all with polls and a guide

[vortexvn]

"Miss Lockhart" sprites are done! next off is "Miss holloway" herself!

default, smile, nora misprinted the bands flyer again, arguing or talking seriously, "this girl is a lost cause isnt she?"

And with that, I will kickstart the opening of chapter 3 (sorry for stalling but it will be considerably shorter and doesn't have any exploration)

you just meet the teachers then the love interests then the endings happen

anyways, check out autumns in game apparance

I know, it stands out so much against the older victoria sprite but i assure you im gonna start remaking those on the side while finishing the game

[vortexvn]

Just a regular update wishing to tell yall that summer break is coming soon and ill have more free time now to work on the project! i do apologize for the updates being slow, this year has been insane lol but we are finally getting back to normal!

anyways, from now on ill be sharing weekly updates with yall! i have also seen your wonderful messages and ill be responding to them soon, thank you so much for the love and support

so far the goal is to finish the bloom and rage teacher sprites, plan out the new opening scene and script/draw it! also start remaking the older sprites and of course ill start with victoria's and make her extra handsome

here are the updates so far!

VortexVN Chapter 3 dev log

Week 1

-Polished the photographs in Victoria’s room.

-Rewritten some dialogue.

-Replayed the game, just to families myself with the dialogue and shit.

Week 2

-Polished the party cutscene.

-Polished graphics for the after Alyssa cutscene.

Week 3

-Redid the after shower cutscene.

-Redid the introduction cutscene for Taylor and Courtney.

Week 4

-Redid the lights blinking cutscene.

-Recolored the cat animation to white to be more in line with the series.

Week 5

-Pre-Ramadan break and focus on school projects+Zine for Lost Records

Week 6

-Redid the Victoria in the morning cutscene

Week 7

-Break due to Ramadan and my country getting fucked bombed

Week 8

-starting sketching the new Taylor sprites

Week 9

-Live feedback from a test player and friends

-Decided to scrap redoing Taylor’s sprites to save time

Week 10

-De-orangized the Victoria sprites

-Redid the Brooke cutscene

-Fixed Victoria’s PC stare

-Refined the morning cutscenes.

-Refined tutorial graphics.

Week 11

-Released a major graphical update.

-Made plans for Chapter 3.

Week 12

-Started work on Chapter 3.

-Added in the journal entries for both Taylor and Courtney.

-Gave each love interest her own text file

-Introduced the Lost Records teachers to the script

-Added in the journal entry for the Dana encounter for all routes.

Week 13

-Finished and implemented Stella’s journal entry

-Started work on the final journal entry (Brooke and Victoria’s final thoughts on the love interest before meeting them.)

Week 14

-Finished all the graphics for the final journal entry

Week 15

-Started work on the Nora sprite

-Started putting the script in a document for review/beta reading

-Finished the Nora sprites

Week 16

-Took a break to focus on uni

Week 17

-Finished sketch for Miss Mikaelsen’s sprites

-Process stalled because of uni

Week 18

-Finished the inkwork for Kat’s sprites

-Finished the sprites for Kat

-Started sketches for the Autumn Sprites

Week 19

-Finalized the sketches for the Autumn Sprites

-Once again delay due to Professional Week in university

[vortexvn]

Update!

Miss Mikaelsen's sprites are done!

expressions: default, smile(worried), explaining, mildly annoyed and nora misprinted the band's flyer

this is her in-game look

she was very fun and handsome to draw, probably was a lot of students first gay awakening

she is only encountered on the Kate route

Up on the chopping block is Miss Lockhart!

[rabbitinwolvesclothing]

stole my dad’s wifi anyways here’s apocalypse babies in warren, victoria and max’s outfits from life is strange

OCS BELONG TO @molath

Edit: ik I fucked up ants scar ok

[vortexvn]

completed sprites for "miss malakian" :)

up next: sprites for "miss Mikaelsen"

-So yes, the bloom and rage main 4 are gonna appear in the upcoming chapter as Victoria's teachers. Who you will get will depend on who you're romancing

Chloe-> Autumn

Max-> Swann

Kate-> Kat

Rachel-> Nora

also if your Victoria has been nice you will get them to open up about their own relationship and you will get to pick the teacher's love interest as well.

----

also i just realized that my art style improved great since the last sprite i created and now i have to remake all of them

[door-insurance]

me and my dumb evolving art style

[nightmanatee]

WHOA!!! nora looks so cool

[vortexvn]

thank you! cant wait to work on the rest lol and the new victoria sprites

[vortexvn]

completed sprites for "miss malakian" :)

up next: sprites for "miss Mikaelsen"

-So yes, the bloom and rage main 4 are gonna appear in the upcoming chapter as Victoria's teachers. Who you will get will depend on who you're romancing

Chloe-> Autumn

Max-> Swann

Kate-> Kat

Rachel-> Nora

also if your Victoria has been nice you will get them to open up about their own relationship and you will get to pick the teacher's love interest as well.

----

also i just realized that my art style improved great since the last sprite i created and now i have to remake all of them

[door-insurance]

Lost Records- Snoring (fan comic)

Nora just found out that she snores

she genuinely had no idea

kat tries to make her feel better about it

she sucks at it tbh

Kat thinks Nora's nose is perfect and cute at it is, also she doesnt want to lose her white noise machine-

----

speaking of wholesome, i have some fun bonuses

kat teasing her pissed off gf

i drew them in each others outfits

nora has turned into a worm

----

ANNOUNCEMENT, we are launching a fanzine for Lost records! It's gonna come out on the 15th of April! please check out this link for more info

here are some sneak peeks

please stay tuned for more!

[baldtrix]

The worm drawing I’m crying

[vortexvn]

She only has weeks to live <\3

[arinthealps]

doodles + tomodachi life shenanigans :]

[elementfortune]

1 Year of Swannsong ♡ One year later and I'm still posting about Kat and Swann and how much their love story has touched me to this day. 🐦‍⬛🩷 🦋

[arcian-ice]

Kat Mikaelsen has the aura that Before The Storm Chloe Price thinks she has

[vortexvn]

Hey everyone, just a major update!

I have completed all the journal entries for chapter 3!

Which means we can start on scripting/planning the opening of chapter 3 this coming week!

Here are some Chasemarsh, Chasefield, Chaseprice and Amberchase crumbs from the final page of the journal

:)

[vortexvn]

Started work on Chapter 3! Began with creating a new journal entry for Courtney and Taylor, here are some sneak peaks

and

added 4 more characters that will appear in the opening in order to test out Victoria's morality

if youre familiar with my recent work then youre familiar with these 4

;)

[vortexvn]

​Hey LiS fandom! 

I present to you the major graphical update I've been working on over the past few months. Before starting on the final chapter, I wanted to iron out some kinks. I've been working on this project for over a year now, and as you might imagine, my art has improved along the way. Some of the assets I initially created didn't age the best, in my opinion. Some of it is still painful for me to look at tbh; some of the sprites don't have the best anatomy, and I'm saved by the fact that the text box takes up most of the characters' lower halves. 

After I finished the cutscenes, I also wanted to revamp some of the sprites. Still, I gave up because by this point, my art had changed a lot since I made those models. It will clash with the older ones. I just learned to accept my mistakes and move on cause I wanna finish this game by the end of this year, and this will stall me.  There are still some improvements to be made in the dialogue and audio. I'm currently working on that with the help of very talented people. 

I want to thank you all for your patience and love for the project! We managed to hit over 1k downloads for the main game and about 500 plays for the web demo! That is phenomenal, you all have exceeded my expectations for this project! I can only promise you that Chapter 3 will come out this year, and it's gonna be a loving send-off for this project.  I don't think my art would have improved that well without VortexVN and the love it got.

Download link

[theonlyvalerie]

LOOK AT THISSS

Every time I see updates for this it’s just better and better—what a labor of love and passion UGH

You always knock it out of the park Nashbrowns you never cease to amaze me. I can see how much work you’ve put into this and I just need you to know it’s such an inspiration.

GO PLAY THIS GAME GUYS

[vortexvn]

Thank you for the hype, V!

This project would not have gone too far without you being there for me, helping me out with the stories and ideas.

[vortexvn]

Hey there, big thank you for chapter 2 of the VN Vortex.

I definitely loved the chemistry between Victoria, Taylor and Courtney. I love the character interactions and enriching the franchise's characters without being over-invasive about it. I am looking forward to the finished product and hopefully my AmberChase goal won't be stopped because I let Victoria being the miss kind on everyone. :)

Btw, I love the references to other games in the franchise. It's a nice touch and a reminder why I prefer fanwork over the AAA one in these matters.

Let me know when the whole project is finished.

Yours Sincerely,

Lukáš Macek

Big thank you for taking the time to play and catalog this, Lukáš! I love seeing peoples reaction as they play the game heheh

my apologies for the overdue reply, things got hectic

[vortexvn]

​Hey LiS fandom! 

I present to you the major graphical update I've been working on over the past few months. Before starting on the final chapter, I wanted to iron out some kinks. I've been working on this project for over a year now, and as you might imagine, my art has improved along the way. Some of the assets I initially created didn't age the best, in my opinion. Some of it is still painful for me to look at tbh; some of the sprites don't have the best anatomy, and I'm saved by the fact that the text box takes up most of the characters' lower halves. 

After I finished the cutscenes, I also wanted to revamp some of the sprites. Still, I gave up because by this point, my art had changed a lot since I made those models. It will clash with the older ones. I just learned to accept my mistakes and move on cause I wanna finish this game by the end of this year, and this will stall me.  There are still some improvements to be made in the dialogue and audio. I'm currently working on that with the help of very talented people. 

I want to thank you all for your patience and love for the project! We managed to hit over 1k downloads for the main game and about 500 plays for the web demo! That is phenomenal, you all have exceeded my expectations for this project! I can only promise you that Chapter 3 will come out this year, and it's gonna be a loving send-off for this project.  I don't think my art would have improved that well without VortexVN and the love it got.

Download link

[vortexvn]

Just an update, project is still on and im still working on refining more assets before chapter 3

however due to iran strikes and ramadan, things are gonna be slow for now

please be patient with me