Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Greetings!

I'd like to present you a demo of Chronicles of Lonvenholm - a free non-linear visual novel with a dash of battle tactics, staged in a fantasy setting with unique semi-realistic graphics. X3 Brothers hobby project.

You can download alpha v0.1 here -

This demo contains one out of four possible origin points for your alter-ego. The prologue serves as a starting immersion/background and lore mini-chapter of the game. The whole story is planned to be around 3-4 chapters of narrative blocks + optional dungeon crawling and treasure hunts.

Now, let’s check a list of key points, which we are using as pillars to create CoL:

• A fantasy setting with different regions and nations, which is not brimming with magic – Check
• A few planned characters with their own stories and romance options with both genders – Check
• An advanced dialogue system with consequences and branching – Check
• Spicy erotic graphics, with THAT DAMNED CG WHICH I CAN’T UNLOCK part – Check
• A combat system to water down the narrative part with some action – umm, check?

Oh crap, it sounds like your generic VN. What makes us unique? I want CoL to be more interactive than other Patreon projects. Though our team is still preparing a foundation for new blocks, we want this game to have a modular structure.

The main story and characters mini-quest lines will serve as core content, while additional and user-based content will be more DLC-like, both to keep it manageable for us to maintain and keeping your player experience customizable. I mean, some of us don’t want to see dinosaurs with lasers in their coal chutes close to our archers.

What content will be in those user-based packs? Features, characters and mechanics – you name it. Of course, our team will be open for feedback on the main story arc too. So, you can expect many polls about features and the development vector as a whole. Plus, we have some really crazy ideas for the future.

I’ll prepare monthly posts with goals and progress for everybody on our Patreon page along with questions & answers section. This way you can check what’s going on without being a patron. Btw, April -> May goals are already posted.

Well, enough introductions! It’s all fine and rosy, but we are just starting out and need your support! Grab the demo, give it a try, post some feedback and consider throwing some bucks our way.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

looks good, gonna give it a try...

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Question:
Are you the artist?

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Yea, I'm the "tech/code" guy of this project.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Don't much care for VN's personally, but the modular content idea sounds interesting. And the dungeon crawling (depending on how it's done).

The screenshots/art (and the mention of dungeon crawling) immediately make me think of the Wizardry series. That could be a good direction to take the dungeon crawling elements actually.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

well, you had me at

Keliar said:

... with THAT DAMNED CG WHICH I CAN’T UNLOCK

Click to expand...

i hope it turns out to be as great as your post makes me think its going to be

will definetely keep a close eye on your progress.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

so, i finally managed to play through the prologue, and i'm really excited for more.

First off, your writer is really damn good. Even tho its clearly aimed at native english speakers, and i havent seen such a level of speech in a while, i found myself greatly enjoying the story.
It's just a pleasure to read in general.
The Characters are great so far, its easy to understand them, like them and feel with them.


The minigame battles are quite simple, but theyre fun in their own way, and the plan to somewhat lighten up the whole thing after a story-heavy phase works well.

On the tech side, there are 2 things im really missing.
First, the ability to save before i have to make a decision in the story.
Second, i had to click on that goddamn arrow everytime i wanted to read the next screen.
Is the failure on my part, did i simply not see what key i have to use ?

The Art is straight up amazing (i'll simply go ahead and think you made the background screens all by yourself), the music and the way its weaved in into the story is also pretty damn great.
I actually dont have anything to propose on this area, its pretty much perfect


PS: I hope this gets more attention, i really like it.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

I have a question about the " Spicy erotic CG ". Is it just that? Erotic? Like, some mild nudity? Or is there sex and stuff? Thanks!

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

mayaktheunholy said:

Don't much care for VN's personally, but the modular content idea sounds interesting. And the dungeon crawling (depending on how it's done).

The screenshots/art (and the mention of dungeon crawling) immediately make me think of the Wizardry series. That could be a good direction to take the dungeon crawling elements actually.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we are using ideas from Wizardy and Darkest Dungeon (plus some of the older games) as our concept base for the exploration part. Our team needs to lay a foundation for it with skills and progression system + some combat logic tweaks.

Can't give you even an estimated time for the dungeon part to be completed, but I can say it may be possible to implement it before our "Bill-or-Kill" meeting for this project.

Keep said:

so, i finally managed to play through the prologue, and i'm really excited for more.

First off, your writer is really damn good. Even tho its clearly aimed at native english speakers, and i havent seen such a level of speech in a while, i found myself greatly enjoying the story.

The minigame battles are quite simple, but theyre fun in their own way, and the plan to somewhat lighten up the whole thing after a story-heavy phase works well.

On the tech side, there are 2 things im really missing.
First, the ability to save before i have to make a decision in the story.
Second, i had to click on that goddamn arrow everytime i wanted to read the next screen.
Is the failure on my part, did i simply not see what key i have to use ?

The Art is straight up amazing (i'll simply go ahead and think you made the background screens all by yourself), the music and the way its weaved in into the story is also pretty damn great.
I actually dont have anything to propose on this area, its pretty much perfect


PS: I hope this gets more attention, i really like it.

Click to expand...

Hey, we are glad you liked it!

Battles are just tutorials to get the grip on basic controls and the interface. We are planning to make them harder later on with additional units and "Rock-Paper-Scissors" vulnerability mechanic. And no, we don't want a mandatory grinding in this game.

Naaah, my art skills and overall sense of beauty are stuck somewhere between levels of a tree stump and a hamster. Our core team consists of 2 tech guys, so we hired an art sorceress to cover this field

I'll definitely look into your ideas about the narrative part, shouldn't be too hard to tweak.

Ryuukun said:

I have a question about the " Spicy erotic CG ". Is it just that? Erotic? Like, some mild nudity? Or is there sex and stuff? Thanks!

Click to expand...

The demo release features only 1 erotic card with a mild nudity, correct. It's here to test the water and gather feedback.

As I said earlier, we are open for the feedback - if our players want to see a more traditional approach to sex scenes, I can't see why not?

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Well, I think it all depends on how you want to approach sex scenes in your game; consensual, GoR, prostitution, that kinda stuff... Also depends on what you want to focus on I guess? Like, do you want to create a game that focuses on porn or not, etc...

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Keep said:

Second, i had to click on that goddamn arrow everytime i wanted to read the next screen.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed this point earlier. You don't need to click on the arrow itself, just click anywhere in the textbox

Ryuukun said:

Well, I think it all depends on how you want to approach sex scenes in your game; consensual, GoR, prostitution, that kinda stuff... Also depends on what you want to focus on I guess? Like, do you want to create a game that focuses on porn or not, etc...

Click to expand...

Generally, we don't want this project to scream sex in your face, it will be there - if you want it. And if you want it - we are happy to present it in a form you'll like. Btw, you are not alone in wanting sexy moments to be more like classic VN. We'll see that we can do in the next update.

As for approach itself, you'll make your own empire from ashes. We'll have some fetishes like bondage, domination and rape. On the other hand, our team wants to place some pretty sensual romance options too.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Keliar said:

Sorry, I missed this point earlier. You don't need to click on the arrow itself, just click anywhere in the textbox



Generally, we don't want this project to scream sex in your face, it will be there - if you want it. And if you want it - we are happy to present it in a form you'll like. Btw, you are not alone in wanting sexy moments to be more like classic VN. We'll see that we can do in the next update.

As for approach itself, you'll make your own empire from ashes. We'll have some fetishes like bondage, domination and rape. On the other hand, our team wants to place some pretty sensual romance options too.

Click to expand...

Well, again, it all depends if you want your game to be classified as a porn game, or just a "regular" game with some erotic content in it! As for the kinks you want to add, they gotta fit in the story/quests you put in the game I guess?

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Keliar said:

Naaah, my art skills and overall sense of beauty are stuck somewhere between levels of a tree stump and a hamster. Our core team consists of 2 tech guys, so we hired an art sorceress to cover this field

I'll definitely look into your ideas about the narrative part, shouldn't be too hard to tweak.



The demo release features only 1 erotic card with a mild nudity, correct. It's here to test the water and gather feedback.

As I said earlier, we are open for the feedback - if our players want to see a more traditional approach to sex scenes, I can't see why not?

Click to expand...

Well you can safely pass the word to her, that she is crazy skilled!


I do like you want to not merely make a sexscene game. That said, my preference would be to have actual sex scenes when they come around in the game.

This looks really promising.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Keliar said:

Sorry, I missed this point earlier. You don't need to click on the arrow itself, just click anywhere in the textbox

Click to expand...

yeah, my bad.

Keliar said:

Generally, we don't want this project to scream sex in your face, it will be there - if you want it. And if you want it - we are happy to present it in a form you'll like. Btw, you are not alone in wanting sexy moments to be more like classic VN. We'll see that we can do in the next update.

As for approach itself, you'll make your own empire from ashes. We'll have some fetishes like bondage, domination and rape. On the other hand, our team wants to place some pretty sensual romance options too.

Click to expand...

the way youre weaving your scenes into the story isnt the spot i'd look to improve on, the way youre presenting them in card form on the other hand ...
Obviously, the image itself is small. Too small, i'd say.
Maybe its because i played it in 1280 x 800
I'd present it like a classic VN would, then the wall of narrative text, that describes the scene, also wont be as scary

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Ryuukun said:

Well, again, it all depends if you want your game to be classified as a porn game, or just a "regular" game with some erotic content in it! As for the kinks you want to add, they gotta fit in the story/quests you put in the game I guess?

Click to expand...

In this case, I prefer to mark CoL as a regular game with erotic/porn content in it. There are a lot of projects with boobs-to-the-face from minute one approach. It's not a bad thing, but we don't really want to make another one of these.

Keep said:

yeah, my bad.
the way youre weaving your scenes into the story isnt the spot i'd look to improve on, the way youre presenting them in card form on the other hand ...
Obviously, the image itself is small. Too small, i'd say.
Maybe its because i played it in 1280 x 800
I'd present it like a classic VN would, then the wall of narrative text, that describes the scene, also wont be as scary

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback! Still holding to ol' 4:3? Yeah, we got a mixed reaction from the sex scene and will try to tailor such events in a classic VN way.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Nice artwork. Very good writing overall.

Just going thru the alpha and found a poor word choice.
"It didn't took long to get fully prepared" take instead of took. And did not instead of didn't, same number of characters.
Horses are saddled, not prepared.
"gave the scouts their directions, then turned and came to me.", who gave?
"we've agreed on the horn signal..." should have a 's as multiple groups are using horns.
"So, free lads..." If Free is a place needs capitol F.
",simple as this." Should be that not this. Or new sentence should read "As simple as that."

Benden Lake I think
Double text "appraised".
Again with the horn signal('s).
"Even if I will demand..." Lose the "will".
"Right on that day, Bertolt had been promoted to sarge". Sergeant is the proper spelling. A 100 man commander will not be enlisted, probably a Captain.
A "1000-men lieutenant" should be a Colonel at the least.

Battle does nothing?

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

I updated Patreon with info about patch/roll-out logic and rewards.

Mordaen said:

Nice artwork. Very good writing overall.

Just going thru the alpha and found a poor word choice.
"It didn't took long to get fully prepared" take instead of took. And did not instead of didn't, same number of characters.
Horses are saddled, not prepared.
"gave the scouts their directions, then turned and came to me.", who gave?
"we've agreed on the horn signal..." should have a 's as multiple groups are using horns.
"So, free lads..." If Free is a place needs capitol F.
",simple as this." Should be that not this. Or new sentence should read "As simple as that."

Benden Lake I think
Double text "appraised".
Again with the horn signal('s).
"Even if I will demand..." Lose the "will".
"Right on that day, Bertolt had been promoted to sarge". Sergeant is the proper spelling. A 100 man commander will not be enlisted, probably a Captain.
A "1000-men lieutenant" should be a Colonel at the least.

Battle does nothing?

Click to expand...

Thanks, fixed nearly all of them. I will roll out the first tech patch around the weekend. Well, looks like we can use a proofreader.

Army titles are just there to give basic info, nothing more. Sarge is used as informal form of sergeant. Hmm, colonel. I don't know if medieval armies even had ranks like colonel :/

And Bieden lake is a purely fictional name

Battles are included to take a break from narrative blocks and test out how intuitive they are to our players. At one point we considered to make a tutorial battle with a lot of pop-up windows with "Click here to do X".

Officer's exp and progression is still in development phase, but it's kinda typical. Your character will get exp to level up with minor bonuses, each new level will give you some personal points to distribute in a skill tree for major power ups like skills, passives and perks.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Keliar said:

Army titles are just there to give basic info, nothing more. Sarge is used as informal form of sergeant. Hmm, colonel. I don't know if medieval armies even had ranks like colonel :/

Click to expand...

Professional armies had a lot of ranks, even going back a long way. See the composition of a roman legion for reference:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_legion#Legionary_ranks

A medieval army under the feudal system was much looser, largely based around how the army was conscripted and individual titles. I guess you're going for something a little later and more formal though, so maybe see the later periods for reference:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_rank#Medieval_ranks

I'd suggest making things up for fun.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

The game looks very promising I'm looking forward to the next update.
The VN combined with elements of a tactics rpg sounds fun. Sort of like Loren Amazon Princess, but with more explicit scenes.

Some suggestions:
Please add an option to remove the text delay. I found it hard to read even on the highest text speed and really prefer games without any text delay at all.

It would be nice with some icons and tooltips showing status effects in battle.

Have you tried speeding up the battle animations? The attacks feel kind of weak right now and maybe quicker animations would give more weight to them?

I would suggest redesigning the jumping forward/back animation during the attacks. Darkest Dungeon really is the master of this, though the "animation" is very stylized.

Re: Chronicles of Lonvenholm

Thanks!

No prob with killing typing delay, it's possible to tweak it in our first tech update.

The battle system is a huuuge placeholder for now. We want to give it a massive overhaul some time later and use elements from Rance series + Darkest dungeon, but first things first.

I'm really impressed how guys in Darkest managed to keep their battle so alive with just moving sprites around and switching camera in different angles.