SIM [BlueWinds] Lapis Azurai

Hello all, and thank you for a moment of your time. You may remember me (or not) from and the older game of the same name (play those online and respectively, no registration, ad-blocker or other whats-it required). I am pleased to announce my third game,

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. Set in the same world as the last game, it contains a few of the same characters but much more world-building and story-line, as well as improved just-about-everything.

The game will be free to play, as have been the last two. And, as the last one, I am now

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to raise some money to help commission more art. Oh, did I mention? The art in this game is 100% original, and I hope you'll (this is only a small sample of the art that's already in just the demo).

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This is not a world tamed and settled, but still vibrant with magic. Settlements are scattered across the map, wherever they can find a patron to protect them or a hidden cove to shelter from the storms. Spirits demand obeisance before one can clear land for a farm. Demons ask for a drop of blood every day or they will tear down the town’s walls. A goddess protects her chosen people from the perils of the open desert in return – but no one else.

Vailia is the center of the world. Not out of arrogance does the city claim this, but as established fact – in all the thousands of miles of land and sea it has explored, no other nation dares brave the untamed wilds and storms of the open ocean. Its merchants bring together distant lands, carrying news across the known world despite the peril.

Natalie Rowena is one such. A childhood friend who left his family to follow her – an irrepressible thief who wants to see the world – a quiet warrior with a dark past and enough magic to shatter a country – these are her companion in her journey as she simply tries to make a living in a dangerous world.

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Lapis Azurai is a Business Management Game / Visual Novel, written in Javascript (Coffeescript, actually) and inspired by the likes of Recettear, Princess Maker, the Firefly board game, and Pirates of the Caribbean (yes, the third movie, not the first). It runs in your browser, either from the server or from your local machine – if you download it, the game doesn’t require an internet connection. It requires a relatively new version of Firefox, Chrome or Safari, including the mobile versions of any of these. It will not run under Internet Explorer.

The game will be completely free, and contain no advertisements or other tracking of any sort. It is funded only by developer enthusiasm and various crowd-funding methods. All game code is licensed GPL v3. All game assets (art and text) are released under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial, Share-alike license.

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So what?

Updates, development notes, personal anecdotes and quite a bit of art is available .

I'll have released .

More importantly to me (though perhaps not to you), I am running a Kickstarter campaign in the hopes of opening my own game development studio, and doing this full time.

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.

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Kinks

No point in hiding it - this game is much more mainstream than my last two. It will have sex! Lots of sex! But it's more of a fun game and visual novel than it is pure pornography.

There will be prostitution. It's kind of my thing, you know? :3
There will be lots and lots of lesbians and bisexual ladies. Also kind of my thing.
There will be BDSM - ropes, whips, "Yes Mistress I am your slave, please may I kiss you?"
There will be non-consent - mostly in one particular route, partially described / partially fade-to-black. There will be non-consent fantasies / scenes which are entirely graphic though.
There will be group-sex, exhibitionism, forced nudity, bukkake, anal, double-anal, triple... wait, no, no triple anal. But you get the idea.
There may be demons and tentacles. Not 100% sure on this yet.
There may be gay sex. This depends on what backers on the kickstarter tell me they want.

Don't expect to see any futa.
Don't expect to see any furry/non-human.
Don't expect any transformation, unrealistic anatomy, gore, or bathroom related shenanigans.
Don't expect any sex with people who even appear to be underage.

Re: Lapis Azurai

I will just post a few pictures and links from your blog. Just comment on a few more post, so the other readers don't need to read through a wall of text.



Links:

Re: Lapis Azurai

I know, it was sad, I had the whole thing typed out with links and everything... forgot that I didn't post here all that much, and about the linking limit. Whoops. ^^;;

Ah well, I shall do so and then edit the OP when I get a chance.

Re: Lapis Azurai

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Just a few minutes ago I hit the “launch” button, and boy is my heart fluttery right now. If you’re still reading this post, by all means follow that link over and read more about the game instead. I have a video and everything!

The demo is now live online, at either (or ) for the PG-13 version, or (or ) for the R-rated one. I’ll let the KS page and demo speak for themselves, rather than spilling any more electrons on the subject.

Re: Lapis Azurai

Neat. I've been keeping an eye on this one. Gonna try it out now.

Re: Lapis Azurai

Not too bad so far. Got to about day 410 or so. At this point is is more of grinding/making money. I will look forward to more content

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First impression - the narrative is presented very well. The writing itself is solid, but what really impresses me is the way that it's paced relative to gameplay ("number of words between keystrokes") and the fact that it acknowledges gameplay. The game trusts the player to read information in the UI (such as button labels and tooltips), uses this information to establish context, and then focuses the bottom-of-the-screen narration on character actions, thoughts, and conversation.

It's a simple technique but it's very effective. The game knows that the player must pay a lot of attention to the UI in order to play the game (e.g. "what choices/actions are available to me at the moment?"). UI-scanning can become routine and boring ("buy low, sell high") and it risks disengaging the player from the game's story. The game deliberately injects small character and narrative details into the UI, which enriches the experience and helps to tie the player's decisions to the characters. When the game delivers narration, it can focus on its plot and characters (rather than exposition and tutorials) because the UI has already taught the player what they need to know. When it needs to constrain player choice, it does so by simply eliminating buttons in the UI (instead of undermining characterization with goofy "I wanna do [x]" "Nope, you must do [y] instead" dialogue).

In summary - it feels like a game written by someone who intuitively understands the format that they're working with, rather than someone who wrote a novel and then tried to adapt it into an interactive experience. Kudos.

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Is this something you plan to sell? That I am functionally opposed to crowdfunding sites should be no big surprise to anyone, however this game actually looks like something that may interest me. It is certainly not some me-too garbage that others are trying to shovel off on this place.

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I am reminded of the old The Patrician games from back in the days of yore and yesteryear. Looks very very good, and I am especially impressed by the backgrounds and general graphic style, which really helps set the mood.

Played about 30 days worth and also (of course) opted to have Natalie try out a bit of sexing. Will h-scenes be text only, or is there graphics intended eventually (I saw none when I tried, although the descriptions I read was good enough that I didn't really mind)?

Re: Lapis Azurai

Silvanya said:

Not too bad so far. Got to about day 410 or so. At this point is is more of grinding/making money. I will look forward to more content

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Yeah, I had hoped to get more content in the demo before I launched, but, well, life happened. It also takes a suprising amount of time to pace things properly - I have a whole word document full of text, but it takes longer to split it up, set up the sprites properly, run through it a few times to make sure it flows right than it does to write.

stuntcock42 said:

In summary - it feels like a game written by someone who intuitively understands the format that they're working with, rather than someone who wrote a novel and then tried to adapt it into an interactive experience. Kudos.

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Aww, you're making me blush. *^^* I was actually inspired to start making games when I saw the average level and thought... "I can do better than this." There are a few high-quality gems and mountains of stuff that makes me groan.

Hopefully enough people agree and will help fund the campaign.

freeko said:

Is this something you plan to sell? That I am functionally opposed to crowdfunding sites should be no big surprise to anyone, however this game actually looks like something that may interest me. It is certainly not some me-too garbage that others are trying to shovel off on this place.

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It will be entirely free. Backing me is A) because you want one of the rewards and B) because you want me to make more of the game.

I'm trying out the webcomics model - free weekly updates, making a living off other sources of income - in this case the kickstarter campaign, offering
early access, 60 days ahead of the free version.

SoaringSpirit said:

I am reminded of the old The Patrician games from back in the days of yore and yesteryear. Looks very very good, and I am especially impressed by the backgrounds and general graphic style, which really helps set the mood.

Played about 30 days worth and also (of course) opted to have Natalie try out a bit of sexing. Will h-scenes be text only, or is there graphics intended eventually (I saw none when I tried, although the descriptions I read was good enough that I didn't really mind)?

Click to expand...

I hadn't ever heard of that game - I'll give it a spin when I have a free moment.

Most of the H-scenes will be text only, though some of them will have their own sexy graphics (those with other important characters, rather than those with random people). Basically, high-quality artists are expensive - this is one of the big places I'll be spending any money raised, on commissioning more art.