We’ve been getting A LOT of love lately, fellow otome game fans! So let’s keep the love going, shall we?Ā š
Audilis, a game company based in Chicago with the goal of bringing in a new era to indie otome games, has recently started a Kickstarter campaignĀ for an otome game titled Love is a Game. Let’s take a closer look at what the game is all about!
Love is a Game tells the story of a young woman namedĀ Willow Bates, a recent college graduate who works at a small cafe and lives alone in her childhood home. Being lonely and feeling suffocated by the everyday routineĀ of working an unfulfilling job, Willow found a quiet joy in otome games. Not having manyĀ friends and what seems like a non-existent love life, she’s grown attached to the happiness brought by these romance novel games.
“What if they were real?”, Willow thought. Be careful what you wish for…
As Willow begins another one of her mundane work days, she stumbles across a few handsome and good-looking men…but why did they seem so familiar? After she several encounters, it becomes unbelievably clear: these men are the same as the ones from her beloved otome game! How did this come to happen?! A very confused Willow undergoes on a life-changing quest to find that out…and perhaps make her virtual love become real?
There’s a lot to like about this project. First, I’m sure a lot of us can relate to the heroine pretty well; stuck in the everyday work grind, to then come home tired…but there’s always those amazing pretty boy games that make your day! And then there’s thatĀ familiar struggle to figure out if you should get that new CE of that game you’ve been waiting on or save your money. We’ve been in that situation at someĀ point!
The art in this game looks really good! Willow’s expressions as she goes from happy, to crestfallen, to shocked are illustrated nicely. The background art is bright and colorful! What impressed me the most about the art were the CGs.
The CGs look AMAZING!Ā š I didn’t expect this quality of art for the CGs; it took me by surprise!
This gameĀ will be available for PC (Windows/Linux/Mac) and mobile devices. It’ll feature more than 30 CGs; each route will haveĀ at least 5Ā CG images that can be unlocked throughout the story. There will beĀ 6Ā routes with at 18 endings. You can renameĀ the main character, remove her sprite, adjust text speed, and make the use of the rewind option to re-read previous text, or the auto option to have the game go along without you clicking through it. The one missing feature I hope Audilis adds in is the windowed-mode for PC; if you play through the PC demo, it’s always on full-screen mode. Since it is a demo and things change in the span of time, perhaps it’ll be added in when the full version of the game comes out.
Here’s the cost breakdown of their project:
A few things to note about this: programming/UI will cost themĀ 0% of funding as it’sĀ being provided by one of their founders. This will allow themĀ to add more features to the game as it develops at no extra cost. Music is also an asset that has already been paid for beforeĀ the Kickstarter campaign began and will not affect the funds raised. Also, they’ll beĀ setting aside 10% of all funds raised to cover unexpected costs if it should happen. This may include more chapters and/or art to improve overall experience.
Audilis is offering lots of campaign-exclusive goodies that backers can get:
Some of the tiers are already gone, but there are plenty more goods to claim if you haven’t backed it already!
The game itself is made byĀ Epic’s Unreal Engine 4, which is interesting because most indie visual novels are made by using Ren’Py.
All in all, this is an impressively-organized Kickstarter campaign; Audilis has it together! They are lacking a bit of advertisement (I heard about the project from a friend), but judging from how many people have already backed the game and how close they are to their total amount, they are doing really well. This project WILL succeed if they keep the pace they’ve been going! With 37 days to go and atĀ $9,235Ā pledged of $11,000 goal, we’ll be playing an enjoyable otome game soon enough!Ā āØ
Check out the game’s demo through the following:
Also, don’t forget to vote for them in their Steam Greenlight page!
Until next time, happy gaming!Ā š®
Figuratively Speaking 