Hello folks, it’s been a while! First of all, I really wanted to apologize for the lack of updates on steam, we tend to prefer posting through out Lucid9 blog and through our Twitter and Facebook. So if you'd like to get more frequent news, make sure to subscribe to our various pages! It has been a while since we last shared substantial news about the state of progress for Inciting Incident’s sequel, and an even longer time since I wrote a blogpost (the two are more or less related, to tell the truth). There’s a lot to say, so you can expect this post to be pretty long.

1 - Thank you

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the amazing reception we got at the release of Inciting Incident. It couldn’t make us any happier to see people read and enjoy the story we’ve prepared for them. Still, to this day, we regularly receive messages from people telling us how they felt when reading Inciting Incident, and even though we are not always able to reply, we’re extremely grateful for your support! Of course, we do realize that Inciting Incident created (rather high) expectations for the sequel, and this is partly why things have been taking so long.

2 - What we’ve been up to for the past two years

Long story short; when we finished Inciting Incident, we more or less had a vague idea of the story’s direction. More precisely, I knew how the sequel would start and how it would conclude, but everything in between was still a work in progress. That’s when issues started to arise. We’ve had creative disagreements regarding how the rest of the story should be handled. Our Inciting Incident main writer, Luna, also left to pursue her own project (I really recommend you to check it out here if you haven’t heard of it already), which left me trying to find a new recruit to fill in her shoes for her route, something that would end up becoming quite the difficult task. In the months following the release, we continued to discuss the continuation of the story. We continued to become more and more frustrated after discussions, especially since we were ambitious and wanted to create something that wouldn’t let the readers down, but proposed concepts were often debated over. We didn’t share the same ideologies in terms of story writing. Frankly, all of this was really getting to me, and I was getting really tired of it all (add the fact that I had worked nearly non stop for half a year in order to make sure Inciting Incident release would be a success), and I ended up losing motivation and becoming less and less active. It’s at around this time that I asked David to temporarily replace me since I needed a break from Lucid9. Truth be told, I sometimes considered to quit at that point. After all, the release of Inciting Incident was a success and left me really satisfied with what I had accomplished. But there was always the nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I couldn’t really let it all remain unfinished like this, and that a lot of people were actually waiting for the sequel. I couldn’t let them down. Months passed, and a number of writers came and left. Elizabeth’s previous writer was replaced by Via. Nugget took over Suna’s role as Akira’s Route writer but was eventually replaced by Reddly. Clestae was also bogged down by real life commitments, and as a result, had to resign from her writer position to become an editor. DJ is currently filling in as Airi’s writer, who has done some very good work so far, and you can all expect him to do Airi’s route justice. Via joining the team is what motivated me to get involved in Lucid9 again, as he had a good head on his shoulders, shared (or at least understood) my thought process when creating or commenting on the content, and was always willing to work out all the details for his route and the world lore in general. Eventually, at the end of 2017, I was fully directing Lucid9 again, and here I am now writing this update. I’m also extremely grateful to David who held the fort while I was not motivated enough to work on Lucid9. Without him, the project would probably have died back then. ​

3 - What concrete progress has been made so far?

Here are how things stand currently for Lucid9’s sequel :

• Quite a lot of background art has been completed. Expect to see Yama visit new places that were only mentioned previously in Inciting Incident.
• The writing is finally showing progress. Of course, the amount of progress varies from writer to writer, but most of them have gotten a good grip on their characters and how to naturally write them so that dialogue and narration remain close to the one in Inciting Incident. The lore has been greatly expanded, and every route is planned out. So really, from now on, it’s a matter of writing regularly (and I’ll be here to make sure that progress is indeed done regularly).
• Music hasn’t seen much progress at the moment, but we’ve been trying to remedy that. Expect more music in the future.
• Most of the male characters have their first sprite done while the female cast is still mostly in development. Dizzy, the female characters artist, decided to improve her drawing style, so the female sprites might look a bit different than what you got used to in Inciting Incident. Here is a sneak peak of the current Airi’s design for the sequel :

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

4 - Content of the sequel (Slight spoilers)

It would be pretty unfair to give you a progress update without talking a bit about the content of the sequel, especially considering the abrupt and shocking way Inciting Incident ended. A word about the structure of this sequel first. As some of you might (or might not) know, Inciting Incident is supposed to be a “Common Route”. In Visual Novels, a Common Route is often an introductory segment of the story that presents the universe and the characters until it eventually splits onto various paths called “Routes”. Each Route focuses on a different heroine. Inciting Incident ends right at the conclusion of the Common Route, which means the sequel will split into 4 Routes (one for each heroine), and the choice of that route is determined by the previous choices you’ve made in Inciting Incident. So basically, you can expect the sequel to be 4 distinct parallel stories following Yama and each respective heroine. As for the content in itself, I won't reveal too much as I’d rather avoid spoilers. The only thing that I’ll say is that the story will resume 3 years after we left Yama at the end of Inciting Incident. That also explains why the new designs for the male and female characters look more mature, they are actually all older than in Inciting Incident. Finally, at this point it’s very likely there will be a third part to Lucid9, which would correspond to a “True Route”; the final route of the VN which should happen in parallel to the heroine routes once again. The true route should tie everything up from Inciting Incident and the Heroine routes, and answer all the questions that have remained unanswered.

5 - Date of release for Part 2

We haven’t decided on a date yet. I won’t try to give any estimation as it’s very likely that it’ll end up being not respected, so I can only ask you for your patience and for you to wait until we have progressed enough for me to confidently set a release date. But we’ll take as much time as necessary to ensure that the sequel will live up to everyone’s expectations.

6 - Voice Acting for Inciting Incident

I know that voice acting was supposed to be implemented in 2017, and I’m very sorry for the people who are eagerly waiting for this update, but unfortunately, it will have to be postponed indefinitely. There are several reasons for this decision. On the VA side, we have had multiple cast changes and departures due to various reasons, and each time, we've had to scramble to fill in replacements. Furthermore, the work is unpaid, which makes it very difficult for the voice actors to set Lucid9 as a priority. (At this point, some of you might wonder about crowdfunding, but we stand by our decision against a crowdfunding campaign for various reasons.) On our side, we’ve been unable to provide the necessary support to the voice acting recording sessions, as we have our hands full with the development of the sequel. As a result, things have been really slow (there’s not even 3 in-game days worth of voice recording done at the moment), and it won’t be done anytime soon. I can only apologize again for this, as it was a feature we had promised, but we’re completely unable to deliver it at the moment. I hope it will not prevent the people planning to wait for the voice acting to play Inciting Incident.

7 - Other Lucid9 related mini-projects

In order to make up for the lack of Lucid9 related content for you all to enjoy while we work on the sequel, I’ve organized with Elphaze a new official “Lucid9 4-Koma” section on the blog where we’ll regularly post funny 4-komas for everyone to read an enjoy. For those who don’t know what 4-komas are, it’s a very short comical story told in the form of a manga page with 4 panels. You can also submit your own 4-koma ideas, and we’ll pick the most interesting / funniest ones to draw from time to time! Here is the first 4-koma made by Elphaze:
Anyway, that’s it for this long update. Sorry again for being so slow with the development of the sequel, and thank you all for bearing with us. 2018 will be an important year for the Lucid9 project as I fully intend to make as much progress as possible toward a release. And thanks again for your support, it really means a lot to us all and is one of our biggest motivations when working on Lucid9! What? Are you saying it’s Valentines and usually we share an illustration on that day? Oh wait, talking about Valentines, it seems Yahiko’s overwhelming popularity earned him quite a lot of chocolate…
(This is actually his post Inciting Incident design!) See you next time! Diamonit - Fallen Snow Studios

[ 2018-02-15 01:19:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello folks, its been a while! First of all, I really wanted to apologize for the lack of updates on steam, we tend to prefer posting through out Lucid9 blog and through our Twitter and Facebook. So if you'd like to get more frequent news, make sure to subscribe to our various pages! It has been a while since we last shared substantial news about the state of progress for Inciting Incidents sequel, and an even longer time since I wrote a blogpost (the two are more or less related, to tell the truth). Theres a lot to say, so you can expect this post to be pretty long.

1 - Thank you

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the amazing reception we got at the release of Inciting Incident. It couldnt make us any happier to see people read and enjoy the story weve prepared for them. Still, to this day, we regularly receive messages from people telling us how they felt when reading Inciting Incident, and even though we are not always able to reply, were extremely grateful for your support! Of course, we do realize that Inciting Incident created (rather high) expectations for the sequel, and this is partly why things have been taking so long.

2 - What weve been up to for the past two years

Long story short; when we finished Inciting Incident, we more or less had a vague idea of the storys direction. More precisely, I knew how the sequel would start and how it would conclude, but everything in between was still a work in progress. Thats when issues started to arise. Weve had creative disagreements regarding how the rest of the story should be handled. Our Inciting Incident main writer, Luna, also left to pursue her own project (I really recommend you to check it out here if you havent heard of it already), which left me trying to find a new recruit to fill in her shoes for her route, something that would end up becoming quite the difficult task. In the months following the release, we continued to discuss the continuation of the story. We continued to become more and more frustrated after discussions, especially since we were ambitious and wanted to create something that wouldnt let the readers down, but proposed concepts were often debated over. We didnt share the same ideologies in terms of story writing. Frankly, all of this was really getting to me, and I was getting really tired of it all (add the fact that I had worked nearly non stop for half a year in order to make sure Inciting Incident release would be a success), and I ended up losing motivation and becoming less and less active. Its at around this time that I asked David to temporarily replace me since I needed a break from Lucid9. Truth be told, I sometimes considered to quit at that point. After all, the release of Inciting Incident was a success and left me really satisfied with what I had accomplished. But there was always the nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I couldnt really let it all remain unfinished like this, and that a lot of people were actually waiting for the sequel. I couldnt let them down. Months passed, and a number of writers came and left. Elizabeths previous writer was replaced by Via. Nugget took over Sunas role as Akiras Route writer but was eventually replaced by Reddly. Clestae was also bogged down by real life commitments, and as a result, had to resign from her writer position to become an editor. DJ is currently filling in as Airis writer, who has done some very good work so far, and you can all expect him to do Airis route justice. Via joining the team is what motivated me to get involved in Lucid9 again, as he had a good head on his shoulders, shared (or at least understood) my thought process when creating or commenting on the content, and was always willing to work out all the details for his route and the world lore in general. Eventually, at the end of 2017, I was fully directing Lucid9 again, and here I am now writing this update. Im also extremely grateful to David who held the fort while I was not motivated enough to work on Lucid9. Without him, the project would probably have died back then.

3 - What concrete progress has been made so far?

Here are how things stand currently for Lucid9s sequel :

• Quite a lot of background art has been completed. Expect to see Yama visit new places that were only mentioned previously in Inciting Incident.
• The writing is finally showing progress. Of course, the amount of progress varies from writer to writer, but most of them have gotten a good grip on their characters and how to naturally write them so that dialogue and narration remain close to the one in Inciting Incident. The lore has been greatly expanded, and every route is planned out. So really, from now on, its a matter of writing regularly (and Ill be here to make sure that progress is indeed done regularly).
• Music hasnt seen much progress at the moment, but weve been trying to remedy that. Expect more music in the future.
• Most of the male characters have their first sprite done while the female cast is still mostly in development. Dizzy, the female characters artist, decided to improve her drawing style, so the female sprites might look a bit different than what you got used to in Inciting Incident. Here is a sneak peak of the current Airis design for the sequel :

4 - Content of the sequel (Slight spoilers)

It would be pretty unfair to give you a progress update without talking a bit about the content of the sequel, especially considering the abrupt and shocking way Inciting Incident ended. A word about the structure of this sequel first. As some of you might (or might not) know, Inciting Incident is supposed to be a Common Route. In Visual Novels, a Common Route is often an introductory segment of the story that presents the universe and the characters until it eventually splits onto various paths called Routes. Each Route focuses on a different heroine. Inciting Incident ends right at the conclusion of the Common Route, which means the sequel will split into 4 Routes (one for each heroine), and the choice of that route is determined by the previous choices youve made in Inciting Incident. So basically, you can expect the sequel to be 4 distinct parallel stories following Yama and each respective heroine. As for the content in itself, I won't reveal too much as Id rather avoid spoilers. The only thing that Ill say is that the story will resume 3 years after we left Yama at the end of Inciting Incident. That also explains why the new designs for the male and female characters look more mature, they are actually all older than in Inciting Incident. Finally, at this point its very likely there will be a third part to Lucid9, which would correspond to a True Route; the final route of the VN which should happen in parallel to the heroine routes once again. The true route should tie everything up from Inciting Incident and the Heroine routes, and answer all the questions that have remained unanswered.

5 - Date of release for Part 2

We havent decided on a date yet. I wont try to give any estimation as its very likely that itll end up being not respected, so I can only ask you for your patience and for you to wait until we have progressed enough for me to confidently set a release date. But well take as much time as necessary to ensure that the sequel will live up to everyones expectations.

6 - Voice Acting for Inciting Incident

I know that voice acting was supposed to be implemented in 2017, and Im very sorry for the people who are eagerly waiting for this update, but unfortunately, it will have to be postponed indefinitely. There are several reasons for this decision. On the VA side, we have had multiple cast changes and departures due to various reasons, and each time, we've had to scramble to fill in replacements. Furthermore, the work is unpaid, which makes it very difficult for the voice actors to set Lucid9 as a priority. (At this point, some of you might wonder about crowdfunding, but we stand by our decision against a crowdfunding campaign for various reasons.) On our side, weve been unable to provide the necessary support to the voice acting recording sessions, as we have our hands full with the development of the sequel. As a result, things have been really slow (theres not even 3 in-game days worth of voice recording done at the moment), and it wont be done anytime soon. I can only apologize again for this, as it was a feature we had promised, but were completely unable to deliver it at the moment. I hope it will not prevent the people planning to wait for the voice acting to play Inciting Incident.

7 - Other Lucid9 related mini-projects

In order to make up for the lack of Lucid9 related content for you all to enjoy while we work on the sequel, Ive organized with Elphaze a new official Lucid9 4-Koma section on the blog where well regularly post funny 4-komas for everyone to read an enjoy. For those who dont know what 4-komas are, its a very short comical story told in the form of a manga page with 4 panels. You can also submit your own 4-koma ideas, and well pick the most interesting / funniest ones to draw from time to time! Here is the first 4-koma made by Elphaze:
Anyway, thats it for this long update. Sorry again for being so slow with the development of the sequel, and thank you all for bearing with us. 2018 will be an important year for the Lucid9 project as I fully intend to make as much progress as possible toward a release. And thanks again for your support, it really means a lot to us all and is one of our biggest motivations when working on Lucid9! What? Are you saying its Valentines and usually we share an illustration on that day? Oh wait, talking about Valentines, it seems Yahikos overwhelming popularity earned him quite a lot of chocolate
(This is actually his post Inciting Incident design!) See you next time! Diamonit - Fallen Snow Studios

[ 2018-02-15 01:19:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Lucid9 is a mystery visual novel where your choices affect the outcome of the story.

--------STORY--------

// D-DAY.
You're a murderer.

// 1 DAY PRIOR.
You can’t trust anyone. You lose your mind.

// 3 DAYS PRIOR.
Someone dies before your eyes. Your friends distance themselves from you.

// 4 DAYS PRIOR.
Your school enforces a curfew. You nearly drown. Your past catches up to you.

// 6 DAYS PRIOR.
You learn that students at your school have been disappearing into nothingness. You visit an amusement park with a bunch of friends anyway.

// 8 DAYS PRIOR.
You take a history exam. Maybe you pass, maybe you fail. Then you participate in a treasure hunt in the sketchiest part of the city. Thankfully, nothing happens. Or maybe something does.

// 9 DAYS PRIOR.
You visit a career fair to review your options. Doesn't seem like there is a bright future ahead of you. You also meet a crazy woman with a vocabulary larger than her height who claims to be a detective.

// 10 DAYS PRIOR.
You immerse yourself in classes, friends, and an everyday routine. You eat copious amounts of fried chicken and are press-ganged into advertising for a club you're not even in. This is where the game begins.

// THE THING IS:
You can choose to fight this outcome.

--------ABOUT LUCID9--------

Lucid9 is a visual novel focused on a web of intricate mysteries set in the fictional 2018 metropolis of Isamu. Inciting Incident is the first part of the story, where you play as Yama Ishimoto, a cynical high school student who would like nothing more than to keep his life free of school drama and hard choices. However, he’s forced to face his circumstances when an eccentric detective blazes into his life, alerting him of a string of brutal murders at his school.

As Yama furthers this investigation, he must dig through the secrets of the city, bringing him and his friends closer and closer to danger in the process. Every step leads Yama to the most unexpected - and terrifying - culprit…

--------DEVELOPERS--------

Lucid9 is being created by Fallen Snow Studios, an international group of visual novel enthusiasts who seek to make a VN by fans for fans. As Lucid9 is a passion project that has been created without any budget so far, we are aiming to release it free of charge in order to both engage established fans of visual novels, as well as introduce newcomers to this unique storytelling medium. We are working our hardest to make sure the rest of the story will be available for free as well.

--------UPCOMING--------

• Free Voice Acting patch: All of Inciting Incident will be fully voiced in English by Yin Yang Voices. Recording production has already begun, but it's a deliberate and lengthy process. Consequently, we're aiming to release the patch for the voices in 2017.
  
• Second arc of Lucid9: We are currently working on the heroine routes, which will comprise the second part of Lucid9. They will be included in a future patch. There isn't any precise release date for this patch, but we will make sure to share progress regularly with all of you.