Kristi JimenezWelcome to VN Game Den’s Kickstarter Round-Up! Sometimes, it can be hard to find projects you’d like to back. After all, a ton of creators are looking for funding for their projects on places like Kickstarter. That’s where I come in! In this series, I’ll be rounding up the various visual novel projects on the site.
So, let’s see what’s on Kickstarter!
Made Marion
Funding Goal: $15,900 CAD
Ends on: March 18th
A little visual novel that I found one day while poking through Twitter, Made Marion looks incredibly promising. You take control of the title character, Marion, a noblewoman who finds herself in the middle of a between authority and the rebels led by the infamous Robin Hood. Yep, it’s a Robin Hood otome game!
Considering the setting of the game, you can expect to embark on a dangerous adventure as Marion gets further entangled in the struggle between authority and justice. By the way, she won’t just sit there asking others to save her.
Since this is an otome game, players can expect to date a number of members in the cast. While Robin Hood is an obvious romance choice, Velvet Cupcake Games has more characters you can smooch—male, female, and non-binary.
There’s a demo you can play if you’re interested or on the fence about the title! If all goes according to plan, Made Marion will release August 2022.
Mask of the Rose: a Fallen London Romance
Funding Goal: £90,000 GBP
Ends on: March 10th
From the developers of the successful games Fallen London, Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, Failbetter Games is bringing their knowledge of horror to the dating sim genre with Mask of the Rose. While the game takes place in the same universe as their other titles, newcomers can happily jump into this game without any issue.
The basic premise is that London has gone to Hell after being taken below ground. Not everything or everyone survived the drastic change. Now, the inhabitants of the once-great capital of England must learn to survive. The full game will have you explore, experiencing new events and discovering different storylines. In fact, the developer said that their goal with this game is to make sure players come back for more. With each playthrough, you start to learn more and more about what’s really going on in London.
“By replaying you can explore different storylines and pursue new goals. London’s deeper secrets will only emerge over multiple playthroughs!”
Mask of the Rose Kickstarter page
One of the examples the developer brings up is how you can play with the romance in the game. You can either stay single, play matchmaker, or steal someone else’s crush for yourself. I certainly see myself doing that with Milton if that’s possible—so sorry, Rachel, but that man who is supposedly is the Devil is mine!
As of right now, Mask of the Rose is planned to release on Windows, Mac, Linux, Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X/S. So, if you’re looking for a romance that might end up with your character going mad, then I suggest backing Mask of the Rose on Kickstarter!
Heartbeats
Funding Goal: $6,000 USD
Ends on: March 13th
Heartbeats‘ story revolves around a young man who has fallen out of the music world due to a lack of motivation. Just as he’s about to be forgotten by the world, he meets a fiery woman named Sayaka. She helps motivate him to get back into music with the help of some other characters: Auri, the childhood friend and big-time music star; a reclusive graphic designer named Lee; and an editor named Grace.
The concept is pretty cute, in my opinion. There aren’t a lot of visual novels that have music as the story’s main focal point. The page mentions the hardships that come with establishing yourself in the music business.
Along the way the MC is faced with bad crowds, harsh decisions, painful memories from the past, and 4 unique character routes for each individual love interest. Where will your journey take you? Your decisions will help decide.
Heartbeats Kickstarter page
It’ll be interesting to see how the player’s decisions could impact those around him, especially since they’re his friends and potential romantic partners.
If fully funded, the game is expected to release in May 2022.
Very Scary Gays
Funding Goal: $2,700 USD
Ends on: March 28th
Not going to lie, I absolutely adored nearly everything about this from the trailer to the concept of all the characters.
Very Scary Gays is an LGBTQ visual novel where your romantic interests are monsters. From character design alone, it’s both cute and unique. A huge criticism of visual novels is that they lack diversity, from sexuality to body type. According to the developers, that’s what inspired this game in the first place.
Queer men are woefully hard to find; when they do make an appearance, they are almost always portrayed as generic high school anime twinks with the same body type as every other generic high school anime twink. As trans people who desperately crave big man muscles, this was a concerning drought to Q and me.
Very Scary Gays Kickstarter page
There’s a demo you can play if you want to see what the full game will have in store if the project is successfully funded!
Creature Consorts
Funding Goal: $78,900 USD
Ends on: March 15th
Creature Consorts focuses on Maggie Mayweather, a witch who has recently moved to the quiet town of Langsdon. Of course, whenever a town is described as quaint, it usually doesn’t stay that way for long.
While trying to maintain a healthy work/life balance, Maggie meets five cute ladies that she can get with. And I do mean cute, by the way! The art style is adorable!
There is a demo available for those who want to get a taste of what the full game will be like.
Wrap-Up
So, that’s it for this edition of our Kickstarter Round-Up! I plan on having this come out on a monthly or bi-monthly basis depending on the number of visual novel projects on Kickstarter at the moment. I hope that you found something on this list that tickled your fancy and you’ll end up backing it!
Until next time, I’ll see you guys at the next Kickstarter Round-Up.
Anna Mirabella
