Morningstar: Book of the Fallen
Morningstar: Book of the Fallen Act I
With Love of Magic nearly done, I thought I'd share the next game I'm working on. Morningstar's an Urban Fantasy AVN, combining Visual Novel, an open world to explore, and a complex combat system to engage in.
Where Love of Magic was inspired by Arthurian romance and Celtic/Norse mythology, Morningstar takes a lot of inspiration from 80s and 90s action movies. Highlander, The Crow, Rocky and a ton of other references mix with my love for Urban Fantasy; a magical world sitting next to ours, glimpsed through the corner of the eye. You're a young MMA fighter, getting ready for the fight of your life; life, or destiny, has its own ideas.
The core of the game is the Visual Novel story, a tale of love, lust and destiny.
In addition to that, there's a full Match3/RPG combat system, inspired by games like Gems of War and Puzzle Quest. Discover teachers, learn new skills and get ready to fight. This part's optional (a lesson learned from Love of Magic, where some people are just into the story), but it adds a big layer for those that want gameplay to go with their adult content. 
A central motif of both Morningstar and Love of Magic is the concept of the eternal hero; a soul (or souls) reincarnated across universes. I take it a little further in Morningstar, with a number of old 'souls' joining from Love of Magic. Emily, Katie, Bella, Molly, Chloe and of course Snowdrop, joins a big cast of new faces.
So the future is yours. Do you want to spend your days training with Katie, or chilling with Snowdrop? Training with Lin, or exploring the forgotten paths below New York?
Gather your friends, forge bonds of love, and friendship, and prepare for the fight of your life.
Morningstar Act I is now complete, and on launch discount of 30%. This contains ~2 hrs of main-line content, and another hour or two worth of side-content. Like with Love of Magic, I'll be continuing to expand the world, add additional characters and progress the main story with each new act.
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Bought Love of Magic books, thinking of getting this, but not sure about that "bejewelled" screenshot. What is that for? As I can see it's not for battles.
Is this a sequel? You're using same characters, that's why I'm asking.
I view it as an aspect of the "Eternal Hero" theme. A set of souls destined to stand against the darkness in multiple universes. Story wise, it's a new world, a new magic system, new themes and a different combat system.
Will it be on Steam?
Yes. The plan is Early Access on Steam once I'm done with Love of Magic. I'm writing the final act now, hoping to be complete in September.
You can give it a wishlist here, if you want:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396740/Morningstar_Book_of_the_Fallen/
Already wishlisted it on Steam. But why on Itch now, yet on Steam in September? The logic escapes me. If you want to finish LoM first, wouldn't the Itch version had waited too?!
Perhaps this is a way to get feedback from players without having to worry about a ton of negative reviews to have to overcome should the game not be initially well received. Undergrad Steve had that problem on his new game, though I feel like that game deserved them.
Wouldn't he get them here too? Or does he think a small number of complainers on Itch don't matter?!
I can't speak for him, but I'd rather get a little negative feedback on Itch which gives me some time to work out bugs and such than get a ton of negative reviews on a much larger platform. Problems here give him a chance to release patches so the wider release is a more polished product.
Itch.io is about 5% of the size of Steam, so obviously getting tons of negative reviews there hurt more.
One aspect of this is that itch.io has good Patreon integration; I offer Steam keys to Patreons for testing, but a lot of people don't want adult games in their steam library (in case friends or family can spot them being a perv). They usually don't have the same issues with itch.io, so giving them an itch.io key is an option.
Another aspect is that Steam treasures wishlists a lot; it uses them to determine if you're a "real game" at launch, and if you have sufficient (~5-10K) at launch, they give you a ton of visibility. Love of Magic Book 1 had 6K wishlists at launch, which translated into 2 million 'views' (times Steam showed the game to players that might be interested). As such, waiting until you're ready on Steam makes a lot of sense.
The last aspect is... I always do itch.io releases first :) I started doing adult games as a hobby, and putting up an itch.io page was how I shared my game with the first players. That worked well, and I like to repeat things that work well :)