Last week we established what a visual novel is, now it’s time to start thinking about what story to tell within it. After all, the most important aspect of a visual novel is that novel part of it, is it not?
In Secrets of Grindea one of the most important aspects is the sentient artifacts. Unfortunately, we never got to explore them a lot in the original game, and we didn’t really get to meet that many of them either. In this Visual Novel I’d like to give the player a better sense of their part in the world. They must have fascinating stories to tell – after all, some of them are ancient!
One idea I have is that, much like in many ‘dating sim’-style visual novels, the player gets to choose one of three artifacts and depending on which one they pick the story will take a completely different route, focusing on your artifact and getting to know it (except in this case without the romantic aspect).
Following this formula, each of the artifacts would have a different backstory:
- The Heirloom Artifact, passed down within the family since ancient times. This story would focus on family, honor and the pressure of following in the footsteps of those before you.
- The Lost Artifact, an amnesiac recently found in some forgotten temple. This story would focus on figuring out who it is and where it came from.
- The New Artifact. A freshly made artifact, recently sentient. In this story your choices would shape its personality – will it become a good or evil artifact in the end?
Once you finish these three stories, there might be the option to unlock a fourth artifact – one of Master Ivy’s own. But before making any such promises, I should get at least one of these stories put together first!
Personally in favor of the Heirloom Artifact because it’s more interesting to work with a more well-defined universe. Oftentimes the amnesia trope is used as a way to not flesh out the environment around the character. Either way, all three sound interesting.
-Hawke