When a withdrawn VR nerd tests a neural device that feels more “real” than reality itself, everything she assumed about the nature of existence is thrown into question. In this interactive novel, your choices will shape Lilya and Jacob’s beliefs about what is real, or if reality even exists.
＜/reality＞ will also be available on Itch.io and via Humble shortly - so look out for that announcement soon!
And if you haven’t yet, this is the perfect time to check out the updated free Demo, over on Itch.io.
Please help us spread the word about the launch! And if you already have the game in hand, please share your screenshots and reactions using the hashtag #RealityVN on social media! We’d love to hear what you think!
Hey everyone! We released the ＜/reality＞ beta of Book 3 - the final part of the story - via Steam last night, for beta-access backers. And, there are only 4 days left until the official full release! We hope you’re getting as excited as we are! Please check out our Coming-soon Steam page and add the game to your Wish list if you’d like a reminder upon release!
Book 3 - “Truth”
Book 3 is the final - and, as the name suggests - most revelatory part of the story. All of the story threads we’ve been weaving through books one and two come together here, and your choices begin having a larger impact than ever before. The heavy branching in Book 3 and the Epilogue was definitely an editing challenge - however, we think it adds a lot (especially to replay value)! It’ll be fun watching people compare their epilogues and the very different paths they can take!
Here are a few [mostly] spoiler-free screenshots from Book 3:
^ In more ways than one…? o.o
^ But is it good? That’s the question.
Over the last few weeks our composer, Chase, has produced a ton of new and wonderful music tracks! You can listen to one of the new tracks, “Remorse,” right here.
Stretch Goal Post-Launch Update
Unfortunately we haven’t had time to add in all the extra CGs and art for the stretch goal, and we didn’t want to postpone the launch date again. Instead, we are planning to release an update in mid-May with all of the extra art (along with some other non-essential updates and polish). The game that will be released on April 18th is a full and complete experience that we’re proud of, but if you want a little extra art and prettiness, you can wait for the May update - we’ll leave that up to you!
Backer Rewards
Because of the crunch to release on time, we will be sending out all the Kickstarter backer rewards (besides the game itself) post-launch. Digital copies of the game (DRM-Free + Steam) will be sent out via HumbleBundle on April 18th, and all other rewards will be sent out within the following month.
Spread the Word!
As ever, thank you for all your support, and for coming this far with us! This has been an amazing journey. All your help spreading the word has been greatly appreciated - please keep at it - on social media and beyond - as launch nears. Let’s build some hype! And once you have the game in hand, please share your screenshots and reactions using the hashtag #RealityVN! We can’t wait to hear what you think!
The </reality> Launch Trailer is live! Take a look and let us know what you think!
And, the </reality> Steam Store Page has been updated with the new trailer and fresh new screenshots! Launch is just under 3 weeks away now, folks! Woah! It’s getting real around here (pun intended).
Don’t forget to add the game to your Steam Wishlist if you’d like a reminder upon release!
Meanwhile, we are furiously working to complete the last of the story revisions and final touches needed before testing and release.
As always, we’re so grateful for all of your help spreading the word about the project! Here are some links to make your life easier:
Last week, we enjoyed the dramatic Falconers: Moonlight demo. Many thanks to everyone who participated in the Live Let’s Read and/or submitted feedback! The live reading was well attended, and together we learned some very important things. Now we know that going “into the bush” is most certainly a euphemism, Nai makes an excellent whisky-toting obaa-san, and things really should be measured relative to nipple height. This session was recorded, so if you want to hear our extremely professional™ voice acting skills, check out the youtube video linked at the end of this post.
This week, we will be reading the demo of ＜/reality＞, a near-future sci-fi about a withdrawn VR nerd who signs up to test a new neural device, but ends up getting into much more than she bargained for.
Live Let’s Read (on Discord): Sunday March 26th, 8PM GMT/4PM EST/1PM PST
Read by/feedback due by: Tuesday March 28th (send your feedback to: admin@fancyfishgames.com)
Check out the Schedule to see what we’ll be reading in the future, or the About page for more info.
The goal of this activity is to provide feedback to EVN developers on projects currently in development, and also have some fun as readers, by checking out things we may not have thought to try otherwise.
There’s only a month left until we release </reality>, and we are fixing up a lot of the loose ends and preparing for launch. For this week, we have a lot of updates to share!
Major UI Overhaul - the old UI was more a placeholder than a final asset, so we’ve finally updated the UI! It’s now smaller and takes up less screen space too - so you can see more of the pretty backgrounds!
Added Choice Indicator - there is now a cool effect (visible in the above video) for big choices, that will let you know that your choice had a major impact on the story.
Demo Update - We updated the Demo (chapter 1) with the new UI and choice indicator, along with some edits and improvements. The Steam version has also been updated for Beta backers.
New Music Tracks - Chase, our composer, has been hard at work creating the last few tracks of music for the game! You can hear one of the new tracks in the above video.
Chapter 7 Edits - Even with all this going on, we have been continuing to edit and work on the last book of the game, and have written nearly all of the missing scenes from Chapter 7 now.
We still have a lot to do between now and April 18th, but we’re moving as fast as we can to release on time. We plan to give more frequent updates as we move closer and closer to the finish line.
As always, thanks for all your support and help spreading the word!
We have released Book 2 of </reality> to Beta-access backers (chapters 4-6)! Book 2 is titled “Contact,” and it is where things start getting strange in </reality>, and the first major twist is revealed. In these chapters we also spend more time getting to know the three main characters pasts and quirks, and there are some interesting moments of “contact” between them - perhaps heart-warming, but possibly heart-breaking, depending upon your choices.
In other news, we launched a coming soon page on Steam for </reality>. Feel free to check it out and definitely share it with anyone you think would be interested in the game. As you can see on the Steam page, we have officially moved our release date to April 18th, 2017. This is mainly because of some major edits we decided to do the the ending. Book 3 will take more than a month to finish, and then we will inevitably have revisions based on beta feedback, as well as marketing work.
Chase (our composer) has continued to send us tracks and flesh out the soundscape of </reality>. We will probably post an update to the Demo (chapter 1) soon with all of the new tracks (so it is more varied and less repetitive), but for now you can listen to a preview of Ben’s Theme.
Our second artist has now completed over half of the ending panels. She is very fast and efficient, and we are quite pleased with how the illustrations are turning out. We would share some with you if they weren’t spoilers for the ending(s)!
March Plans
For the rest of this month, our plan is mainly to write the new sections for Book 3 - the final book - and finish editing it. We also have a number of CGs that need to be done, and two final characters + more expressions for all the characters. We should hopefully have the Beta of Book 3 released by April 10th, giving us a little over a week for revisions before the official release.
We’re looking forward to hearing beta-readers reactions to the new ending - we think it greatly increases the strength and conflict, plus it gives a little more screen time to some of our more minor characters.
As always, many thanks to all our awesome supporters for your help spreading the word, likes, reblogs, etc! Look forward to more dev updates as we enter this final stretch of development!
We’re a few days late, but Chapter 3 of </reality> is finally ready for beta-access backers to enjoy! Chapter 3 is the end of the first “book” of the game (the story is split into three distinct books).
^ Screenshots from chapter 3!
Looking back on our January Plans from a previous update, we’ve accomplished everything we set out to do, and we are still on track for a (late) March release! The script has been edited, we’ve on-boarded a new artist who is working on the ending panels, and Chapter 3 is now released!
We also opened a late-backing pre-order system on our website (which has a beta access option that will get you chapters 1-3 immediately): http://fancyfishgames.com/reality/. So, please check that out and share, if you missed the Kickstarter campaign, or want to help us spread the word!
Chase (our composer) has also completed a new track for InterMense, which you can listen to here:
The new music has been added to Chapter 1 (the demo), along with a few minor changes to that chapter and a revised sprite for Ben - if you haven’t played the demo yet, you can do so here: </reality> Beta Demo.
If you’ve played the demo and have feelings about it, please don’t hesitate to
use our handy feedback survey!
February Plans
For February, we want to keep up the momentum and and stay on target to release the full game by the end of March. We’ll mostly be focusing on editing, art and music updates now, and we should be able to increase our pace since the majority of the backgrounds and character sprites are done. Our goal is to release all of Book Two (chapters 4-6) by the end of the month.
It’s an exciting time for us, as the full story is finally coming together. Thank you for all your support, likes, reblogs, and encouragement, as we make this happen! We will continue to share development updates, so see you next time!
