Amnion River (DEMO OUT NOW!)

"Whenever the heavens are crying, I can't help but feel like something terrible is about to happen."

Amnion River is a visual novel following Lis, a young thief from Whitecalder trying to rekindle her long-lost passion for painting, as she deals with her declining health and recurring nightmares. One day, a nameless young girl with unusual, reddish skin, snow-white hair and no clear memory of her past enters her life seemingly out of nowhere. Lis decides to take her in and names her Clair, a name she vaguely feels befits her perfectly. 

As the struggling Lis takes care of her three-legged dog, Toni, and the mysterious Clair, her condition worsens, and she slowly begins to lose touch with reality. Knowing she doesn’t have much time left, she decides to return to her horrid past to find answers about the mysterious death of her dear older sister, Leonore, fourteen years ago.

Content warnings: This Visual Novel contains heavy topics including blood and death, suicide, vomiting, drug abuse, and mental health decline. While partially inspired by real life events, the characters and story in this Visual Novel are entirely fictional and may have abilities and health conditions that are imaginative elements of the story. Please be advised that any attempts to replicate or imitate the actions depicted in this Visual Novel can have severe consequences for your health or could even be fatal. Those suffering from anxiety or depression may not feel comfortable playing this game.

Gameplay

As with any visual novel, the game is heavily story-based. It's like reading a digital book, accompanied with music, sound effects and artworks. The choices the player makes throughout the game will impact various areas, such as relationships between the characters and the course of the story, which features multiple different endings.

Development Status and plans

Development for Amnion River officially began in early 2022, with most of the CG artwork having been finished. As of now, the project's script contains 127K words! Due to several real life events and situations, development has slowed down, but is still ongoing until the project is finished.

The first demo, available for download on May 19th, 2024, contains the first few chapters of the story. These first chapters do not contain any choice menus yet. Two more demos are planned to be released: an extended demo with Juniper's route, and another demo containing both Juniper's and Jeremie's routes. The demos will be free to play, with an option to donate if you want to support the project and help fund additional artwork! The final version will be released sometime after the third demo, and will contain the last routes and true ending.

Credits

Sylvester//Sylzebub: Writer, Programmer & Concept Design

Ignacio  "Nacho" Garcia: Quality Assurance

Orion: Character Concept Design

Anna Yolk: Sprite Artist (humans) https://www.fiverr.com/anna_yolk

yokonaqq: Sprite Artist (Toni) https://www.fiverr.com/yokonaqq

mevadaa: CG Artist https://www.fiverr.com/mevadaa

Aleksandra Jovancic: CG Artist https://www.fiverr.com/alexvintagee

Widya Design: Logo Design https://www.fiverr.com/widya_gfx

Unsplash: Backgrounds https://unsplash.com/

Pixabay: Backgrounds, Music & Sound Effects https://pixabay.com/

ZapSplat: Sound Effects https://www.zapsplat.com/

Myuu: Music https://www.youtube.com/@Myuu  https://www.patreon.com/myuuji

TeknoAXE: Music http://www.youtube.com/@teknoaxe   https://teknoaxe.com/Home.php    

Ren'Py: Visual Novel Engine https://www.renpy.org/

Special thanks to:

Dani dos Santos, Dancing Hare, Courtney R., IronRequiem, Cedar Kilcrease, Christopher Jean, Old Eagle, John Kes, DarkEmber, ArchThrene, A. C., Panda, TheStranger117, Sindals, Skandranna, Mnemosyne Iah Delaney, Zoey__Ada, Aaron McNamara, Kai Alexei "Gabby" M., Niklas Händel, Bradsp3, Kim C. J., Kait Mae, Fred Horvat, StrikeFighter, Dave T., Jason Crase, SplinterWolf, Rachel Shear, James "JR" Dabinett, gerbil, A David Anweiler, Will It Work, Hethukawa, Marie Schullström, Nicholas Stephenson, Auranel, Gianna Figueroa, Alan McAnelly, Nicholas HB, Ashleigh H., Anthony Haevermaet