Amnion River (DEMO 2 / JUNIPER'S ROUTE 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 150K words! Due to several real life events and situations, development has slowed down, but is still ongoing until the project is finished. The visual novel will be released in multiple parts. The first demo was available for download on May 19th, 2024 until December 29th 2024. On December 29th 2024, the second demo has been released containing Juniper's route and a total of two endings. Due to recent changes, I've temporarily disabled downloads for the second demo as of June 30th 2025. As of 2025, the current plan is to publish a new release for each new ending due to the size of Jeremie's Route and the True Route, making development a bit more manageable and also making it possible for players to read new parts of the story quicker. The next release is planned to be published before the end of summer 2025, containing more story parts, adjustments of existing routes and a part of Jeremie's route, including a new ending. Plans for the release after that will follow soon after this release.

Credits

Sylvester//Sylzebub: Writer, Programmer & Concept Design

Ignacio  "devinacho" 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/

Nicolas Gasparini (Myuu): Music https://www.youtube.com/@Myuu  https://www.patreon.com/myuuji

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

Gregor Quendel: Music  https://www.classicals.de/debussy-clair-de-lune

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

See the Credits.txt file within the game files for license details.

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, A.K. Conte, Teharra Rose