Nova City is a sample visual novel. I wrote the script and built the game within Unreal Engine 5 using Blueprints. Below, you can watch a demo of the game as well as read the synopsis and read about what development work went into building this.
Note: All artwork was done by Shannon Manor.
Synopsis
Welcome to Nova City, the first conglomerate city of the new world and the template for all the cities to come. The year is 2502 and over 400 years ago for a reason unknown to all, the population's average lifespan fell to record lows. Living to your thirties was cause for celebration as the population plummeted rapidly going from a global population of 10.8 billion to 1.6 billion in the span of just 20 years.
Now, cities are very few and far between. Work is just as scarce as food and other supplies--except in conglomerate cities. These cites provide jobs, food, and education but are all run and owned by only a few companies. In the case of Nova City, it is run by just one company: Rapaport Financial Group, the cities so-called anchor company run by the Rapaport family. Beyond the what are now known as luxuries such as food and shelter, Conglomerate Cities provide one other benefit: a chance at a longer life.
The wealthy and those who work for anchor companies can get operations done to extend their lives. For the last 400 years, the population has had their bodies rapidly deteriorate causing shortened lifespans. In a Conglomerate City, though, access to new technological advances to replace failing parts of the body with cybernetic ones allows for a longer life. But are you living if you are under the thumb of a single company that in no uncertain terms owns the very life you have?
The world has changed and so has its people. Our story follows Aiden and his friends as they embark on a journey to uncover the secrets of Rapaport Financial Group that they have uncovered by unconventional means. In this changing world, Aiden finds he is able to fall into the dreams of those around him and, in extreme circumstances, see memories of the life the dreamer has lived. Aiden finds the he isn't the only one who can do this-- the Rappaports also harbor this ability. Aiden will try to learn about the Rapaports, their connection to this new found ability, and what they do with their overwhelming wealth. What they uncover will change the world, but if that change is for the better is anyone's guess.
Development Report
This demo was made using Unreal Engine 5 with Blueprints. All components of the game was developed by myself. Below I'll highlight each component and the features the have. In addition, you can look at the screenshots below to see snippets of some of my Blueprints.
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Dialogue Box
The Dialogue Box is where most of the game text takes place. It has a host of features common to the Visual Novel genre:
1) Displays text with the "typewriter" effect.
2) Can style text to have different fonts, colors, etc.
3) Pressing "spacebar" a second time before the text is complete will autocomplete the text
These features are all extendable meaning, they are built in a way that allows adding in new features and effects with ease.
Branched Dialogue
This demo supports branching dialogue, allowing the player to choose their response and make the story they receive unique to their experience. This is supported by using formatting defined by myself to allow me to write the branching dialogue within a spreadsheet and then import it into a data table within Unreal Engine 5. From there, the widget handles the UI for the branched dialogue and knows what line to move the user to next when they advance the text.
Text Log
To help players remember what has been previously said, a text log is available by pressing the tab button. All text that has been spoken as well as options the player has choosen all show up within the text log. This done primarily leveraging a widget and events through Blueprints.
Characters On Stage
The stage is what I call the space where the characters are shown. The stage is a widget that is intelligent enough to know what side of the stage a character should be on as well as what character should be there based on the script. This means that, through the use a data tables, it can read the line that is being presented and choose the correct image to show in the correct position. This makes it easy to add new characters simply by telling the data table what images go with what character names. In addition, this supports multiple expressions per character. You can notice this with Delilah having 4 separate expressions.
The stage also supports sliding characters in and out of frame when needed as well as dimming characters that are not speaking and highlighting those that are. Again, this all is automatically handled by the system built in Blueprints and easily extendable.
Cutscenes
This demo also shows off a quick "cutscene". This scene was created using the Sequencer in Unreal Engine 5. The static effect at the end of the demo video above was also done using the Sequencer and used a static video effect I created within Adobe After Effects.