Play as Amadeus, a young werewolf struggling to understand his condition, as he navigates a tale woven by Witches. In desperation, he sells his own memories for a notebook and a promise. A linear narrative Visual Novel + Adventure Game. Episode 1 of 5.
Development of Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee began when I (Leo) was studying technology & music composition for media at the graduate level. I took an elective course on Unity/C#, and the weekend after finishing the weekly homework assignment that introduced Unity buttons, I spent all of that Saturday building an extremely rough scene with placeholder art doodle assets that exclusively used "button click to turn GameObjects on and off" as functionality.
The very first asset created for the game was a title screen that is no longer in the game. But the process of drawing that title screen while thinking about the character Amadeus, who had existed for a while with no concrete plans for him, while listening to one of my school compositions that was inspired by Professor Layton music; just felt right. It was that combination of art and music that made me feel like I might genuinely have something to work with. That first experience is immortalized here:
The final project for this Unity course was to, effectively, build a 3-level and extremely simple game. I spoke with the professor and received permission to make something a bit beyond the scope of the assignment, and used it to build a playable version of a game starring Amadeus. This extremely janky "baby's first Unity course" version of the game could only handle WASD inputs for movement and screens with straight horizontal barriers to movement, and exclusively used clicking default Unity UI buttons to progress text and story.
However janky, building this was proof that something was here. And after finishing the course and then graduating from school, I finished a WebGL prototype and released it publicly on itch.io, and at this point, became committed to seeing this project through to its completely finished end.
It took about 6 months to develop that WebGL prototype into the first desktop demo, and another 8 months to release the current, feature-complete demo. In that time, many things about narrative, art direction, sound, and characterization have been tweaked and finalized. I am now fully prepared to develop and release this story, in 5 sequential episodes, using Higurashi When They Cry as a model.
I have a professional background in music and a lifelong interest in all of the arts. I hold a Master's degree in Technology & Applied Music Composition and am trained in both modern and baroque cello.
I also have a lifelong interest in mystery and detective fiction, particularly—but by no means exclusively—in the form of visual novels. Amadeus's hometown is named "Dartmaure"; no prizes for guessing where that came from.*
Before making Amadeus, I participated in the Global Game Jam almost annually from 2016 until 2021, generally acting as just a composer/sound designer/occasional artist, with minimal implementation. After studying implementation in graduate school and taking an elective course on C# I realized that I find the entire process of game development incredibly fun, not just the audio side! It seemed like the ideal medium to combine my various artistic interests in one work.
My website, arcanaxix.com, is self-coded, including some very janky JavaScript to randomize sound effects as you hover and click on objects. Virtually everything you need to know about my artistic sensibilities and creative priorities can be gleaned from this project.
*(Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles is set in Dartmoor.)
