Stars Arisen Developer Diary

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For four hundred years, the immortal Sorceress of the Skies ruled over Kelestri, her boundless magical powers granted to her by the Remnant Stars, fallen crystals bearing the might of the heavens. Then, twenty years ago, the Sorceress was deposed by a rising rebellion: cast into exile, believed dead by all – except for you, her hidden child. Now, as you grow to adulthood and the Sorceress’s life bleeds away, she has given you a task: steal back the Stars and regain her power and her crown. You’ll call the ghosts of old foes to your aid and bring the wrath of the skies down upon your new opponents, assuming you can reclaim the Stars – or that, seeing the new world that’s rising in the Sorceress’s absence, you still mean to fulfill her ancient vision. How will you shape Kelestri as it accustoms itself to mortal rule? Will you restore the Sorceress’s might, shatter it for good, or claim it for yourself?

Hi! I’m Abby, one of CoG’s editors and the author of Heroes of Myth. Stars Arisen (working title) is my next upcoming game, currently in-progress. The demo is no longer available, because it’s now in beta!

EDIT 3/18/2020: Chapter 4 is now available!

EDIT 7/26/2020: Chapter 5 is now available!

EDIT 1/28/2021: Chapter 6 is now available!

EDIT 6/15/2021: Chapter 7 is now available!

EDIT 11/1/2021: Chapters 8 and 9 are now available!

EDIT 11/21/2022: The beta is now available for applications!

EDIT 3/16/2023: The game is out now!

Taking a page out of @HarrisPS’s book, this is a developer diary thread where I’ll take feedback, answer questions, discuss the game and the writing process, and possibly post short previews of future chapters. I may or may not extend the demo with future chapters, but this game has enough moving parts that I’d rather not post more chapters unless I’m fairly sure I won’t be shifting things around.

Let me know what you think! I’m excited to hear it. And to preemptively answer a few questions:

Is Stars Arisen related to Heroes of Myth?

Nope. Different world, totally unconnected.

How long is Stars Arisen?

The demo, which is the first three chapters of the game, is just over 100k words. I’ve already finished Chapter 4 and am in the middle of writing Chapter 5, and the current total word count for the game is around 210k. It’ll be ten chapters long plus an epilogue, and I have no idea what the final word count for the game will be right now, but my guess is…long.

EDIT 11/21/2022: The total word count pre-beta is around 1.1 million. My initial guess of “long” was correct.

When will the game be finished and/or released?

No idea, too early to tell. I run the customer support email for COG, so I’m far too familiar with what happens with a missed release date to be comfortable giving an estimate :sweat_smile:

EDIT 11/21/2022: It’s now in beta! We’re getting there!

EDIT 3/16/2023: It’s out!

Who are the romance options?

Spoilered just in case: Vivian, Em, Natalia, Harper, and Ravenna. Slightly bigger spoiler, particularly if you haven’t reached the end of the demo: there’s also a polyamorous option with Em and Natalia, or you can try to get them together without your involvement.

To be updated with other FAQs, if there are any!

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They’re not, I think I just have a slight fondness for androgynous names. Natalia and Ravenna are female, Vivian and Harper are male, Em’s agender and uses they/them.

EDIT: oh right, I was spoiling the ROs’ names. Genders listed above: two are female, two are male, one is nonbinary.

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When Em and Natalia are flirting couldn’t there be an “Not my problem/I couldn’t care less” option instead of only helping or interfering?

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Yass. I was literally playing heros of myth last night. So glad you are coming out with another game!:grin: I will definitely give this a try when i have some free time.

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I’ve just played the demo, I liked, a lot. The story is well written and immersive. The characters with whom the MC has been able to interact in the demo, are well defined, although it is true, some more than another but none comes to falter. It has taken me a bit to get with all the terminology used, but it may be due to lack of rest.
I hope to see this game finished because at the moment it looks great. :smile:

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Oh wow, I loved Heroes of Myth and I love the demo for this, too! I can already anticipate doing several playthroughs to pick different factions and romances, everything’s so interesting and well put together.

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Oh

Oh

Oh

OHOHOHO

HELLO? YES, I AM HERE FOR THIS!

Really though, this is hitting every one of my interests and I am soooo excited to watch this develop!! I’ve yet to try the demo but rest assured I’m going to jump on it as soon as I get home!

Be back in a few hours y’all! :v:

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@No_This_Is_Patrick - Possibly! I’ll give that some thought. For COG games, we generally try to avoid options that don’t amount to the PC doing anything, but if I can figure out a way the PC could accomplish something else there instead of engaging with Em and Natalia, that could be a good option to add.

Thanks to everyone who’s played so far, glad people are interested!

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Ahhh I’m so excited! Congratulations on the new project @abbytrevor, I’m so looking forward to seeing where it goes!

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By the stars you got. Im hooked played as a mc who love’s their mom but is starting to get a little suspicious at all the thing she has hidden from them so far. All the characters are very intriguing i cant wait to find out more about the remainders and if they really are related to Vi. Honestly cant wait to get my hand in a biger piece of a star and start my own bid to power​:grin::joy:.

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Very interesting description so far! I’m about to take my first dip into the demo now, and I might take a bit to write my thoughts, but I’ll have them eventually.

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I like it hate peolle have the magic stuff through

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Thank you for making the effort here @abbytrevor – I am as hooked as @rose-court, so I’ll let her fangirl for the both of us :wink:

The only suggestion I would have is this:

In the stats section, I’d have an entry called: Mom’s primer of the World … in this section I would have all the tid-bits of info that we were taught growing up about the world and mom’s history that she shared with us… things such as: magic’s ground rules, our knowledge of the world outside of the cave and perhaps her teachings on manners and etiquette on how a sorceress-queen should act in different situations.

The addition of this type of information would help those that wish to roleplay their MC certain ways – eg. the rebellious daughter taking different cues from the primer than the loyalist daughter.

Consistency in roleplay of the MC is the goal with such world-building info.

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There will almost certainly be some kind of glossary at some point, just depends on when I get around to writing it. Thanks for the suggestion!

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As thanks to everyone who’s tried out the demo so far, here are the first few excerpts from Chapter 4! Ravenna’s the romance option with the least to do in the current demo, so here are some moments featuring her.

Conflicted daughter!

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Entirely upstanding politician, and who could suggest otherwise!

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What’s she up to here?

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So… Any chance in changing the beliefs of the love interests? Like through charisma, manipulation, or possibly via a dubiously-ethical use of the Stars? All of them uniformally seem anti-Sorceress, and I don’t want my angry-sad MC to be alone :c

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To varying degrees, but yes! Changing people’s beliefs about the Sorceress in general is one of the big possible goals for the game. The Triumphant Return stat is essentially about making it easier for the Sorceress to return to power (adding stat explanations is also on my to-do list), and changing people’s feelings about her is one of the big ways to do that.

EDIT: To elaborate on this a little, there are a few conditions I have in mind that will definitively prevent a relationship with the love interests. (Basically all of them are spoilers at this point.) Being pro-Sorceress by itself is not currently one of those conditions for any character. Being pro-Sorceress in conjunction with certain other actions might be. There are things all of the characters care about more than they dislike the Sorceress (and some of them might not even dislike the Sorceress as much as you’d initially guess), and if you can support the Sorceress while not endangering those things, you can still be in a romance with them.

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That alleviates part of my worries, but if one of those more solid beliefs has anything to do with what to do with the Stars I think she’s still fucked :I

Inevitable loneliness aside, this is (with one exception) the first official story I’ve been interested in in a long time. It’s so interesting with such a unique world. Really looking forward to it.

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There are things that will prompt a conversation/test to continue a romance, and things that actively prevent a romance. The exact details of all of this are still to be determined, but the things that actively prevent a romance are generally on the level of “killed their friends or family” or “obliterated their entire way of life.” What happens with the Stars is a bit riskier in terms of romance than your views on the Sorceress, but it depends on which character and what specifically you’re doing. I’m not going to get too much more specific about later plot stuff than that right now, but I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. I’m glad you’re enjoying the story so far!

(Anything that ends a romance will have an in-game warning along the lines of “You’re sure that doing this murder will absolutely definitely make your partner break up with you. Do you still want to do this murder?” But probably not with that exact phrasing. It won’t be something you can stumble into by accident.)

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Hey. I’m not really (currently) in the position I can write a long post on the WIP’s strengths and flaws, but I think I’ll come back later and do so. For now, I’ll just say I’m a fan and I’ll be watching the development of this closely.

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