Stars Arisen Developer Diary

Choice of Games games
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Hi,

Heroes of Myth was one of my favorite games to have ever been released, so when I saw another game from the same developer, I was just overjoyed. I’m so happy to say that this game is as good if not better so far.

I love all the different ways to play the mc-- I went with a blunt, naive, almost Disney princess type character. The character interactions were full of heart and charm.

I can’t wait to play more of this, and buy it when its available.

Thanks for writing so many great stories.

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Can’t wait to see what I’ve missed been gona awhile. Ready to see what mother had to say about keeping me so ignorant of the outside world.

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Hello all! Progress continues to be slow for, uhhhhh, broad societal reasons, but progress is assuredly still happening. How about another character trivia post?

Next in the poll are Em and Natalia, who are actually tied, and I’ve arbitrarily decided to go with Nat first. Em and Nat are actually interesting cases when it comes to a post like this, because there’s a fair amount you’ll be able to learn about their families and background in game that, if not exactly “spoilers” in a major plot sense, I’d still prefer to reveal gradually as you interact with them rather than listing it out here. So there are going to be some things left out of these ones, but let’s see what I can come up with!

  • At 22, Natalia is both the youngest of the ROs and the only one to be born after the rebellion ended. (Em is 23, way too young to remember the rebellion but technically alive during it.)
  • You can (but will not necessarily) meet both of Natalia’s parents in the current demo: her parent Ariel Grimaldi, who’s 51 and the leader of the Grim Reminders, and her mother Lorena Serafin, who’s 47 and an essayist and philanthropist. They’ve been divorced since Natalia was 11, primarily because Lorena wanted to advocate for legislative action on the Remnant Stars and Ariel was becoming convinced that they’d have to act outside the law to ever get the people access to them. (As I think I’ve mentioned somewhere earlier, divorce is no legal issue in Kelestri, you can get one if you want one.) Neither of them especially likes being associated with the other these days.
  • Lorena remarried a little over a year after the divorce, to a man named Martin Verona (45). They have three children: Joel (9), Adele (7), and Julianne (3). Natalia sees her mother occasionally (she’s lived exclusively with Ariel since the divorce), but her mother doesn’t let her spend a lot of time with her half-siblings, as she’s concerned Natalia will try to convert them to the Reminders’ way of thinking. (This also means it’s extremely unlikely they’ll appear in-game, though you never know.) Ariel has never remarried.
  • Natalia is adopted. She didn’t spend enough time with her birth parents to remember them, and they’ve never been in the picture since. (Yes, this is an area where I’m deliberately omitting information.) This does mean she’s not technically a biological descendant of Vivian’s brother Oberon, but that’s not really something people would think to bring up in universe - adoption is common in Kelestri, and the biological line of descent isn’t really culturally emphasized. I’m not even sure if Ariel is biologically descended from Oberon - I haven’t worked out the details of family tree to that extent. Though I can tell you that Oberon is Ariel’s great-grandfather, and Natalia’s great-great-grandfather. Which I think makes Vivian their great-great-uncle and great-great-great-uncle?
  • The Grim Reminders originally formed to protest the Sorceress shortly after Vivian’s death, but they lost prominence over the next few decades, though they never entirely faded away. Ariel, captivated by their family’s stories, became determined to revitalize them and work to grant the people of Kelestri access to the Stars. They organized originally among their fellow soldiers in the rebellion (which they joined at a fairly young age), then continued that work after the war, trying to persuade the Assembly to change how they treated the Stars. Ariel also met Lorena during the rebellion - she wasn’t a soldier herself, but she came from a wealthy family and was using her money to organize hospitals for soldiers and civilians injured in the Sorceress’s attacks. Though they originally agreed that the Stars had to be brought down to the people, they grew apart when it became clear that Lorena preferred to do this by writing treatises and donating money to the Harnessers, and Ariel was increasingly convinced that only underground and extralegal methods would work. As is probably apparent, Natalia has basically always agreed with Ariel, which is the main reason why she ended up living with them.
  • To reference earlier discussions about surnames again, the Grimaldis have been deliberately passing down their name to keep Vivian’s memory alive, so Ariel and Nat have it. I don’t think Lorena ever took it for herself, even when she and Ariel were married.
  • To go along with this, there are various other members of the Grimaldi family around. Some of them have distanced themselves from the family’s reputation (and likely don’t use the surname anymore), but some of them are still involved with the Reminders. I haven’t had occasion to make a lot of references to them in-game, but they could come up.
  • Ariel used to go to the Tower and argue with members of the Assembly (sometimes Renard and Nobu, but not exclusively them) about the Stars. (As the years went by, they were also increasingly working on ways to infiltrate the upper levels of the Tower on the side.) Lorena was probably with them on some of the earlier occasions, and Nat was too, which is how she met Em, as they discuss in-game. I don’t have an exact timeline for when this was happening - it stopped when Nat was 13, and she talks about being there with Em when she was around 7, but it could have officially started really any time before then.
  • Baz first started giving Remnant Star slivers to the Reminders around 5 years ago. They didn’t have any before then, and that’s also when they started getting a lot more prominent, as Ariel and Natalia would appear in public wielding magic and trying to gain access to the Tower. So Nat’s been using magic since she was about 17.
  • Ariel and Nat are the only Reminders who currently actually use the Remnant Stars. Baz hasn’t given them a huge amount, and Ariel’s still very careful with them, more than Nat is inclined to be. There are also enough rumors of the dangers of the Stars (particularly of touching them) that even a lot of the Reminders are wary of getting near them, even though they support the idea of people using them overall.
  • Ariel and Natalia used to live in an ordinary house in town. I’m not sure if I’ve said in-game how long they’ve been staying beneath the Brighter Star instead, but it’s likely only been a year, maybe two. They were starting to get a lot of attention around their old house, from the Guard and the Comet and just ordinary people, and Ariel decided going underground was safer. (There’s a reference in-game to Harper’s younger sibling Prudence trying to break into the Grimaldis’ house, presumably for information-gathering reasons. They’d have probably only been about 17 at the time, but Prudence is…driven.) The Kirks, who own the Brighter Star, are old associates of the Grim Reminders - Mona, who shows up in the game, is one of Nat’s childhood friends - and they had a cellar that they’d originally expanded as a hiding place during the rebellion, so they were willing to let the Grimaldis move in. Their names also haven’t been linked to the Reminders much in public - unlike, say, the various other Grimaldis - so that worked in their favor too.

Not sure when I’ll next have an update to the demo, but I’m hoping it won’t be too long! In the meantime, always happy to answer questions and generally discuss. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I can see where Nat is coming from… I look forward to introducing Vivian to her - and telling her that he works for the Sorceress now…

By now I’ve played the demo to death, and I have been wondering: How exactly did the rebels manage to defeat the Sorceress? I can’t believe they overwhelmed her with sheer numbers… Was faking her death also part of her and Baz’s plan, or am I giving them too much credit here?

And I guess you won’t answer this one because spoilers, but how evil is the Sorceress really? I assume that both her and the rebels are pretty biased when they talk about the rebellion and the truth is somewhere in the middle, but when I try playing a MC who just wants to do right by everyone it’s really difficult to decide who should rule Kelestri…

… Also, who would be more scandalized if Natalia and Em ended up together, Ariel or Renard? :wink: I’m asking because this is definitely part of my evil plot to destabilize the city. Have to make Baz proud.

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It’s mostly that the war had been going on for a while, at the end of a century of off-and-on resistance, and the Sorceress was getting pretty panicked and generally less effective, so when the rebels just didn’t give up, they were eventually able to overwhelm her. As for faking her death, not major spoilers but a little more on backstory details and magical mechanics than has really been in-game so far: the specific events on the night of the Sorceress’s Fall were not exactly something that Baz and the Sorceress planned, but the Sorceress did know that if the rebels ever managed to kill her, it almost certainly wouldn’t stick, and she knew that they were gaining in power and popularity and might indeed be in a position to kill her soon. So she and Baz had planned out what they’d do if the rebels killed her, but didn’t know when or how it would happen.

Less “spoilers” and more “one of the central questions of the game and something you are encouraged to come to your own conclusions about.” :wink:

I love everything about this. I’m going to say Renard, because while I think they’d both be rather upset about it, he’d be significantly more surprised. (Not that Ariel would be expecting it, but “Nat doing something I absolutely never expected” is much more on Ariel’s radar than “Em doing something I absolutely never expected” is on Renard’s.)

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Next up for trivia is Em! It’s actually a little tough to figure out what to put for this one, because Chapter 5 has a lot of Em lore, and I don’t want to just list things you’re about to find out next chapter anyway. But let’s see what I can come up with:

  • As has been noted above, Em is 23. They were born about a year before the rebellion ended, and naturally have no memory of it.
  • The exact circumstances of Em’s birth are something else I want to be deliberately vague about for now, but they’re also adopted. (It’s noted in-game that Em has a strong physical resemblance to one of their fathers. Don’t worry, this is not a contradiction.) As established in-game, their fathers are Renard Ghislain (age 49) and Nobu Marden (age 48). They’re an only child.
  • Renard and Nobu are both from prominent wealthy families who’ve been well-known in Kelestri since before the revolution. Said families weren’t especially friendly, though: Renard’s family were famous loyalists serving the Sorceress (starting with his grandmother, a general from a war that took place about 80 years before the time of the game), while Nobu’s mother was a playwright famous for including covert anti-Sorceress messages in her plays. Though their families weren’t close, Rey and Nobu did know of each other in a general sense from young ages due to the overlapping social circles of Kelestri’s elite. They didn’t become friends until their early teens, when Renard and his twin sister Renata (mentioned in-game) started speaking out against the Sorceress. Really, it was their older sister Lunette (an actress who’d been in several of Nobu’s mother’s plays) who did most of the actual speaking out, but Renard and Renata were eager to follow in her footsteps and distance themselves from their parents. The younger Ghislain generation actually lived with Nobu’s family for a few years in their teens (well, the twins’ teens, Lunette’s early twenties) when Lunette decided to break from her parents completely, the twins went with her, and Nobu’s mother agreed to take them in.
  • Renard and Nobu weren’t leading the rebellion right from the beginning - they were only 18/19 when it started. But they did join up at the beginning, and rose in prominence throughout the war - particularly Renard, whose charisma and magnetism essentially made him the face of the revolution. They were only really military leaders for the last couple years of the war, when various older and more experienced leaders had stepped down or died. Other people were also in leadership positions among the rebels (some of whom you can, in fact, meet in Chapter 5), but Rey and Nobu’s involvement with the Assembly in particular has made them the best-remembered.
  • Rey and Nobu also got together romantically around the middle of the war, after years of friendship. They were engaged when Em was born, and married a couple of months afterward.
  • Em has lived almost all of their life in the Sublime Tower. Their family wouldn’t have moved in immediately after the war because the Tower was significantly remodeled from how the Sorceress kept it to the current setup, but they were living there within a few years. There are various residential apartments in the Tower reserved for people who work there, like the Assembly and the Sublime Guard. Not everyone who works there lives in them, but Rey and Nobu do. Em lived there with them until a year-ish before the game, when they moved into town to try living on their own for the first time.
  • Around a year ago was also when Em became captain of the Sublime Guard. There’s quite a lot of discussion in the game about how legitimate that appointment was, and you can actually hear more details (from a somewhat biased source) about how it happened in Chapter 5. Em had been a member of the Guard since around the age of 17 or 18 (whenever they were first permitted to join, I admit I haven’t decided exactly what their age requirement is), and had spent quite a lot of their time observing the Guard before then, but they’re certainly much younger and less experienced than any previous captain.
  • The Guard has probably only actually had two or maybe three previous captains - they’ve only existed since the end of the rebellion. (The Sorceress certainly had guards before then, but that would have been a different organization with a different name.) Still, Em is a lot younger than those people, and younger than people would expect for someone holding a leadership position in general.
  • Em’s second-in-command is a woman named Astrid Tessaro - while not named at the time, she’s actually the one who questions you in the library at the end of Chapter 4 if you’ve aroused a certain amount of suspicion while climbing the Tower. If you didn’t meet her then, you’ll meet her in Chapter 5. (Fun fact: it’s again not referenced at the time, but she’s also the “tall, dour-looking woman” you might see Em talking to after the confrontation with the Reminders at the Tower in Chapter 2.) She’s a fair amount older than Em, closer to the age that might have been more expected for a captain at the beginning of their tenure. Which may or may not be of interest to various people.
  • To touch again on surnames, the origin of Em’s is probably obvious, as is the fact that both their fathers kept their original family names. Due to his general dislike for his family, Renard might have been willing to take Nobu’s name and pass just that one on to Em as well, but by the time Em was born and they were married, he was already very well-known in his own right with his original name and didn’t really want to change it.
  • Though Em is an only child, they do have cousins - both Rey and Nobu have several sisters. Their cousins are all younger than them, because the rest of the family generally decided not to have children during the war, as did many of Rey and Nobu’s other friends. As above, Em also spent their childhood in the Tower, where there weren’t a ton of other children and most of the people around were their fathers’ colleagues. So they’ve never really spent a lot of time around people their own age.
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Love your depth of character development.

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Oh, I didn’t think Em would be up this soon! Thank you!

I love how all main characters have to decide whether to support their family no matter what or choose their own path.

But wait, Em actually moved out of the tower when they became captain? That sounds - well, that actually sounds pretty convenient for my MC, so I’m not going to complain.

Also, damn you for all those teeny chapter 5 teasers. Now my brain wants to come up with theories.

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Now that you mention it, while I know they happened in a similar time period, I haven’t actually decided whether Em moved out of the Tower first, or was appointed captain first. Either order has some interesting behind-the-scenes implications, which I’m going to decline to discuss for a few chapters yet. :smile:

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Oh no. there’s already an Astrid in-game. Will I need to change my character’s name, or are you going to put code in that prevents us to share name with game characters?

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So, that’s an interesting question. In theory, I could keep you from sharing a name with the major characters (there’s actually already code preventing you from using any of their surnames, but not first names yet), but doing it for every named minor character in a game of this size would get…really out of hand. Astrid Tessaro is definitely a minor character, and she’s also almost always referred to as “Tessaro,” so you’re not actually likely to see the name “Astrid” appear in-game in reference to someone else that many times. (Like, based on how it’s going so far, a can-count-on-one-hand number of times.) That said, Astrid does sound like a lot of star-related words (though that’s not actually what the name derives from, as I understand it), which makes it thematically relevant enough that there’s a decent chance a fair amount of people might select it for their PC, and it might be worth not giving it to NPCs for that reason?

So, I’ll think about what to do about that. But I can already tell you that I won’t be able to exclude every NPC name as a name for the PC, because that’s dozens and dozens of names and it’s just not practical to code. Sorry if that leads to any confusion!

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Thanks for such a thorough reply. I’m so glad I’ll get to keep my name! haha I’m curious where the name does originate now, as I definitely assumed it was astral related

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I did too! But apparently it actually means “beautiful god” in Old Norse. Whereas the “aster” root meaning “star” like in “astral” comes from Greek. (So I’ve seen looking it up, anyway, I’m definitely not an etymologist.)

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Since we’re talking about names, right now there’s nothing stopping me from choosing the Sorceress’ real name when I have to pick a surname. Since that name apparently isn’t public knowledge it shouldn’t raise suspicion in Kelestri, but I think it should at least get some kind of reaction from Baz - or the Sorceress later on.

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I’m still deciding if I’ll implement a ban on major NPC names, but that one would be included if I do.

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Hey! The demo has been updated with Chapter 5! Take a look!

Chapter 5 is very long, with several branches to entirely separate scenes. There are a lot of chances to learn a lot more about Kelestri and about various characters. This chapter has been in progress for a long while, so I’m excited to hear what people think of it!

This draft also contains a couple of small things added to earlier chapters: a scene in Chapter 4 where you’re guaranteed to meet Natalia for longer than you do in Chapter 2 and learn a couple things from her (because keeping track of whether you knew those things was getting too complicated), and a chance to declare if you’re ace and/or aro in Chapter 3. (That chance was always coming - it was originally going to be later in the game, but that was also getting too complicated, so I moved it back.)

It does not contain any changes to what names you are and aren’t allowed to use, because we only just started talking about that and I haven’t had time to put that in. :sweat_smile:

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On names: I think even you if you decide not to ban major NPC names in general, it might be worth banning the Sorceress’s name specifically.

Let’s see. I’m happy about both Chapter Five’s existence and its contents. I have a lot of questions (and a couple comments). I didn’t see any grammar errors or typos, but I wasn’t looking that hard this playthrough.

When talking to the Sorceress about how she became immortal, she says it’s because her sister stabbed her and the Star shard she was holding…somehow got in the wound? I thought she was had it to her side or something? You might want to elaborate on how the shard got in the wound. Unless it’s intentionally vague, in which case ignore me.

Is the only choice to encourage Natalie and Em’s relationship right after she loses her dog and they find it again?

So, I’m getting a sense of what the basic shape of the endings are going to be, but since we find out from the Sorceress that anyone can become immortal, basically, will we have the chance to offer other people immortality? Possibly a whole lot of “other people”?

Can you still romance Em if you run as a Harnesser in the election?

Is it possible to lose the election (or not run at all) or is it more about how you win than if you win?

A suggestion (as always, feel free to disregard it)

So I’ve been thinking that since Natalia and Em can end up in a relationship, there could be a few reasons why the MC could want to encourage that. 1) To create chaos, generally falling in line with other “create chaos” choices 2) They’re just that much of a matchmaker 3) Might be related to 2, might not be. MC is friends with both and wants them to get along/be happy. 4) The MC is interested in both of them and wants to enter a polyamorous relationship with them. I think the part near the end of Chapter Five where you have the opportunity to spend time with someone, it would be a good place to give the MC the option of trying to bring them together.

Finally, around how many chapters will the final game have?

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First, regarding your suggestion, a chance to bring Em and Nat together at the end of Chapter 5 exists! It super exists! It exists, has a bunch of variations and opportunities to steer things in various directions, and is 20,000 words long! In order to get the option, you have to have already raised Em and Nat’s relationship before the choice about who to spend time with at the end of Chapter 5. I’d very much be interested in having it tested, and if you still can’t reach it even when you’re specifically aiming for it, that’s something I need to know so that I can make adjustments.

As for your other questions:

The Sorceress wasn’t holding the Star shard, she was wearing it as a necklace, which is how it got in the wound when she was stabbed in the chest. She does say that, but it’s fairly quick, and I could probably make it clearer.

The scene with Vivi after the lightning strike is the main time to influence Em and Natalia’s relationship. There are a few other moments where you can do it as well, like in some one-on-one conversations with them, but that’s the biggest opportunity. That might be something I should tweak, especially if it’s too hard to get their relationship high enough to get their scene in Chapter 5.

Regarding immortality, I’d rather not go into too much detail as it could get spoilery (and I’m not totally decided on what will appear in-game and what might just be implied for the future), but granting it to other people is certainly a possibility.

Regarding Em, not absolutely decided (I don’t always work out the exact details of romance mechanics until I get there, because it can depend on how story and code things develop), but it will probably be the kind of thing that makes a romance harder and requires you to persuade Em to keep going than something that prevents a romance entirely. I tend to think it’s more interesting to be able to discuss points of disagreement with the love interests than to block them off completely, except for things that they’d find completely unforgivable under any circumstances.

You definitely don’t have to run in the election. There are a few different options for how you can spend your time as it approaches. And yes, you can certainly lose.

Current plan is ten chapters + epilogue.

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I think you might have to adjust things around Natalia and Em’s relationship, as I took the first opportunity to bring them together and was always trying to work towards it (I probably did miss a couple of the conversational choices, though) and the option didn’t show up later. Otherwise, thank you for answering my questions/humoring me. I’m really happy this WIP exists. :heart:

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Just to confirm: before that choice about who to spend time with at the end of Chapter 5, you didn’t get a letter from either Em or Nat inviting you to a meeting between them, right? Do you happen to know (or can you check if you still have the stats from that playthrough) what Em and Nat’s relationship value was? It should be included with the other relationships on the stats page.