Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy - A Cinematic Visual Novel
Created by Caffeine: Victoria's Legacy
Support our visual novel about coffee and magic set in a steampunk anime world. Featuring your favorite flat white and cappuccinos!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
May Updates
about 5 years ago
– Tue, May 14, 2019 at 05:09:23 PM
Hi everyone!
We'd like to offer you three major updates!
1. Supporting Characters Voice Artists
Back in April, we did another round of open auditions for 12 supporting characters. We have since confirmed 10 out of the 12 VAs, including Lady Stanley, Constantine and Taka's mom. You can listen to their audition reels below. We've made a snippet of their voice to give you an idea of how our characters will sound.
We plan to create a reel for each of our 12 VAs, that's why we have yet to announce the other confirmed characters. Please stay tuned on Twitter or Discord if you want to get the latest announcements on our Voice Artists confirmations.
2. GUI Interface Revamp
We have also been working on our GUI. The Interface we currently have dates back to last year. Since then, we have decided to include additional functionalities, including a CG gallery and music room.
That's why we have spent a significant amount of time this month redesigning our GUI to accommodate for the new functionalities.
First, here is our new main interface. There are a couple of changes:
- We've added outlines and shadows on the character name and dialogue text.
- We have re-designed the quick menu and fixed some bugs.
- We've added a menu button, music mute button and voice replay button at the bottom right of the screen. We've kept it semi-transparent to make sure it's unobtrusive. But, yea, if you look carefully, it's there.
What happens when you click on the menu button? The new menu design is shown below. It will slide out from the right.
Here is the new design for our save and load menus:
- One major thing is the increase in number of save slots, from 27 to 76 save slots. Since we are talking about 20-40 hours of gameplay, there is a need to add more save slots.
The settings menu will also be divided into four sections. We are adding a voice settings option where you get to adjust the volume for individual characters. We've also added accessibility options. Including:
- Switching to Opendyslexia font
- Increase font size
Here is a screenshot of how the text will look after increasing font size. We currently have text overflowing issues when font size is increased, so we are still working on the best way to solve that.
3. Launch Date To be Pushed Back To October
Yes, we've decided to push back our release date to October. There are a number of reasons why we decided to do so:
Voice Acting - Identifying voice lines worth voicing is proving a more time consuming task than we were expecting. Initially we thought of only voicing character intro scenes and important CG scenes, but that leaves a huge voiceless gaps. So we're looking at identifying partial lines in the dialogue worth voicing.
Streamlining the script and adding more interactivity - As we're nearing the end of finalising our story, we've come to realize how daunting the script is, nearing 300,000 words, it will take around 15-30 hours to complete one route depending on reading speed.
We want to make sure the script itself doesn't contain pacing issues that would cause a loss of interest. We're investigating the possibility to including a progress report at the end of each chapter for added feedback to the player.
Refining and refining - Last but not least, we want to spend more time reviewing each scene to make sure the visuals have impact, the words are conveying the right mood and the ambience is done right. It would be a pity if we invested so much time and effort and not try to touch it up a little bit more.
The next update should come soon as we still have some outstanding milestones that are nearing completion! Stay tuned!
Alpha Build Available Now!
about 5 years ago
– Sat, Mar 30, 2019 at 02:34:28 AM
For those who have Alpha Access in their Reward Tier, you should've got an email earlier today with an attached Steam Key. This will allow you to access the current Alpha Build and any subsequent updates to the build.
Looking forward to getting feedback from our Early Alpha Players!
Note: For those who do not have access to Steam or don't want to use Steam, it's possible to download from Drive if you request it. But this is not recommended as you won't get any auto-updates for any subsequent builds.
Thank you!
Demo v3.0 Released!
about 5 years ago
– Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 07:13:47 AM
We are happy to announce that version 3.0 of the demo has been released.
As mentioned in the last post, here are the improvements we have made compared to the previous version, which was released nearly 7 months ago in September 2018:
Full 1080pi sprites
Fixed flickering issue with namebox and animated sprites.
Added additional sound effects to various scenes
Several scenes have been re-mastered. The ending has also been substantially changed
Fully proofread and edited
Compatible with full game. You can move your save files to the full game later on!
We are also only 5 days away from finishing the Alpha Version! Stay tuned Alpha pledgers!
Alpha Version Nearly Ready!
about 5 years ago
– Tue, Mar 12, 2019 at 02:04:33 AM
Hi Everyone!
This is another update from the CaffeineVL team. We have been extremely busy this month, while progress isn't going as quick as we want to, we have nonetheless managed to complete the Alpha version of the game! Once the editing is done we will be uploading it on Steam for those who have Early Alpha Access in their reward tier.
General Updates
- We have made significant progress in fixing a technical glitch that's been bothering us for a while. Namely involving flickering character sprites and fatal crashes when too many animated sprites appear on one screen. These issues should be fixed by now.
- All character sprites are now 1080p. Eliza is looking bright and sharp! Ok ok, maybe you're confused about this point. Weren't the sprites already 1080p in the demo? They were, but they were full body sprites. And since the majority of the time the screen only shows half of the body, we felt it was a waste of capacity. That's why we converted the sprites to half-body, so now the sprites should be double the resolution compared to our original demo!
This is especially important for those who have Early Alpha Access as their reward. In our previous survey, we collected the discord username for anyone who has Alpha access. But we still need you to join our server before we can add you to our private alpha channel!
This private channel will act as a discussion / feedback forum for SPOILERS until the Alpha Version is promoted to Beta Access!
We're just as excited as you are. The Alpha version is nearly ready. We are editing the last few scenes and once that's done, it should be ready to upload.
Ready to have a cuppa?
The alpha version is considered the halfway point of the game, focusing more on character development with a milder pace compared to the latter part of the story. You should be able to have ample interaction with your favourite characters.
The Alpha Version includes:
- 140,000 words in total. A single walkthrough should take around 6-10 hours depending on reading speed
- Minor Branching for main character routes. These branches will later converge back to the main plot at the ending.
- Starts from Prologue and ends after the barista test.
- Involves plotline of all four main characters + 5 supporting characters
- We will also include a savepoint for those who have completed the demo. The savepoint will start from Day 3, since the story from Day 3 has changed significantly compared to the original demo.
Demo will be updated
Following the launch of the alpha, we will also be updating our demo (v3). Major changes include:
- Day Three demo ending has been changed. Demo will now end with a cliffhanger.
- Conversations and choices have been updated.
Shout Out - THE ANOMALY, A Visual Novel / Hacking Simulator Game!
Last but not least, if you're interested in visual novels about hacking, then you might want to check this out:
"The Anomaly centers around a young, tech-savvy high school student named Tucker as he and his friends attempt to uncover the mystery surrounding the strange sounds that have been coming from the sky. Before long, he finds himself caught up in a massive, world-changing perplexity that threatens the very existence of the world as he knows it. Will they be able to unlock the mystery of the Hum? Some truths are kept hidden for a reason. "
They are currently aiming for a goal of US$9000 with 11 days to go! So if anyone is interested, better start backing now!
January Update
over 5 years ago
– Sat, Feb 02, 2019 at 09:12:21 AM
Hi Everyone!
It's February already, apologies for the January post coming a bit late, but we wanted to provide you with some substantial updates before sending this out.
January has been a busy month for our team. A lot has happened in terms of scripting and writing. The True Ending has mostly been finalised, which is of course, made confidential until the very last moment of our journey! We re working to get the CGs drawn and the script polished.
Editing Work Has Started
We have currently hired Editors and are working through the first-half of the script. I'm happy to say the editing work does make a huge difference. We want to make sure there are no pacing issues, which is particularly important in longer works...
200K Words Scripted!
We have also reached a new milestone just yesterday. A total of 200K words have been scripted, which amounts to two thirds of the whole Visual Novel. However, please note we do not consider this the final script, as some scenes might be rewritten or taken out once we receive feedback or if we feel the pacing is not right...which comes to the next update....
28th Of March - Save The Date We aim to launch our First Alpha build on the 28th of March. This constitutes half the game, double the content compared to the demo, amounting to around 6-8 hours worth of gameplay on a single walkthrough.
The Alpha Build will only be available to backers who have Alpha Early Access under their pledge levels. It is not meant to be seen as a Full Game experience, but a teaser on what's been accomplished up till this date. Alpha Backers will get an opportunity to provide feedback on the story at its early stages.
We are only a couple of scenes away from finishing all the content in the Alpha build, so we should be safe with the timeframes.
We wanted to show some screenshots, but have decided to leave that for the next update. Please stay tuned!
