Build 7: Pieces



Build 7: Pieces is here!

Alex stands at a crossroads. Tempted by a limitless power that could alter the fate of Illayla, he fights to control his emotions amidst nightmares of slaughter, pain and rage. He focuses on developing his relationship with Loken and his allies, seeking companionship and trust in this broken future. But in attempting to abandon his past and relieve the trauma, the darkness only swells. He's forced to either confront the painful memories of his past or drift down the path of bloodlust and fury.

Meanwhile, the consequences of Devil's Crag begin to reveal themselves, and Illayla may never be the same again.

This was a particularly difficult update to write! For those who don't follow me on twitter or discord, I was hit by a few health issues this year - first a serious infection on my wrist, then a bout of COVID that left me in pieces for a couple of weeks. I'm fine now luckily but finding the strength to write was tough, so I'm relieved to finally get this build out there!

There are four more builds to go after this until this story is finished, and I consider build 7 to be the 'calm before the storm' - the best is certainly yet to come! A big thanks goes to Elle and Sidmon for their amazing artwork, plus Sam for all the editing work. Also to my discord mod team for beta-testing, and a big thanks to Ortho on discord for doing an amazing proof-read and spotting loads of typos that I missed even after several read throughs!

So what's in this update?

  • Day 9 has been added. It's roughly 27k words in total. Saves should carry over, but you can start from the beginning and use the day select option that appears to skip straight to the new day.
  • 6 new CGs are included in this day by Elle and Sidmon.
  • A cull of exclamation marks! I went through the whole script and removed a whole bunch, since when I first started writing I had an overly enthusiastic habit of using way too many! I'd say I removed about 500-600 of them... and, yes, it took hours.
  • A preview of the one of the songs from the upcoming original soundtrack. At the very end of day 9, you'll hear a short section of Alex's theme. It was heavily based on the theme for the character that served as an inspiration for Alex's arc - see if you can figure out who it is!

CONTENT WARNING! DAY 9 CONTAINS NSFW!

You are given the option to skip all these scenes, and doing so will not cause you to miss important story beats - the 'skip' options have all the important stuff edited in. However, there is still a small amount of nudity present regardless of choices.

If you are live streaming, ensure you have NSFW content turned off in the main menu before the day starts, even if you are picking the non-sexual options! This way, regardless of what options you pick, you shouldn't have to censor anything as all CGs are either cropped or pre-censored.

What's next?

As I said, there are four more builds to go until this story ends. Of these, the most important will be the 10th and penultimate build. If you thought build 5 was horrifying, that was just a gentle warm-up!

Build 10 will also feature a big re-vamp of previous content. Improvements will be made to the previous days, the main menu will be re-vamped, some additional CGs may be added, choices will hopefully be expanded and the soundtrack will be released and implemented to the past days. 

And that's all!

As always, you can follow me on twitter to get updates and previews on the project. I also occasionally do dumb streams and am fairly active in the official discord server, so come and say hey!

And finally, a huge thanks to everyone to has donated on KoFi to help the project improve! It's thanks to you that we're able to include so many awesome new CGs, and we can throw loads of money to  our well-deserving artists! If you want to help support the development of Soulcreek (and perhaps future projects, hint hint), you can do so below! Any small amount makes a huge difference, and I can't stress enough how different these updates would be without it - I'd likely only be able to afford a single CG for each one, rather than six! I'll make sure everyone who helps out gets a credit in the final release!

Stay safe and be kind to each other!

-Ryuo

Files

Soulcreek-0.7-pc.zip 374 MB
19 days ago
Soulcreek-0.7-android.apk 361 MB
19 days ago
Soulcreek-0.7-mac.zip 340 MB
19 days ago

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Comments

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(+1)

Ryuo, I say this honestly, this is one of the best stories I've ever read. I love this world you created. I love your pacing and the way you juxtapose humour with horror. I love the way the romance builds. All in all, not only is it my favourite vn, it's also one of my favourite works of fiction. Thank you for sharing it with the world.

So good, I am unironically addicted to this.

Also I almost wish there was another route just for Takhi, I love her.

Keep up the good work, Ryuo.

Yay new update <3 amazing work!

( spoilers and theorys below!! ) 



at this point i fully believe humans werent hunted for sport, it was to keep the infants from being able to ascend because they need a HUMAN body. the reason they were killed in bulk was to get rid of as many humans as possible at once. before the blackzones became a thing they used the cages to try and limit the infants abilitys to gain control. which they very much succeeded in. but at the cost of an extremely vengeful human left behind.  bipeds realizing they need human bodys as vessels they tried killing humans as fast as they could before there were enough ascended demons to destroy the world. most likely not having been too much later from or BEFORE the cascade since in the vision there was a biped seen lighting a MATCH. finding matches at the current time would be impossible. especially a BOX of them that work. so the extinction of humans was either right before the cascade or not much later from it. but still being in clothes like loken wears. its hard to time if before or after the cascade is when bipeds started killing humans to keep demons from ascention. the main character was found in a case after he was burned and doctor wyatt was working on him. its even possible doctor wyatt was a biped since bipeds were well integrated with society since the main character knew their language but supressed it and english becoming pretty much forgotten by bipeds. its even possible the " downloaded memorys " are on doctor wyatts tablet as well. could tabitha even be alive as well possibly somewhere in another of those restoration tubes the fact he was burned alive but still able to be taken and brought back to life and or healed without any visible burns or scars or ANYTHING doctor wyatt may have even used a demon ( i call byte an angel since he is what the informed of carmine THOUGHT demons were ) to save him. wiping their memorys of everything before sending them into stasis together. its obvious something BEYOND medicine or surgery was used to completely restore the main characters body. and at that point that has to be one of the only options as he doesint even have a single burn or scar from being burned alive. but byte being made differently. possibly it being because he had no memorys and was blank and could only learn from you without any motives of his own like the other demons? or byte possibly being MADE by doctor wyatt for the main character? possibly wiping a demon clean to make byte and altering him to help the main character with abilitys to help keep him alive in whatever world he woke up on. whatever might be going on right now its obvious that the main character destroying the key absolutely ENRAGED the infants. but in order to understand the blackzones fully all the infants may even be set free from the blackzones if the key is used. soulcreek possibly even being what KEEPS the demons in the blackzones or at least draws them in heavily since its revealed that one left the blackzones and killed a mating troupe that was traveling. they arent completely stuck there. no matter what way we look at they are intelegent and smart. they knew " fix the key " would make its way back to the main  character. a breach obviously creating enough news that they KNEW would get back to him. leaving the blackzones and create a scene PURELY to make sure the main character knew what they wanted him to do or else. they want the key to be fixed and used in soulcreek and whatever comes with that will be castastrophic. releasing something or maybe even stopping whatever force keeps them in the blackzones and freeing the infants to roam freely and leave the blackzones as they want. several messages being sent to him. the shaved biped hung. " fix the key " and killing a mating troupe as a warning to what they can and would do if he didnt. no matter what way we go loken is right. the more we reach in the more consequences happen and the worse off we are. but at this point weve reached the point of things going from bad to worse if we dont do anything. but it may not even be compairable to what may happen if they key is fixed and used. it may even bring glitch back possibly if its fixed. one of the only options there are is to rip off the bandaid and see what happens eventually. we will explore soulcreek no matter what happens. and who knows what that will cause. it could release the infants from the blackzones. or could release something else. whatever it is the infants are desperate for it to happen and the key to be used. given the fact their only drives are to kill and destroy the fact they WANT it badly enough to leave the blackzone? whatever the key will do will be in their favor. they are reckless but whats worse is they are smart about it. knowing exactly what gets our attention and how to do it. a group that keeps the population up being slaughtered outside of a blackzone by a demon who breached the blackzones saying " fix the key " and leaving one guy left alive to tell someone and spread it. its not only a message but a threat of the possiblity of much more then JUST that. 

(1 edit) (+3)

What better way to spend my friday night than reading a new update to my favourite FVN :3

And I'm being honest here, even if other FVNs might have higher production quality, caused by more funding and experience, none have a setting as captivating as this one. The craftsmanship of this first FVN of yours has no right being so high, it's sooo good.

The world itself that you have build has drawn me in like an endless ocean swallows a ship. (As you may tell, your recent dev diary has resonated with me on a deep level).

(1 edit) (+4)

Thank you, Ryuo! 

Sorry, but I can't support you via Ko-Fi. You know, how all other world treats Russians now... We can't use PayPal, our Visa/Mastercard banned, etc...

P.S. Please, no politics here. War are shit. Government are morons. Nuff said.

(+3)

This is where the line must be drawn, the Russian government cannot be allowed to take actions that disrupt the flow of funding for furry VNs, now that is too far

I can already tell the story from here on is going to be so beautiful.