X-Modulation
A downloadable visual novel for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Can you become more than what you were made to be?
1999. St. Eligio... a South American country located on the Triple Frontier.
Within the Fusivel University Electronics Club, Rosario Celcius is a simple computer geek who keeps to herself. A hobby she picked up from her father, no longer in her life. Her life changes completely when Cereza Fahrenheit, a model student within the club, begins to secretly give her attention.
Becoming her personal daily plaything to be used and abused, Rosa eventually has had enough. Her life falling apart at the seams, she ends up murdering Cereza in cold blood.
Their parting won't be for long though, after all...
...Cereza Fahrenheit now exists in a binary realm.
X-Modulation (pronounced Cross Modulation) is an 18+ visual novel/mini-grand strategy gameplay hybrid inspired by the likes of Kichikuou Rance and much more! Take over the network infrastructure of Fusivel City... and grow into something you're not.
Around 13k words of story. Currently locked to one route/ending. (longinus syndrome) About an hour of playtime.
This will get patched with the full story at some point. It is very much rough around the edges in places, gameplay wise. There's a noted softlock if you capture all enemy nodes*, and some things (Scrying information) was not implemented fully. The longinus syndrome scene will accidentally play every turn once it's available*.
(FIXED IN 1.1)*
Shift + 'S' will skip scenes. 'P' will speedup, but it can cause issues.
A patch to fix game breaking bugs will be out in a week or two. Please report any bugs in the comments or to sanguineCPU@gmail.com!
GAMEPLAY EXPLANATION
[THE VIRUS TURN]
Every turn the player will have an Infect Action and a Support Action. You must use both every turn, you cannot skip either.
[THE INFECT ACTION]
Once you select a node on the map, you may select to 'Infect' it. You may only attempt to Infect nodes that are adjacent to nodes you control. Additionally, you may only select one to try and Infect each turn. Attempting to infect a node will lead you into a combat encounter.
[SUPPORT ACTIONs]
You may choose one Support Action to do in tandem with your Infect Action. Rallying will raise your stats when the Government is attempting to attack a node you control. Fortify will lead to an automatic loss for the Government if they are attempting to attack a node you control. You can only Fortify or Rally nodes you control. Last but not least, Scry will allow you to investigate any node on the map. The information you get completely depends on your Adaptation (INT) stat. This will be stored in the Node Information screen for your most recent Scry. So there's always value in Scrying multiple times over the course of the VN! Additionally, there's bits of story that can be gained from Scrying.
[COMBAT]
Combat is simple. You have three stats which correlate to ATK, SPD, INT.
You'll be in a Rock-Paper-Scissors match with the node you're invading/defending against. ATK beats INT. INT beats SPD. SPD beats ATK.
(ATK -> INT -> SPD -> ATK)
The damage you do is determined by a Dice Roll plus the action you select. If you have advantage, you get a few additional points! While each node has its own unique stats, the Node Guardians only correspond to behavior. Certain Guardians may choose one action over another, or completely ignore one. Learning this will come to your advantage. Normal Encounters will have 3 HP, while Bosses will have 5. If you are attacking and win, you take the node. If you are defending against the enemy and lose, they take the node.
[ALERT]
Additionally, if you fail to capture a node... your alert level goes up depending on the node's security. A high alert means tougher enemies... so be warned!
[ENDGAME]
The Virus will transform late in the game. This will unlock a new node on the map depending on your route, capturing it will reveal the final boss. You must beat the final boss by Turn 25. Additionally, the enemy will regenerate at Eagle's Nest if there are no more Government nodes.
Credits:
- Writing/Art/Programming/Anything Besides Music - sanguineCPU (sheep)
- Music - Dova-Syndrome (https://dova-s.jp/en/)
- Music - Yoshikawa -45 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.1/jp/)
CONTENT WARNING FOR
- Sexual Assault/Non-Consensual Sex
- Transphobia
- Grooming
- Lots of sex.
- A lot of things...
Download
Comments
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Okay WOW so much to say on your new game, sheep!!!! I did play version 1.1 for reference, but I'm not a tyvnj2 judge so I do what I want LOL ANYWAY!!! There will be spoilers in this comment, so readers who aren't sheep, be warned!
I love your ui as usual, you really have such an eye for user interfaces! The backgrounds and composition were all soooo cool!
Your sprite artwork has improved so much since MIDNIGHT, it was really delightful to see your use of shading, especially on Rosa, she's so pretty! And I love Rosa, I love how she is a hurt person who's lashing out and trying to do harm on others as a way to cope with harm done by herself. I love that she's a computer geek, and that it's both a point of pride and love for her, and also a point of pain. I think you really nailed those complex feelings!
As for other characters, god I HATED Cereza, what an awful person. I really liked how you used her as a symbol, how her rot slowly infects Rosa, and also the city, and the virus, too. I loved the lines you included about that virus girl not knowing where she fits along a binary because she wants to be Cereza, but Cereza, despite being a horrible, awful, abuser, was also a person in her own right with her own oppression, and how again, people who are hurt, and people in power, will continue those cycles of abuse (PLUS - dare I say, the cycle of US interventionism interfering with St. Eligio, leaving the country in a worse off place than before, which then invites in more US interventionism? Very well-utilized setting for the psychodrama happening!!!)
The gameplay was really intriguing, too! I am... notoriously bad at strategy games, so uh. take that with a grain of salt, but once I captured enough nodes, it was kind of fun to just wait for the dice to fall! Speaking of the gameplay, I really enjoyed how the options during the Infect sequences were "Penetrate," "Bypass," and "Exploit," with "Penetrate" and "Exploit" really sticking out as not only a computer firewall issue, but precisely what Cereza had been doing to Rosa. Also I loved the usage of different names for the different node firewalls, I thought it really gave a lot of character to the city and world!
Your worldbuilding is always so great, and I had a fun time despite only getting the bad end (a subahibi end sky reference, perhaps...?)! I'll be back to play the Longinus Syndrome ending someday, and for sure the true end when you've got the game in a state you will be proud of, but you should be really, really proud of what you've accomplished for this jam! Thank you for sharing this vn!
(Also last small thing, but god, assembly programming JUMP scare - pun unintended)