On Mount Ségou
Synopsis
There was a long-held belief,
In the Azurium Air Fleet
of the Mogho Naaba.
It was said...
That good fortune would come to a newly-wed captain,
If she took her bride far, far below the cloud layers,
To offer a heartfelt prayer,
To the Nameless One, on Mount Ségou.
About the story
This a very short dark fantasy/fairy-tale horror visual novel.
It contains two endings to be read in an enforced order.
Please note that it contains light sexual allusions and some atmospheric horror.
This story is a highly derivative, highly concentrated dose of my usual and current obsessions, including:
- Daphne du Maurier's Monte Verità and Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (yet again...);
- Ursula Le Guin's work. Both The Wind's Twelve Quarters short story collection, mostly for “Vaster than Empires and More Slow”, and the concept of the Nameless Ones (dark, ambivalent deities from the world of Earthsea, that humans shouldn't concern themselves with), especially in the ending of Tombs of Atuan;
- The Shinsekai Yori anime series, mostly for the encounter and revelations in Episode 4 (“Bloodstained History”).
- Burkina Faso generally, through a few oblique references in the setting;
- The Secret of Cerulean Sand anime series for the fictional azurium ore, allowing ships to fly.
This is an O2A2 2023 entry
This visual novel was created for the 2023 “Only One of Any Asset” (O2A2) game jam, which has strict asset limitations.
It contains 1 sound effect, 1 music track, 1 photographic background, 0 sprites, and 955 words of writing.
Due to the music track I used, this VN is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0:
You can freely distribute, remix and reuse this VN and its script for your own non-commercial projects, but you'll have to reuse the same Creative Commons license in turn.
Credits
Many thanks to the following artists for making their work available for reuse! As always, I wouldn't be able to create much without their generosity:
- Countryside is a fantastic track by Efiel, from their 2009 album Jimy the Whale. I heard the track on Jamendo ages and ages ago, and it was hugely inspirational at the time; I've always wanted to reuse it in a project where it'd fit. Since it is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0, I've had to reuse the same license for the entire project too.
- The background picture of the story is based on this photograph by Christian Costeaux, licensed under Creative Commons BY 2.0. The location depicted are the very real Sindou Peaks, in the Cascades region of Burkina Faso, that I last saw in 2017 only.
- The sound of howling wind was clipped by egomassive from a larger recording by DBlover. Both are licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License (public domain).
- Basteleur is a font designed by Keussel Studio available under the SIL Open Font License.
- Rosarivo is a font by Pablo Ugerman also available under the SIL Open Font License.
Download
Comments
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Nice writing and use of alignment/font color in NVL mode, as way as the title menu.
At the end I thought I’d have a choice but I guess it’s not that kind of story (or it would be too hard to explain the aftermath of 2 branches in 45 words).
The Next cursor is a document icon, and besides it is when window frame is large enough, so it looked like the image had not finished loading and it was some kind of placeholder (esp. when playing the web version)
Thanks for playing!! Glad you enjoyed the general presentation.
I really wanted it to be a kinetic novel (choiceless) from the start!
The early early plan was even more linear, since I wanted to have a more dialogue-driven story between Ellie and the Nameless One during the ascent on Mount Ségou, with a not-so-clear resolution (as in the true ending)…
but I realised I really really enjoyed the fairy-tale-like framing, that it came more naturally to me, and allowed me to pack in more style, more tone, more atmosphere. So I settled with a normal storytelling first, and then the “true” retelling! I really enjoy this kind of enforced reading order, and couldn’t really envision more choice than this!
(I think I may have considered turning the “true story” retelling into a choice that appears only the second read at the pivotal moment; but I feared people would miss the second read if the main menu didn’t change. I also found it more fitting to have to choose from the start whether you wanted to hear the truth or not. It’s less Ellie’s choice & more the player’s.)
I didn’t realise the document click-to-continue indicator could have been confusing, woops!
It’s completely lifted from the style of 2000s Japanese VNs made with the ONScripter engine, like Higurashi, Tsukihime (example screenshot) or Umineko (example screenshot), which I really love and wanted to emulate given how minimalist this VN is too!
OK, that makes sense. Now that the comment is a bit lower I fear spoiling less:
Actually I was wondering if I was supposed to kill Syna or Her Grace. The mention of the “heart” suggests she must betray someone close, so Syna, but it seems a bigger deal to approach and kill the country’s leader than one of the generals. The former is more dramatic though so it would make sense in terms of storytelling.
I was also unsure if fuel is made out of bodies of ancients priestesses (suggested by “butcher”), because in this case why would Ellie just have “ingested” a little bit of sand and not more? Or can any human just become a good fuel? Looking at FF7 and Tales of games I wouldn’t be surprised that a source of energy comes from life forms but I’m not sure about the link. But I see how making it more explicit would break the atmosphere (it works for a more pragmatic game like Tales of Symphonia where you explore factories and all).
For the document icon, I see how it looks integrated esp. in Tsukihime where it has the same color and style as the text font. Here it stood out more and I know Renpy sometimes uses placeholder or blurry pictures in web so it made me doubt more, I suppose.
I see, thanks for elaborating on the icon, I’ll keep it in mind if I reuse a similar style in the future!
I’ve definitely been wondering whether I was still missing an image at least once or twice when playing a Ren’Py VN online on itch.io too, so I see where you’re coming from! I tend to disable “progressive downloading” on my own Ren’Py web exports for this reason, I prefer all assets to be 100% loaded when the game starts.
You can definitely think of several possibilities for the Nameless One’s command!
As in a lot of places in this story, I leave it all in the hands of your imagination, I hope the style and atmosphere convey just enough otherworldly violence by themselves for you to picture it (though I have my own preferences).
And likewise (even more so) for azurium ahah, I wouldn’t want to make it any more grounded than I did… but I’m glad it struck you, or at least evoked similarly gruesome fantasy/JRPG dark secrets!
wonderful. the way its written.. i really enjoy reading it. i just hammed myself into playing it not knowing whats going on. but the second playthrough made me more curious 🙏😳 the bgm, i really enjoyed with the texts too! absolutely an enjoyable experience
(for me)Thank youu for commenting!
I’m glad it was enjoyable and that the music and the second read all made their effect hehe! 🤗
Ooh, this one is VERY intriguing! I love how what initially feels like a small, personal episode unfolds into a big high-stakes situation. Your blank-verse writing style is very finely crafted. And it feels rather unique, in a good way, to take an airship setting and then give us a story that's not actually on an airship. Overall, this one is going to stick with me.
Thank you so much, this is so kind of you!
I’m glad that the setting was intriguing, and that the writing style worked well also!
Said as much in another comment, but the mix between personal story/agency, and broader stakes at another scale is (again) all Le Guin… She was so so good at pulling from both sci-fi & fairy tales, bird’s eye anthropologist view & personal stories.
Thanks again so much!
Wow, this was an amazing entry!! Finally a worthy opponent to what game will
I loved how you used the music and the sounds to actually support the story! Honestly, this is very interesting narrative design and I haven't played any other game relying that much on sound design, and you did it wonderfully, especially considering the restrictions of the jam! The game was also stunning in terms of visuals, and the NVL format was an excellent choice!
The story was also great, very atmospheric, and the conflict of the character we follow was an interesting one. In the end, it had a flavour of prophecy I sincerely enjoyed.
Overall, I was stunned by this game which was nothing short of a MASTERPIECE. My review doesn't really do justice to how much I actually enjoyed this game, you truly did an amazing work with it! You clearly got yourself un admirateur !
Aaaaah, this is far, far too much and way too kind, reading this will just make me faint,,
But thank you so so much! I’m glad you enjoyed this VN as much!
I’m glad the music, NVL format and atmosphere worked well! Audio is definitely my personal favourite part of visual novels, it was fun to be able to use it effectively in a short piece like this!
Also happy to hear the tone of the story itself was good itself, wasn’t super sure it’d be super pleasant to reaed ahaha (it’s all very Le Guin themes, I just amped up the horror/mysticism).
Thank you so much again, it just means a lot to hear a short piece like this could be so affecting!
this was soo good i loved how atmospheric it was and the music was so pretty great game :3
Thank you very much!
I’m really glad the music and atmosphere worked well, I’d been meaning to use that specific music piece for so long in a story!
This was a really atmospheric read! I'm impressed you could cram so much into 1,000 word:s: it felt very dense and rich. There's some very nice language used too!
I love the retro NVL style used (the ctc icon gives big Onscripter/Higurashi & Umineko energy), and the general presentation. The panning effects on the BG and the fog make it very atmospheric. I thought it was especially impressive when you panned the BG on top of itself at multiple transparencies: the effect was very cool.
Nice use of text effects too (changing the color + the position of the text onscreen for more ~drama~), and the single BGM is very evocative!
The second playthrough was also an interesting experience. I didn't read the description so I didn't expect it; it was a nice twist!
Aaah, thank you so so much, this means a lot!!
I’m glad the atmosphere was effective and that the NVL typographic effects worked well! (And yes, the obvious Higurashi/Umineko/ONScripter inspo in presentation & tricks ahah, Ryukishi07 has a handle on me forever…)
I’ve loved that BGM by Efiel for so long too (2012-2013 maybe), I’m so glad I was able to finally use it in a project where it suited everything!
A really evocative experience! The story was presented very effectively. A wonderful entry ✨
Thank you so much, glad it was effective!