The Forest Deep

In a deep forest stands a path, once a common route for travelers, that is now avoided at all costs. Lately, it seems anyone who enters the forest never exits - including the most recent missing person, a renowned young knight. Thus, the path is no longer walked, and the townsfolk have lost hope of finding those gone to the forest... Except for a young magical prodigy, determined to find their brother - or at the least, answers. 

They might get more questions than answers...

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The Forest Deep is a visual novel told through the eyes of a young mage named Rune as they search for answers to their brother’s disappearance. There are no choices or alternate endings, just story.

Play time is ~45-60 minutes.

Content Warning: psychological horror, themes of abuse, implied body horror, some strong language

Recommended for ages 16+, not suitable for those under 13

Languages: 

English (original) 

Turkish 

(message me if you'd like to add a translation!)

Translations: Turkish translation done by Naamk

Note: While The Forest Deep is its own standalone short story, it is also connected to my larger project, Strange Little Town - where any remaining questions will be answered. Strange Little Town is currently in development.

For visually-impaired readers, Ren'Py offers a self-voicing option by pressing V when you open the visual novel. This will lower the volume of the music and allow you to hear the text being read to you via the default voice on your computer.

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‣ 4 special images

‣ 10 unique songs composed for the game

‣ ~45-60 minutes of story

‣ The beginnings of a mystery

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For at least 1$, you can have access to the support-the-developer devlog where I detail how the development process went. You can also see ideas that didn't make it in, lore about the world and characters, and older versions of artwork. This is included in the form of a new Ren'py game file that includes a music room with all of the OST, a gallery with all of the special images (including scrapped art), and lots of dev commentary!

(Note that the support-the-developer version is not needed to understand the game, but it holds lore and secrets that weren't able to be worked into the final game, and it helps support my next project!).

The soundtrack is available for purchase on my bandcamp, and includes two bonus tracks that never made it into the final game if you buy the full album! 

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CREDITS: 

All credits including coding, story, art, characters, and music go to drearyprince.

The game was built in Ren'Py and some special visual effects were made in FL Studio’s ZGameEditor Visualizer. 

The Behind-The-Scenes version includes art from fuzzytrashbird and Artistic_Avie. The gallery was made possible by a tutorial made by BadMustard on itch.io. 

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Want updates on my next project? You can check my Twitter! 

If you're interested in the song about this game, you can find it on my youtube under the same name or by clicking this link.

This is my first ever finished project, so I appreciate any constructive feedback!

Last update/bugfix - 10/12/2022