Veilcrest: Trial of the Arcane is an upcoming otome game by Repulse currently on Kickstarter!
"This is it. Your first year at the elite Veilcrest Academy. Following in your father's footsteps and ready to take on anything. Things were going great until you stumbled upon a magical world hidden in plain sight.
In your curiosity to see how deep this rabbit hole goes, your life becomes entangled with those of three magical men. With your world turned upside down, it’s up to you to uncover the secrets of the academy and navigate the complicated world of young love."
Meet and romance three magical men
Make choices that impact the story, your relationships and future dialogue
Learn new spells in the secret magic classes led by Professor Theon Whitelock
Explore the Academy at night and choose who to spend time with
Talk with people and experience the story in Visual Novel style dialogue
Use magic to solve puzzles around the academy and discover collectables, find secrets and learn about the magical world
Multiple endings
3D characters that move, react and express themselves during dialogue
You can download the demo (on Steam or for Android) or support the Kickstarter here!
Otome Jam Thoughts 2024: Veilcrest: Trial of the Arcane
Veilcrest: Trial of the Arcane
By: Repulse Games
Summary:
This is it. Your first year at the elite Veilcrest Academy. Following in your father's footsteps and ready to take on anything. Things were going great until you stumbled upon a magical world hidden in plain sight.
In your curiosity to see how deep this rabbit hole goes, your life becomes entangled with those of three magical men. With your world turned upside down, it’s up to you to uncover the secrets of the academy and navigate the complicated world of young love.
A 3d rpg otome game? This caught my eye instantly, just because it's always fun to see otome games that aren't in the typical VN medium (don't get me wrong, as someone who plays and makes VNs, I love them, but it's always nice to see new things!)
With that said, this felt very 2000s YA, which if you're feeling nostalgic for that era, might be fun. It was for me, seeing all the old tropes that used to be overdone but now you don't really see much anymore. It felt cozy, in a weird way? I do think this demo doesn't showcase all the components of the game. There's screenshots that show more use of magic and puzzles, amongst other things, and I hope there's an extended demo so we can get a feel of how all the elements play out and how it feels in game. I especially want this seeing as there's a planned kickstarter for this coming up at some point.
My biggest complaints, which I normally don't talk about for Otome Jam thoughts but again, seeing that this is going to get a kickstarter I would want addressed, are:
No subtitles for voice acting
The mixing for the VA was too quiet and hard to hear
Most of the scenes for the morning class added nothing to the story save for one (the scene with Dante one of the LIs). I can imagine this becoming really repetitive, and hope they cut it down or tighten things up going forward
Other then that, I did like the foundation it has so far and I hope they improve on it. It's really cool to see a project like this in the otome space, and I hope it does well!