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Riyah and the corrupted zodiac

Marlieke Klijnstra
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Riyah the tiger Zodiac

Riyah is the protagonist of this story and the only guardian who managed to escape the darkness thanks to the rescue of the dog. Due to the impact of the fall into the light world and in combination with the traumatic event, Riyah suffers from amnesia. Riyah name stands for courage just like the tiger's characteristics, but in this case it is mainly the player's courage that drives the story.

My name is Marlieke Klijnstra, my artist name is SoulGemArt.
I have specialized myself in concept art, illustrating and design. 
For my graduation project I have focused on narrative story telling.


What different methods of creating narrative storytelling games are popular, and which one of these methods give my characters and environments the most justice in my visual novel? 


After playing and reviewing different visual novels I figured out that the target group likes to see a lot of interaction, this could be through choices or other gameplay such as moving the camera view. The target group also likes to see that their choices can have consequences, this can be done by different endings or that in my story you have to conduct certain interactions to make characters happy. Beautiful art and game mechanics in the visual novel are equally important to the target group, they prioritize a balance between the two.

For the program I want to use however, for the technical part of the game, I wrote down a number of requirements.

It should be easy to program and adjust.

Creative freedom, I can implement my own art.

Access to tutorials that are very clear and understandable.

The software must be easy and safe to download.

Free of course!

Preferred to hybrid but only 2D is also fine.

With my research I could conclude that the extension Fungus is fine for me in making a visual novel.

This is a block out for the first part of chapter 1 of my novel.

You are playing as Riyah the tiger Zodiac. As seen in the block out you will be able to meet different characters. Every character have their story, desire, fear, etc. It is important for the player to find them out to progress the story or to approach different endings.

An element I am very interested in playing with for my novel is:

Every person has good and bad in them, you choose which side you are on: With this visual novel I want to offer perspective that secondary characters are not always what they show.






Hannah & Fang


Hannah has recently moved to the rat kingdom to set up her flower shop in the most prosperous city. But once she got there, she found that the gates were closed. Hannah has a very optimistic mind, so she decided to open the shop outside the gates. Ever since Hannah opened her shop, Fang has had his eyes on her. Fang is a broad tiger, he acts very cool and confident, but in reality he is a big softy with a big heart.




Concept art: Hannah.

Nuwa the rat Zodaic

Concept sketches of Nuwa guardian form.





This is the corrupted Nuwa, they call her the Rat queen. Nuwa has turned into a hateful creature, she makes her corrupt people work to find food for her while her slaves are only allowed to eat leftovers. She does not share anything and is aggressive and will kill anything that comes too close to her.



More characters in chapter 1.

Rat son: Kwan (strong)

Kwan is a young kid around 10 years old (human years). He is a good kid even though he doesn’t know very well how to show it sometimes. Kwan was quite a small kid when the corruption got to the rats kingdom, because of that he was raised in a very poor refugee camp. 

His mom is called Wing, she is a very sweet mom but because of her very important job she doesn’t have much time to watch her son. 

For Kwan seeing others suffer hurts him deeply. Just like his mom he feels deeply involved with the people. So he tries everything to provide for the poor and the hungry to give food and supplies even if that means he has to steal from others.   

Sentence from Kwan.

“Why is it bad to take a little from the people that have so much, giving someone with nothing at least something, so they can live for another day?”  This is the a moment of the element that I am playing with. Would the player see Kwan as bad or good?


Rat mom armorsmith: Wing

Wing is a mechanic. She is constantly repairing and tinkering  for improvement on armor for the guard. So that the guard can be ready to protect the people from the corruption that is coming out of the caves. In her free time she is trying to make clothes for the poor with the leftovers of fabrics she has. In her past Wing was an important inventor and took part as one of the council members of the city but when the corruption came army took charge. 

Wing also has a son called Kwan. She loves her son very much but has very little time to watch him because she is so very occupied to help out the people in need. So every time her son gets in trouble she has a hard time telling him off because she understands that he means well. An ape called Earl... Just a very rude old ape that has seen to much of the world. Just minding his own monkey business. Probably more will be seen.


Storyboard sketches

These are the sketches I made for the intro animation that can be seen on this page. 
As you can see there have been some changes in how some characters are shown in the final piece.


Thursday 20:00 'Ronde tafel'
Let's talk about: Exploring interactive worlds and stories

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