Think you know the Christmas story? Did you ever watch and wonder about it? Did you ever consider it deeper? How about ask questions to which no one could answer? Or perhaps, have you gotten bored with the same old classic story that has been told each year?
Set in the first century, The Father's Story is a visual novel which explores the story of that night from different perspectives of people who lived it in the first century. Breathing new life into it and showing there is more to find between the lines in scripture.
Do you have to know those to enjoy it? No, not at all. In fact, do you have to be a Christian to enjoy it? Of course not!
It is merely a tale centered around a young shepherd boy who has had a hard life and how his life is forever changed during the events of this night. It also poses the question of:
The stories told in the bible gospels around the night of the birth, are somewhat brief and do not go into a lot of detail. This is where The Father's Story comes in and looks at the potential tales that could be had with just regular people living it. How one thing led to the next, which led up to the famous birth.
From the daughter of a local baker, to the Roman centurion handling the garrison. To the leader of the shepherds who walks the grey line, to an orphan who survives off thievery....and beyond!
Were Mary and Joseph really alone during the birth? What about all the angels that celebrated in the heavens, what were they up to? Did everything really go down without interference?
If you can think of other possibilities while you read this, this story is for you!
With around 50,000 words in total, our story is not too long, not too short, and branches based on the choice you make for our protagonist. Because of this, the course of his life could have various different outcomes that are linked to one of our heroines!
"You turned the birth of Jesus into a dating sim?!" No, not really. As with any story there can be a romance subplot and our story revolves not just around our poor protagonist but, also women who have positive impacts on his life. After all, those who walk beside you in life can have a great influence on you and help you. Â
We only branch it with multiple heroines because we want his story to be one about possibility, since that is entirely what we strive to do in the rest of the story. It is during these endings which you'll also get a glimpse of more possibilities involving other stories in the gospel narratives.
Unlike other visual novels where there is simple models and maybe a handful of expressions, all our characters take a page from our Dust and Air title and include full expression sets. This means that as the story progresses, you'll notice expressions change with each conversation.
While The Father's Story doesn't have a vocal dub (Yet), we want our characters to seem more real. Thus, we do extra work to provide expressions and we believe it's something that sets our work apart from others.
Is it worth it? You be the judge.
This title was started as a side project so we could test a new engine. During which, the story grew with time and due to the nature of it's content, we're not only going to keep the price affordable but also, keep it at one price as indefinitely as we can.
That isn't to say it may adjust with time but, we want this story to be accessible.
Why don't we make it free? That certainly is a route many other devs take but, how many of them do that with similar word counts? This is not a demo to use to get our name out there. It's a full fledged novel in it's own right. Besides, the laborers are due at least some wages, aren't they?
What about sales? We figure it's low enough where that shouldn't be needed.
Are you really a for profit company? Yes! But, this title is different for us as the author would rather it reach more people than less and frankly, we agree!
We're a small team which contracts out to freelancers. Many of which, have never had their work featured in an actual game title. So, by keeping this affordable so more people see it, it helps them and encourages them to keep growing their talent.
If this story ends up not being for you, then you aren't out much either. However, we hope you will enjoy it and follow our future developments.
