CHROMATOSE
A VN-RPG with meaningful decisions
CHROMATOSE is a 2D Visual Novel/Roleplay Game with emphasis on meaningful decisions, character relationships, and a compelling overarching story. You've awakened in a strange nightmare after a fall that should have ended your life. Around you are amnesiac strangers who are also trapped in this world for their own unique reasons. Escape the collective nightmare in 12 hours, or never wake up.
OVERVIEW
Game Features
EXPLORE
From a school trapped miles under the sea to a hellish MMA arena, everyone gets their own corner of the nightmare. Travel between worlds to recover memories of each of the characters, aiding their escape. Watch your step -- each world has its own set of rules and nightmarish monsters that reflect the state of mind of their owner.
BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
CHROMATOSE sports a 'colorful' cast of characters, each with their own flaws and virtues. As you bond with them, your relationships will become an interesting advantage in combat-- colored cards that represent the respective virtues and flaws of each character.
ESCAPE ALIVE
The decisions that you make during the story directly influence how you fare in battle. As the game learns about your personality, or as other characters' virtues affect you, you will gain colored cards that each have unique effects against the nightmarish monsters guarding the way out. You will face failure along the way, but take heart -- you can rest to regain mental health, and enemies will not heal between battle attempts. Just be mindful that you only have 12 hours to wake up.
DESTINY BECKONS, LITTLE ONE
The demo alone contains over 2 hours of story-driven gameplay, 30+ original music tracks in the OST, 300+ character portraits, two difficulty settings, and multiple endings. Are you ready to 'get out of your mind'?
FEATURED VIDEO
ABOUT AKABAKA
I am an independent developer who originally created Chromatose as a tabletop campaign for my friends in 2014. After spending so much time with the characters and the world, I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to share the story with anyone else once the campaign ended. As much as I would love to, it would be impossible for me to run this campaign for every single person who was interested, so I figured the best way to present the story publicly would be through a visual novel-like format. Visual novels, however, do not allow players to engage with the characters and world on their own terms as they would be able to in a roleplay experience, and interaction with the story is often limited to few-and-far-between, sometimes trivial, in-text decisions. Drawing inspiration from my all-time favorite game, Catherine (ATLUS), I aimed to tell the story of Chromatose through an immersive visual novel-RPG hybrid loaded with enough gameplay and meaningful decisions to replicate the feeling of me directly interacting with the player. Development formally started on Chromatose in October 2017, and a 3 hour demo was publicly released in October 2018. The game is currently in active development.