DownRight Fierce

A visual novel about fighting game gals finding themselves, losing themselves, and finding themselves again.

The current version of this project contains some harsh language, but that's about it in terms of warnings for now. The planned story will include more mature scenes, descriptions of violence, and darker themes that would probably put it in an 'Rated M' kind of territory.

The slice-of-life shenanigans of visual novels like Butterfly Soup and Doki Doki Literature Club meet the quirky, power-infused worlds of fighting games like Street Fighter and Rival Schools in this character driven visual novel. Designed to feel like the fully fleshed out backstory of a small fighting game roster, DownRight Fierce will have players riding shotgun with protagonist Nishiko Shimomura as they are shipped off to a private school after acting out one too many times by abusing their latent Street Fighter -esque powers. Nishiko will have to navigate relationships in Windy Pines Academy, a strict boarding school designed to train those who are able to wield Ki-Flow, the ability to manifest one's own soul and spirit energy into physical form.

Make choices that will influence Nishiko's personal growth, from physical attributes to friendships and, if you're lucky, perhaps some sweethearting on the side. The choices you make will alter Nishiko's abilities, affecting how they perform later on in fighting scenes, as well as unlocking or locking dialogue options at various points. Think of this like a TellTale/Life is Strange styled game with a primary narrative but branching side scenes and various alternate moments -- much less flashy presentation but a lot more variables and variation in things that can happen during scenes.

I personally do not think a character's identity or sexuality should inherently be considered a 'spoiler,' but I can respect wanting to discover these characters' identities yourself in-universe. So for now, what I will make clear is that this is a queer, LGBT+ story, featuring characters of various ethnicities and identities.

I created this story concept and its main characters in 2014, and the release of Butterfly Soup inspired me to start adapting it and rebooting it as a visual novel. I've been working on it sporadically since January 2020, and this is the first public release of my progress so far. As of this build (January 31, 2023) I've managed to edit the Prologue through to much of Chapter 2. I'll leave what I have past that present in this build, and intend to do a follow-up update in February or March to bring things up to the end of Chapter 3 before progressing further into the game's development using feedback I get from this public build.

Seeing as this is a total work-in-progress, please excuse placeholder items, especially backgrounds and some sound effects. The sound balance probably needs a lot of fine-tuning as well, given the OST contains a lot of more intense music and the voicework so far is mostly brief barks, 'hm' and 'oh' and that kind of thing. I'm sharing my work so far in the hopes of getting feedback and support from those who may connect with this project.

If you'd like to see behind-the-scenes progress on what I'm working on with this or any other project, and/or support my ability to commission assets for this game, please check out the Patreon.

You can also donate a one-time thing at Ko-Fi. All money received through Patreon and Ko-Fi goes directly into creating art/music/etc. for this game! Thank you for your support!

You can follow this project on Twitter @DRF_Game, and me personally @D3stiny_Sm4sher. DM me there for contact, comment on this Itchio page, or e-mail me at DownRightFierceGame@gmail.com.

Character/Sprite art is being commissioned from my friend Hayley Bloomfield, aka 'Sakura-Rose12.' @sakura_rose12 The current project logo is by Shannon Ehrola.

The Voice Actors cast so far:

Julie Park; @julieparkvo - Nishiko Shimomura
Krystal Martinez; @CaptainLadyLuck - Marisol Vargas
Erica Chiem; @aivyeri - Seiko Mitsuda
Shakyra Dunn; @shakyradunn - Kayla Okoro

Music so far provided by:

Andrew 'zircon' Aversa; zirconmusic.com
Chris 'DaSkruff; http://daskruff.bandcamp.com/music
VDYO; @VDYOmusic
Christophe 'CarboHydroM'; carbohydromusic.com
(CarboHydroM composed the original theme song)
Bulby; youtube.com/c/Bulby
AlyxGMusic; alyxgmusic.com
As well as a royalty free song from Jeremy Blake ('Powerup')

CG of Keiji used in the Prologue drawn by: @Froggiethey

Photo used for the background of the banner by Pascal Meier.

Text effects possible thanks to this amazing package by Wattson:
https://wattson.itch.io/kinetic-text-tags

Extra tips I picked up from this handy YouTube Channel, Visual Novel Design:
https://www.youtube.com/@vimi

Full credits for sound effects, fonts, and backgrounds provided in the download's ReadMe file.

This link will be provided in dialogue at the cutoff point where my editing has stopped, but you can access a quick survey to give me easy feedback here!
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/89G28CB

Known issues:

-The placeholder title screen lacks a 'Quit' option. You can quit the game at any time from the side menu when pressing [Right Click.] The option is on the bottom of the list. If you're on the main menu, go to settings, and 'Quit' will be on the list on the left.

-While I've tried my best to weed out any bugs or errors, there may be odd instances of sprite parts popping out of existence, or spawning in incorrect locations.

-Sound has NOT been mixed much, so apologies for any potential imbalances. Feel free to let me know about any specific things that seem especially egregious.

-If you run into a situation where the entire game crashes, try reloading, rewinding, and picking a different option for now, but please feel free to let me know if you find any instance of this I've managed to miss. I have quick tested full run throughs just to make sure it's possible to clear through things but there could be choice-specific variables I've missed so far.

-Currently, there is not a Linux version due to the time it takes to build/upload, but if someone requests one, I'll build it and upload it for you, just ask!