Huh???? I had no idea this was on newgrounds! This is undeniably the best VN i've ever played! I highly reccomen everyone gives this a shot. The story and characters are honestly genera defining, but i'll keep that to myself for spoiler reasons. If that's not enough endorsment i'll say this: this game was so good i bought a copy for three other people, including a total stranger i met on tumblr. I wanted people to experience it and people to talk to about it.
Author Comments
NOTE/UPDATE: Issues with Chromium browsers being unable to run the game are now fixed! If you still happen to run into any issues, however, please know that a free, downloadable version of Episode 1 is also available on Steam and itch!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the free demo to our episodic horror visual novel. There are 7 Episodes planned, of which the first three are currently released. This demo contains the entirety of Episode 1, which takes between an hour and an hour and a half for a single playthrough.
You can export your saves using the Hamburger menu in the top left corner on the screen. If you'd like to continue playing past Episode 1, you can import those exported saves into the full version of the game by dragging those exported files into the "saves" folder of your new install directory from either the Steam or itch purchase.
If you'd like to check out, wishlist, or purchase the early access version of the game, it's currently on Steam and itch. We're not doing any DLC for the main narrative, so a single purchase on either of those pages will get you access to every episode as they release.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visiting the dying Appalachian coal town of Scarlet Hollow for the funeral of your estranged aunt, you find yourself caught in the middle of a deadly mystery rooted in your family's dark past. Who lives, who dies, and the fate of an entire town rests on your shoulders.
Features
A heavily branching narrative. The relationships you forge and the decisions you make will dramatically alter your journey.
Terrifying and funny. Charming characters and snappy dialogue flip to pulse-pounding dread and horror at a moment's notice.
Trait-based dialogue and role-playing. Scarlet Hollow's dialogue system is driven by role-playing elements that let you choose who you want to be. Are you quiet and observant? Hot and clueless? Can you talk to animals? 21 different character builds change how you interact with the world and how your story unfolds.
A dynamic relationship system that reacts to your every choice and changes how your story unfolds. People won't just like or dislike you. Become friendly rivals, bitter adversaries, best friends, or mild acquaintances with everyone in town based on how you approach the story.
No jumpscares. The horror in Scarlet Hollow comes from building tension and dread (and some disturbing imagery).
Original monster designs inspired by Appalachian myths and cryptids. You won't find any predictable vampires or zombies here.
Touching romance. Whether you're into goths, dads, paranormal investigators, mysterious recluses, lo-fi beats to study and water your plants to, or actual monsters, we've got all your bases covered.
Hundreds of meticulously hand-drawn and traditionally inked backgrounds. Every background in the game is drawn by hand and inked on massive 19x24 inch paper.
Countless immersive sprites. Each major character has dozens—and often hundreds—of hand-drawn sprites that interact with backgrounds and capture a full range of lighting, emotion, environment, and outfit changes.
I haven't finished the game, but I'm enjoying the story so far! I wanted to let you know that there seems to be a missing audio file in the diner, I got an error message that the ambient diner sound file couldn't be found.
As the developer noted, Ren'py Web games are not working with the latest version of Chromium browsers; however, there is a workaround: press F12 to open DevTools and leave it open while you play the game.
Crashes after the logo apears but what I saw on the steam page looks good might check it out
blacktabbygames responds:
That's unfortunate to hear, but thanks for letting us know — I did some poking around and it looks like the most recent versions of Chrome (and by extension Microsoft Edge) broke something in our engine, and it's an unfortunate issue for a lot of games!
Other browsers should work, though — Firefox doesn't have any problems, nor does the version of Safari I'm using. I'll add a note to the top of the store description letting folks know! (And Episode 1 is *also* free on Steam if you'd rather try it there!)