The New Universes: ~ Eine Neue Reise Beginnt ~ Chapter 1

[h1] <-- Review writen for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35180752/] 3 Point Play [/url] --> [/h1] I'll take the chance to write the first ever review for this visual novel, and now, do keep in mind this is an early access title, and this review will probably be tagged as an early access one. So, what do we have here? Basically, this visual novel, or actually, a kinetic one right now, since there aren't any choices available as of this date (11/23/2019) deals with a couple of characters amidst a war-torn universe, in the far future. The entire content is 30 minutes long, and it is mostly about the relationship those two characters share; I have to say, again, that this is early access and very uncomplete as of the date of this review, there are many things you'll notice right away if you buy and play that are clear indicators of this: *Missing backgrounds and character sprites and expressions for the ones available. *Variable debugging texts in the options screen. *Many typos and overall grammatical convention errors. *A misplaced sprite just in the beginning of the story. UPDATE: Many of this things have been fixed! HOWEVER, there's something really special going on behind the scenes of this particular product. There are a lot of things I could talk about the actual product, but once again, being this an early access title, and being in a really early stage of development, it wouldn't make any sense doing this. Let's talk about this thing I mentioned instead, and for that matter, we'll also be able to position ourselves in where does this visual novel happen and how could we actually form part of it. So, for starters, this VN is an adaptation of a set of stories in The New Universes setting. What is The New Universes, then? Well, at first glance, there's no way to know. However, I came across the devs' and community Discord and joined. Even had the chance to speak with one of the devs and who seems to be the lead writer in the small team working on it. He said that The New Universes started as a sort of tabletop RPG, and said cosmogony is "loosely based on Star Trek", it is a space opera. Another one of the members of the community added that it was "kinda like the MCU (Marvel movies) which features a main plot, and smaller stories sprinkled in", so, now that's clear, let's delve into the community and said main plot a bit. You can check out a summary of the story here (keep in mind it has some spoilers): https://tnu.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Listing_(2018) The community expands the lore and the plot, and adds such "smaller stories" as the members create them. The concept is an evolving one. You can even have your own character in the story. In order to do this, you must create a character bio, and add it to their site, this will be reviewed by one of the game masters, and if it matches with the universe, it will be added to the story, where you can further develop your character or add to the story as long as you follow a certain set of rules for it to stay relevant to the setting and main story developments. Think of it like the SCP Fundation, but in space. If you want to try your hand at creating a character and helping them develop the story, you can do so in the Discord or in this link: players.tnuproject.net I for one, think it's a really neat idea, and while this VN is a side project, the concept of a dynamic universe that changes based on a writer community's input is something that drew my attention. They're looking for new members, and you could even be part of future installments, and for that matter, if you like Sci-Fi and the possibilities it could give you as a writer, this could probably interest you. As a conclussion, I have to tell you that this is a passion project, and you can look forward to something interesting; the story for this here, Chapter 1 of the series, has been already writen and they're working on the art assets to turn it into a finished product. Keep in mind they expect for this project to be on early access for a year at least. I believe this is a nice use of the Early Access System, since it was initially designed for devs to interact with their communities in order to shape the destiny of the games they made, and by doing this, getting the outcome of a really polished game with features the players actually want. This is a really nice opportunity for you to get into an universe where you too can participate and leave your mark among the stars, and thus I recommend you check them out, and support this project if possible, as it will surely have a lot of success.