Best Wishes

Best Wishes is a romance-adventure visual novel about a young, hot-blooded elf attempting to get her crush a present in the wake of his oncoming birthday. Unfortunately, Kree is an idiot, so this may (definitely) be far, far harder than she expected it to be.

This game is a demo with numerous placeholder assets created for NaNoRenO-17. It is, by no means, a finished project.

The WIP thread on Lemmasoft by clicking here!

View art and progress posts at the devblog by clicking here!

Synopsis

In the mountainous nation of Fyrholde, strength is respected above all else, and no pursuit is held in more esteem than that of glorious battle. The long nights and brutal winters foster close-knit communities, and such is true of Astrid's Oathbound, a unit of warriors who share a feasting hall affectionately known as the Attyrhus. Their work is, on the whole, simple - Fyrholde is filled with threats ranging from dragons to petty bandits, and for a fee, Astrid's Oathbound will... eliminate problems. Violently.

It's not a glamorous life, or a particularly easy one, but they all seem happy enough.

Of course, not every day can involve conquering a beastly foe, though today certainly feels like that for Kree, a young elf from the southern Sylphlands who has, through mysterious circumstances, come to make Attyrhus her home.

Kree is good at many things. Screaming a lot! Brewing potions! Punching bears! But when she learns that tomorrow is the birthday of the man she's secretly in love with, Kree finds herself honor bound to acquire a present and celebrate his existence in the Fyrish tradition... which is something that's much more easily said than done, given that Kree's skillset basically ends at scholastic dismemberment.

Not that she'd ever let that stop her. Kree is, if nothing else, determined, which may very well land in more trouble than she bargained for.

Characters

Kree

Our delightful protagonist. She very obviously is foreign to Fyrholde, but she refuses to be shamed about anything regarding her character and prefers punching things to talking about the odd circumstances that landed her there in the first place. She squanders away her profound wizardly talent by using it to make herself really, really good at fistfights, and while most people see this as cheating, it's hard to chastise someone who's punched out a bear. She's very desperately in love with Folke, and considers him a dear friend. It doesn't matter if her affections are forever unrequited. Seeing him happy is all she can really ask for in life.

Underneath her brash exterior, she's a very inquisitive, thoughtful, curious person.

Folke

The birthday boy! Well, almost. Folke is Attyrhus' blacksmith, though he's insecure about his abilities, seeing himself as a meager replacement for his fabulously talented (but ultimately deadbeat) dad. Not that he'd let that show! He's the pinnacle of reliability and he's fabulously kind, which is a good part of the reason Kree has fallen head-over-heels for him. It helps that he's remarkably patient and lets her babble about whatever latest curiosity has taken her fancy.

He doesn't particularly care much that it's his birthday tomorrow. Kree takes this to mean that she needs to go 200% in caring for him.

Briar

Briar was born in the south, explaining the comparative strangeness of her name. She's a ward of Ranveig, the honorary leader of Astrid's Oathbound, who came into his company after a traumatic incident that left her sans a pair of hands. She's since acquired a pair of replacements constructed from salvaged dwarven technology, magic, and medieval hot-glue, which she has used to become very, very good at making sure nothing ever gets near her hands again.

Vis a vis stabbing.

Her most notable traits are her even temper and regal demeanor. Briar looks the part of a holy paladin, and boy howdy, does she hate the forces of darkness. While Kree doesn't care much one way or another about demons, zombies, and necromancers, she thinks Briar is pretty gosh-darn cool and will gladly follow her into battle. Today, she's going on a trip to a dwarven ruin to find replacement parts for her hands. This may or may not get bungled up by Kree.

Ulfr

Succinctly put, Ulfr is a jerk. A big, massive, I don't like you because you're different from me jerk. He and Kree have a very tense relationship that started when his first words to her were an insult about her height, and her response involved punching him in the face. He's also one of those 'charge in and think later' types, which should endear Kree to him at least a little bit, but he also seems to think books are the work of the devil so, y'know.

Not really on great terms with the local wizard, even though Kree isn't a particularly... austere one.

He can, occasionally, be kind of nice, particularly when it comes to Folke, a man he holds in pretty high regard. That might be why he's amenable to the idea of helping Kree pick out a present in keeping with Fyrish tradition. Whether or not Kree accepts, and whether or not they can refrain from trying to kill each other for two seconds is... up in the air.