Emma: A Lady's Maid - Demo

Emma is the lady's maid to the eldest daughter of the Beresford family, Eveline. With no interest in ladylike persuits, the young lady feigns illness at every opportunity for a ball, soiree, or other social activity.  But Emma is no ordinary maid. So when she and her mistress are sent on a journey in the sky, with balls and soirees that are host to many eligible bachelors, the adventure is only just beginning...

Word Count: ~7000

Single playthrough: 15-45 minutes

Setting

The 19th century.
Victoria is Queen of Anglia.
William Darwin is Prime Minister.

Steam-powered technology has spread across the world like wild-fire, enabling global trade and travel of the grandest scale. Ships travel the skyway with ever more interesting cargo - transglobal goods, contraband, princesses - perfect treasure for sky pirates, many of whom operate without a piracy license. Land transport, on the other hand, is dominated by trains, though the locomobile is slowly gaining traction with forward-thinking gentry and nouveau riche.

Love Interests

Although you only meet the love interests briefly in the demo, there are two in the game: a nobleman and a female scientist. I would also like to include a male pirate, if there is time.

Specialisations

At the start of the story, you can choose a specialisation in three different areas: academics, social graces, and forbidden science. These specialisations unlock additional scenes, solutions, and dialogue options throughout the game. In the demo, you get the opportunity to fully explore a challenging puzzle based on a specialisation.

Choices, Choices

The game features a mixture of VN-style choices and RPG-style choices, where some heavily impact the story, while others just add a bit more flavour to your interactions. For those choices that affect the grand scheme of things, there is a slightly different graphic, so you always know whether your decisions are big or small.

Backgrounds

Only 1 background in the demo, I'm afraid. I am using an image drawn during the era that is now in the public domain - with a couple of photoshop tweaks. I know that doesn't exactly sell the game, but I thought I'd be honest about this. :)

Release Date

This project is not my main project, I'm working on it on-and-off while doing other things, such as Stranded Hearts and work I do for a living. As such it will probably take a while. I hope to commit a lot more time to it in the future, once I've released a few more shorter VNs.