A visual novel · 10–15 minutes
Thornwall
A village that hasn't slept in weeks. A stranger who listens. A light in the forest that nobody will go near.
- Genre
- Dark-fantasy visual novel
- Length
- 10–15 minutes
- Endings
- Three
- Platforms
- Windows · Linux
- Engine
- Godot 4.6
- Status
- Built, not yet released
Art, music and sound were generated on our own machine and chosen by a person; the code was written with AI assistance. The full list.
The story
No one in Thornwall remembers what they forgot.
You are a traveller, hooded and unnamed, passing through a small medieval village. The market is half empty. The caravans have stopped coming. Everyone looks like they haven't slept, because they haven't.
Talk to the people who are left. Each of them knows a piece of it: a rumour, an old book, a light seen from the tree line. Put the pieces together and they lead to a chapel at the forest's edge, and to something that has been waiting there a very long time.
There's no combat. Just listening, and one choice at the end. Three endings. None of them free.
Places
Four places. One road out.
-
The village square
Where Elder Maren meets you, and asks for help she can't quite explain.
-
The tavern
Bram hears everything. He drinks so he won't have to dream.
-
The forest path
Wynn works its edge every day, and won't walk it after dark.
-
The old chapel
Where the story ends, one of three ways.
People
Who's still awake.
Everyone in Thornwall knows part of the story. Nobody knows all of it.
The Traveller
You
Silent, hooded, passing through. You listen, and you choose.
Elder Maren
The village elder
Has led Thornwall for decades. Lately her memory has started to slip.
Bram
The barkeep
Runs the only tavern. Knows more than he lets on.
Sable
The merchant
Came with a caravan years ago and stayed. Keeps the old books nobody else reads.
Wynn
The woodcutter
Strong enough for anything but the thing he saw in the trees.
The Shade
In the chapel
You'll know when you meet it.
How Thornwall was made
What was generated, and what wasn't.
We'd rather tell you than have you find out. Every game we make gets a list like this. Why we do it.
| Part | Made by | How |
|---|---|---|
| Design and direction | Person | What the game is, what goes in, what gets cut, and when it's done. |
| Story and dialogue | Pending | Being confirmed. This line will be filled in before Thornwall is released. |
| Backgrounds and portraits | Model | Generated with open-weight image models on our own workstation, from a written brief for each image. A person chose which to keep. |
| Music | Model | Generated on our workstation with MusicGen. A person chose which to keep. |
| Sound effects | Model | Generated on our workstation with AudioGen. A person chose which to keep. |
| Code | Person + model | Written with an AI coding assistant, directed and reviewed by a person, in Godot 4.6. |
Thornwall is built. It isn't out yet.
The Windows and Linux builds are done. When it's released, the link goes right here.