YOUR AFFECTION — Character Showcase
Hey everyone!
A while ago, I made a post presenting an early version of my visual novel Your Affection. Since then, the game has changed quite a lot: character names were changed, some characters were removed, several story elements were rewritten, and the characters themselves have evolved a lot.
So I wanted to present the current cast and their personalities.
I’ve also finished their character designs, so I figured this was a good time to finally show them properly.
Minor spoilers for the characters’ arcs below. Nothing that explains the main twist.
Violet Brody — 18 (the blonde one)
Violet is Kennedy’s best friend and one of the most socially adaptable people in the group.
She can be energetic, calm, affectionate, sarcastic, serious, or just completely stupid depending on the situation. She’s the kind of person who can make two people who would normally never hang out end up spending an afternoon together.
She genuinely loves her friends and is especially close to Kennedy.
However, she has feelings for him that go beyond friendship.
One thing I really wanted for Violet is that she isn’t secretly miserable behind her cheerful personality. She genuinely enjoys being around people and has always been loved by those around her.
After the main turning point of the story, Violet obviously cannot simply remain the same person she was before.
“She’s the person everyone wants around… which makes what happens to her even more painful.”
Jane de la Vida — 18 (bottom left one)
Jane is probably the most difficult person in the group to get close to.
She’s sarcastic, proud, competitive and has a huge ego. She hates being wrong, hates being pitied, and absolutely hates showing vulnerability.
She also has a pretty strong passion for darker things, especially horror and emo music.
But her confidence isn’t completely fake. Jane really is talented and confident in some areas. Her problem is that when something genuinely matters to her, failure becomes much harder for her to accept.
She plays violin, something that originally started as a way for her to deal with her anger when she was younger.
After the main event, her personality changes in a pretty important way.
She becomes much more openly defensive and angry, while desperately trying to pretend that everything is normal.
Her arc is heavily connected to denial.
“If I admit what happened, everything changes.”
Maddison Ericksen — 18 (the redhead)
Maddison is basically the human equivalent of sunshine.
She’s warm, affectionate, sociable and extremely easy to approach. She likes bringing people together and is one of the main reasons the group feels like an actual group rather than six characters standing next to each other.
But I don’t want her kindness to mean that she is incapable of anger or resentment.
Maddison can get genuinely angry when someone hurts her friends.
She also has a strong tendency to question herself morally.
“Am I actually a good person?”
She can forgive people, but forgiveness doesn’t mean immediately forgetting what they did but what happens when the person to forgive is herself ?
After the main event, this part of her personality becomes much more important.
Her desire to understand, forgive and do the right thing starts conflicting with the horrible reality she has to deal with.
“Being kind doesn’t mean you never get angry.”
Leone Rockfield — 18 (the blue haired one)
Leone is probably the most nonchalant member of the group.
She sleeps constantly, has an absolutely destroyed sleep schedule, and can look like she couldn’t care less about anything.
She’s also elegant, cultured and surprisingly perfectionistic.
The funny thing about Leone is that her laziness usually wins against her perfectionism.
She can be incredibly capable, but if something doesn’t interest her enough, she simply won’t bother.
She also loves photography despite being… honestly, pretty bad at it.
She’ll take a terrible photo, look at it, smile and decide it’s perfect anyway.
After the main event, however, something changes.
Her old perfectionism comes back in a much darker way.
She becomes extremely protective of Kennedy and starts believing that she needs to anticipate every possible problem before it happens, her mental health is degrading in front of you and the protagonist.
She wants to protect him perfectly.
And that becomes increasingly unhealthy.
“If I don’t take care of him, who will?”
Kennedy “Kenny” Myers — 18 (do I really have to tell you?)
And finally, the protagonist.
Kenny is probably the most ordinary person in the cast.
He isn’t secretly a genius, he doesn’t have some dramatic childhood, and he isn’t the mysterious guy with a dark past.
He’s just… Kenny.
He’s shy, easily stressed, tends to overthink things and often mentally rehearses conversations before actually having them.
He’s also a bit of a jack-of-all-trades because he spent a lot of time trying different hobbies and interests in an attempt to become more confident and interesting to other people.
He’s more comfortable around people he knows well and can actually be pretty funny when he’s relaxed.
After the main event, however, Kenny changes more than anyone.
The timid guy from the beginning gradually becomes increasingly paranoid and angry.
And eventually, the player starts having more and more control over what he says.
The interesting part is that Kenny himself starts to feel like someone else is making him say these things.
He doesn’t understand what that means.
He just knows that something feels wrong.
“Why did you make me say that?”
About the game
Your Affection is a narrative visual novel that starts as a fairly conventional story about friendship, romance and everyday life.
But the story eventually takes a much darker turn.
The main themes I’m exploring are:
guilt
grief
denial
paranoia
friendship
consequences
loss of control
and the idea that the player might not be as separate from the protagonist as they think.
I don’t want the game to simply be a horror game. The main goal is more discomfort, pressure and psychological tension rather than constant fear.
This is also a project where I’m experimenting a lot with how much control the player should actually have over a protagonist who already has a personality of his own.
I’ve already finished the current character designs, so this is the first time I’m presenting these characters in their current form rather than the old version of the project.
I’d love to know:
Which character immediately catches your attention based on their design/personality?
And if you’ve seen my previous post about the game: this is basically the version I’m actually building now.