Dungeon of Departure

Trapped in a mysterious cave system, four dungeon explorers struggle to find a way out before the light fades forever...

Dungeon of Departure is an independently developed, pixel art, visual novel set in an original universe. The story follows the silent, player protagonist and three companion characters as they face difficult decisions, strange occurrences, and seek a path forward and out of an increasingly puzzling, underground world.
Choices matter as your decisions can lead you through four unique story paths. Plus, throughout the journey, your fellow explorers will be relying on your way-finding and map-making abilities, which will determine the success or failure of these paths, resulting in eight unique endings. You might need pen and paper.

FEATURES:
Original Soundtrack - over 30 rhythmic, melodic, and atmospheric compositions

Pixel Art - all original animated characters, backgrounds, GUI, and short cut-scenes

Dialogue For Days - over 100,000 words to read across several narrative paths

Voice Acting - all main characters have phenomenal, professional, partially-voiced lines

Save any time, any place

Multiple Endings - at least 8...

Bonus Content - Music Room, Recipe Book, Art Gallery, and Mini-games

ADDITIONAL INFO:
CONTENT WARNING: this game is unrated. While the story features characters in traumatic situations (including injury, death, claustrophobia, and abandonment), there are no graphic or gory depictions or visuals of any kind. This game does not feature any romance or sexual content.

ACCESSIBILITY: this game supports the default Accessibility Options within the Ren'Py game engine. Text-to-speech can be toggled on and off easily, but it is not customizable (every character will have the same default text-to-speech voice that your device offers)

LANGUAGES: the release version of Dungeon of Departure supports English language only in both menus and in-game dialogue. Additional languages are not supported at this time though may be added in the future.

LENGTH: Game length is difficult to measure precisely and depends on your reading speed. Act I takes about 1.5-2 hours to complete. Acts II-V each take about an hour or less. Therefore, a single playthrough to one ending would take about 4-7 hours. Act I and Act II are the same in every playthrough and do not need to be repeated on subsequent playthroughs. Act III contains the first path split, which is clearly denoted in-game. The two unique Act IVs each also have a clearly-denoted path split, leading to a total of four unique Act Vs. In each Act V, you can reach both a successful and an unsuccessful ending, depending on your ability to navigate the cave and/or dungeon. There are at least 8 unique endings. In summary, a full playthrough to see all endings and 100% the game would take anywhere from 12-18 hours.

SPOILER-FREE PLOT INTRODUCTION:
You control an unnamed, silent protagonist from whose perspective the game is presented. You have received a letter from an old friend, Akari, requesting your map-making abilities for an upcoming dungeon exploration. Dungeons are underground living complexes built to house a population during the two-hundred year long warming periods where surface temperatures are too extreme for human survival. Akari is part of an Explorer's Guild, a union of professional cavers and dungeon scholars that oversee all official exploration of unknown dungeons.
You accept the task and travel to Tivanna where you meet Akari and the other four members of the Tivanna Explorer's Guild. After a night of preparation, the guild heads to the dungeon and begins their expedition. You must carefully map out the rooms and passages in the dungeon as described to you by the other members of the guild, who will rely on you to guide them back to the surface, should anything go wrong.
Along the way, your group finds two cavers, Duro and Keiva, who adventured into the dungeon without authorization and became stuck in the darkness. After a series of unfortunate events leaves you trapped in the dungeon, you will be tasked with navigating a mysterious cave system with Akari, Duro, and Keiva as the four of you struggle to find a way back to the surface before the light fades forever.