Sanguine Rose (Alpha 1.0.2 now public) [26/09/17]

[DuskyHallows]

Update Log:
January Update: Sanguine Rose is now made in Renpy and in full HD
December Update: Crow Tavern Scene is now public.
September Update: Alpha 1.0.2 is now public.
August Update: Alpha 1.0.0 is now public.
July Update: PreAlpha 0.41 is now public.
June Update: PreAlpha 0.2 is now public.
May Update: Crow Concept Scene is now publically released.

Hello everyone, we are Dusky Hallows, the two person team developing Sanguine Rose. Sanguine Rose is an adult visual novel set in a fantasy medieval world. We're focusing on making every decision gratifying. Your choices won't affect whether you get access to sexual content, your choices will determine the themes of sexual content you encounter. Will you be dominating or dominated? A voyeur or an exhibitionist? That's entirely up to the choices you make, but be warned, you'll still have to choose your words carefully.

You play as Roman, a mercenary tasked with the capture and safe delivery of High General Carmen Valentine. Together with your team - Glasha, Crow, and Markus - you have so far succeeded in kidnapping the notorious general, and bringing her to the village of Whitewood, where your employer would be waiting to collect her. However, your employer is nowhere to be found. Stranded in enemy territory it is now your job to decide what to do, but time is ticking and Carmen will do whatever it takes to escape.

We currently have two (edit: Three) concept demos available to play on our blog. Concept demo 2, aka 'Dinner with Carmen', is the one you want to play for a taste of NSFW content. Concept demo 1 we recommend if you want to see more back and forth dialogue between Carmen and Roman. We are currently developing an alpha version of the game which will be released to our patrons first. If you would like sneak previews of upcoming content and extended lore, as well as early access and polled input on content to include, consider pledging to our Patreon. The game will be released publicly at a later date though.

We also have a working PreAlpha on our blog as of June 2017. Check it out, it will be updated roughly every month (one month behind our patrons).

There's a lot of information on our blog about the world and the characters, so if you're curious please check it out. We're also happy to answer any questions here.

Spoiler: What fetishes?

• Domination (maledom and femdom)
• Submission (malesub and femsub)
• Mild Violence
• Group Sex
• Voyeurism
• Exhibitionism
• Humiliation
• Orgasm Denial
• Monster Girls/Guys (Orcs)
• Prostitution
• Questionable Consent
• Free Use
• Cuckolding (maybe)
• Taking Suggestions

 

[Darkfirephoenix]

Now let's start with the most important question:
What fetishes?

 

[DuskyHallows]

Now let's start with the most important question:
What fetishes?

Ha! We should have seen that one coming.

There's a huge focus on domination and submission, including femdom, and planned scenes involving orgasm denial and somewhat violent group sex. There's also elements of voyeurism and exhibitionism and humiliation. We'll have the classics: Oral, anal, and DP. Glasha and Crow are both orcs (well, mixed race) so that's borderline monster girls. Prostitution, questionable consent, free use, and maybe a little cuckolding. There's a lot of fetishes we're open to including if there's demand for them and it fits within the story, and the multiple route nature of the story makes adding new kinks and fetishes perfectly doable.

For pairings it's mostly MF, MFF, MMF, FF, but if there was demand we could write in MM or some larger combinations. We've strayed away from Dickgirls so far and I don't really see that changing but then again, if there was a large enough demand we'd look into it.

 

[Miscellaneous Forum Viewer]

Gotta say, I'm quite fond of the concept of what's shown here. Although, I'm not into cuckolding, I am curious as to if the player would have the opportunity to be the "bull" or "stud" rather than the cuckold.

Also, any plans of other types of monster folks?

 

[DuskyHallows]

Gotta say, I'm quite fond of the concept of what's shown here. Although, I'm not into cuckolding, I am curious as to if the player would have the opportunity to be the "bull" or "stud" rather than the cuckold.

Also, any plans of other types of monster folks?

Well we haven't planned any cuckold scenes, but we've talked about a scene where you can interrupt two other characters fucking and take over. I suppose that would be being the Bull rather than cuckold. The goal is to make roman as dominating or submissive as you want him to be, which means we normally write scenes to go both ways. For example, the concept demo has two main branches, one in which you receive oral from Carmen and one in which you eat Carmen out.

We don't have plans for any other monsters, but orcs in Sanguine Rose fall on a scale from basically feral to basically human. Glasha and Crow are both mixed race, Crow is less than 50% orc while Glasha is more like 80%. Pureblood orcs tend to be violent and solitary and are a bit more beast like, still humanoid though.

If there was a lot of demand for other monsters though we could consider it. We have a map of the world and we've deliberately not fleshed out the eastern regions so we can introduce new elements there if we want to.

 

[Nephilim_Anunnaki]

I saw this one at another site and for what I saw looks rad.

 

[buffmuffin]

Awww man... With that name and the art, i was hoping for vampire theme...

 

[DuskyHallows]

Awww man... With that name and the art, i was hoping for vampire theme...

Not quite vampire, but there are a lot of gothic themes, especially surrounding Carmen. In the long run, if Sanguine Rose gets popular, we might experiment with comics featuring the characters in alternate settings. Vampire Carmen sounds like a fun idea, maybe next Halloween we'll get to see.

 

[Miscellaneous Forum Viewer]

Well we haven't planned any cuckold scenes, but we've talked about a scene where you can interrupt two other characters fucking and take over. I suppose that would be being the Bull rather than cuckold. The goal is to make roman as dominating or submissive as you want him to be, which means we normally write scenes to go both ways. For example, the concept demo has two main branches, one in which you receive oral from Carmen and one in which you eat Carmen out.

That scenario sounds a bit more like a devil's threesome or something. Unless you mean Roman would basically make the dude leave/watch, or the dude's girl would make him do that. I like the idea of being able to play as dominant as I want, but I'm also a bit curious as to what that would entail. Many games that offer the player a chance to be dominant end up having the PC basically rape or abuse his partner, which I'm not a big fan of personally, so how do y'all intend to play it out here? Is Dominant Roman gonna abuse his partners or are they gonna be into it as he takes control?

 

[DuskyHallows]

That scenario sounds a bit more like a devil's threesome or something. Unless you mean Roman would basically make the dude leave/watch, or the dude's girl would make him do that. I like the idea of being able to play as dominant as I want, but I'm also a bit curious as to what that would entail. Many games that offer the player a chance to be dominant end up having the PC basically rape or abuse his partner, which I'm not a big fan of personally, so how do y'all intend to play it out here? Is Dominant Roman gonna abuse his partners or are they gonna be into it as he takes control?

These are great questions, thanks. Whether a situation like that becomes a threesome, or forcing one of the characters to watch, or anything else, really depends on the choices made by the player. For example, if you walked in on Markus fucking Carmen and he fears/respects you, then he might step aside willingly as if to offer her to you. If you're on more friendly terms he might invite you to join him. Or he might be unwilling, but has no choice because Carmen begs you to join in or take over. All these options won't be available straight away, but we plan to build more possible routes and scenarios into the game throughout the releases.

We're firm believers that domination is not the same as rape/abuse. We've planned and penned scenes with questionable consent, but nothing as of yet that is outright rape, and unless there is demand for something like that we probably won't make one. Carmen is our key illustration of how domination works within SR. She's a hedonist and prefers to dominate others, so much so she'll fuck her officers by the dozen when the mood takes her, but she likes to be dominated too. She's picky though. If you make idle threats or insult her she'll laugh at you and goade you into attacking her. Try to strike her and she'll best you with military experience and humiliate you. To dominate Carmen you have to be cunning and show her that serving you will serve her own interests, while going against you will be unpleasant. She'll only submit to you if she enjoys the thought, and she'll only enjoy the thought if you appear to be in control. Alternatively you can 'dominate' Carmen by being reluctant. She'll try to corrupt you by being direct and subservient, but once she's in your head she'll try to turn the tables and dominate you instead. Beat her at her own game and she'll respect you.

Basically, if you dominate right, your partner will want you to dominate them. There may be some verbal and physical abuse, but both parties will enjoy it in almost all cases. Smut should be fun!

 

[Kirie]

I know it's a mouthful to say something like that, but I think I'm in love with the artstyle.

I did intend to ask if there will be a lot of locations and whether there will be any kind of interaction with the queen. But after seeing the update on the blog, no need to ask that kind of questions anymore.

P.S. Three days is a short timeline to see all that the game and the developers can offer. I have this feeling that it's a bit early to ask about it, but how many playthroughs would it take to open all of the content?

 

[DuskyHallows]

I know it's a mouthful to say something like that, but I think I'm in love with the artstyle.

I did intend to ask if there will be a lot of locations and whether there will be any kind of interaction with the queen. But after seeing the update on the blog, no need to ask that kind of questions anymore.

P.S. Three days is a short timeline to see all that the game and the developers can offer. I have this feeling that it's a bit early to ask about it, but how many playthroughs would it take to open all of the content?

Have you had a look at Duski's Hentai Foundry account? She has some additional art there if you want to see more from her (this is Hallows typing right now btw). I too am in love with her art.

Also your questions are still relevant. Depending on how well the three days go, we plan to expand the story beyond that. Our initial plan was to continue following Roman down the various ending paths, but we've also considered having a second game take place with Carmen as a playable character, which would doubtlessly feature the Queen. After countless conversations, we've decided to just focus on the three days and build upon them in whichever direction our fans want us to. Which kind of takes us to your playthrough question. The alpha we are currently working on is a fairly barebones idea of what day one will look like, then we're going to work on expanding the game's length and it's width (insert obvious dick joke here). We've never really put a word to it, but you could think of the different routes as hard routes and soft routes. Hard routes are ones where totally different events take place, while soft routes are mostly dialogue changes and sometimes showing the same images slightly altered or in a different order. To use the second concept demo as an example, there are only two hard routes (giving oral or receiving oral) but there are 4 binary choices given to the player, which totals 16 different soft routes to play through if you want to encounter every single piece of dialogue. Soft routes can change the tone of a scene from Roman dominating Carmen to Carmen seducing Roman, but the actual artwork doesn't change much. So it's difficult to say how many playthroughs it will take to open up all of the content. If you just want the content then the alpha will be between six and ten hard routes to see every picture, it's difficult to pin an exact number on it. Soft routes I'm not even comfortable guessing.

And then once the alpha is out there may be a demand to include additional options in certain scenes, which could increase the number of hard routes even more...

So yeah, instead of making a six hour long game with five and a half hours of grinding and then some sexy pictures at the end (which is kind of typical of visual novels), we're going for a very short game with loads of replayability and content scattered throughout.

 

[DuskyHallows]

Awww man... With that name and the art, i was hoping for vampire theme...

Hey, just thought you might like to know Duski drew a vampire Carmen sketch

 

[Miscellaneous Forum Viewer]

Generally, I think vampires and the fetishism surrounding them is overdone. But that's a real nice drawing.

 

[DuskyHallows]

Hello again! We've just released the Crow Concept Scene (formally patron only) to the public. Click Here to play it on our blogspot in browser.

 

[d51312]

Can I put in a vote for some m/m content?

 

[DuskyHallows]

Can I put in a vote for some m/m content?

Of course you can!

We don't currently have any m/m scenes planned, but if there's demand then it's always a possibility. We would like to expand the Sanguine Rose world in other ways besides the game also, so there's lots of room for us to introduce characters and content that we don't plan on including at the moment. Roman is straight, but Markus... If and when we introduce more characters to the cast we could do something there.

 

[kinky_borg]

how I never see this before. Your art is amazing. thanks for including a spoiler tag for fetishes.

 

[DuskyHallows]

Hello everyone!

Sanguine Rose PreAlpha 0.2 is now public, you can play it in browser on our blog by clicking the link in this post, or at the top of the page.

 

[IvoryOwl]

Hello everyone!

Sanguine Rose PreAlpha 0.2 is now public, you can play it in browser on our blog by clicking the link in this post, or at the top of the page.

Not sure if its intentional but right now its unplayable. The intro scene keeps getting stuck at random locations, first it was the window now its the fireplace panorama... I've already refreshed the page three times but nothing seems to work.

 

[Vasin]

I'll second a little M/M content.

You've mentioned how domination is going to look, but how about the other side of the coin? What happens if you let yourself be dominated? Judging by the reply, it might just be the other perspective, but I'd still love to hear what you say about it.

 

[Jash]

Very interesting. Not all the content appeals to me, but a lot of it does (Crow is quite the cutest little thing I've seen in a long time), your art is fantastic and your style is unique among all the interchangeable Ren'Py games. Actually I've been keeping a quiet eye on your game for a while now. It's certainly a unique way of development, offering vertical slices as mini-demos to catch interest rather than just a short run from the beginning (as you just released now).

Personally, I'm not interested in M/M, at least not between Roman and Markus. I'm bi, but gynephiliac and Markus (despite being called a "prettyboy") isn't feminine enough for my tastes. However I can see how other people would like him, so don't count negative votes against your decision, as long as it's optional (which I presume everything is anyway).

 

[DuskyHallows]

Not sure if its intentional but right now its unplayable. The intro scene keeps getting stuck at random locations, first it was the window now its the fireplace panorama... I've already refreshed the page three times but nothing seems to work.

This was an uncommon bug during 0.2 and has been fixed in the latest build. We still don't know the exact cause of the bug as it will run dozens of times without any errors and then once or twice with an error.

We've managed to bypass the error since, but we must not have placed the fix in the public release for 0.2, I'll have a look and reupload later today.

I'll second a little M/M content.

You've mentioned how domination is going to look, but how about the other side of the coin? What happens if you let yourself be dominated? Judging by the reply, it might just be the other perspective, but I'd still love to hear what you say about it.

For M/M content, Duski has plenty of ideas, so we'll probably make a post about that in the future.

Domination and submission are core to Sanguine Rose. If anything the majority of routes will involve some form of submission on the part of Roman, because Carmen is such a dominating and manipulative character. In the PreAlpha, when you take a shift watching Carmen she will attempt to tell one of two stories about her past: one in which she is dominates, and another where she is submissive. During both of these scenes she teases Roman, and both routes have endings with Carmen either physically or psychologically beating Roman.

This theme will continue throughout day two and day three of the game. If Roman and Carmen continue to try and dominate each other, either one will break or there will be some intense hate fucking. The player will always have the option of yielding control to Carmen though, in which case she'll become more and more commanding towards the player. For a taste of this, stay in the room with Carmen and ask her what she would do if you were her prisoner. It's fairly tame for now, but will get more intense in days 2 and 3.

Very interesting. Not all the content appeals to me, but a lot of it does (Crow is quite the cutest little thing I've seen in a long time), your art is fantastic and your style is unique among all the interchangeable Ren'Py games. Actually I've been keeping a quiet eye on your game for a while now. It's certainly a unique way of development, offering vertical slices as mini-demos to catch interest rather than just a short run from the beginning (as you just released now).

Personally, I'm not interested in M/M, at least not between Roman and Markus. I'm bi, but gynephiliac and Markus (despite being called a "prettyboy") isn't feminine enough for my tastes. However I can see how other people would like him, so don't count negative votes against your decision, as long as it's optional (which I presume everything is anyway).

Thanks for the kind words! We want to keep as much content as possible optional because we know not everything is for everyone. M/M is tricky because there's only one possible pairing at the moment and Roman/Markus doesn't really appeal much to us either (but hey, if the fans disagree then maybe we'll go there). Most likely we'll introduce M/M in flashbacks with Carmen, new characters, and additional content in the Sanguine Rose world (comics and/or a follow up game).

We may even publish "vertical slices" as you put it which don't fit into the game at all: Like Markus or a new male character in a totally different place with M/M content, or a scene from Carmen or Crow's perspective.

 

[DuskyHallows]

Hey everyone! We've released 0.41 to play in browser or download via our blog. Click Here to play!

 

[Jash]

You know, it really began to occur to me that this little band of mercenaries are genuinely too dumb to live. I mean, they talk about Carmen as if she's a live bomb, as if she's a highly-dangerous, clever and manipulative opponent who could kill them if they show the slightest moments' weakness... and then they don't even keep her tied up, play games with her (that SHE'S the one to suggest) and Roman in particular lets her take RIDICULOUS physical liberties with him. Unless it turns out that her voice has subtle hypnotic properties, I have to wonder how this idiot managed to avoid being killed YEARS ago. I mean sure, if you CHOOSE the stupidest options available that's one thing, but even if you give her the full "shut the fuck up or I'll punish you" shut down treatment at the start she STILL carries on with her story and you seem practically impotent to stop her. It frankly breaks suspension of disbelief. I mean yeah, interacting with her is pretty much most of the point of the entire game (although frankly I'd sooner just fuck Crow), but there seems to be no way to do it that isn't on her terms.

 

[DuskyHallows]

You know, it really began to occur to me that this little band of mercenaries are genuinely too dumb to live. I mean, they talk about Carmen as if she's a live bomb, as if she's a highly-dangerous, clever and manipulative opponent who could kill them if they show the slightest moments' weakness... and then they don't even keep her tied up, play games with her (that SHE'S the one to suggest) and Roman in particular lets her take RIDICULOUS physical liberties with him. Unless it turns out that her voice has subtle hypnotic properties, I have to wonder how this idiot managed to avoid being killed YEARS ago. I mean sure, if you CHOOSE the stupidest options available that's one thing, but even if you give her the full "shut the fuck up or I'll punish you" shut down treatment at the start she STILL carries on with her story and you seem practically impotent to stop her. It frankly breaks suspension of disbelief. I mean yeah, interacting with her is pretty much most of the point of the entire game (although frankly I'd sooner just fuck Crow), but there seems to be no way to do it that isn't on her terms.

You're not wrong. There's a lot of decisions the mercenaries make which aren't the best possible decisions they could make, but they have taken plenty of precautions. The majority of their decisions can be chalked up to the fact that Carmen is a noble in a quasi-feudalist society, and their employer has forbid them from harming her.

So they can't really force her to do anything. They can withhold food or put out the fire, but that's about it. Carmen knows this and uses it to undermine the mercenaries. As for keeping her tied up, Roman does tie her up when feeding her, but she slips out of her ropes by the end of the scene. She might be their prisoner, but she is still very much in control. This power juxtaposition is intentional, and Roman (well, the player) can react in several different ways. You can yield, accept that she has the power and be her sub, or you can play along with the illusion of power. This leads to a more dominating position for Roman, but you can only really do what Carmen allows you to do. Finally, Roman can reject this broken power dynamic and actually harm Carmen (and vice versa) which is essentially the hatefuck route. This is a route that will only really come about in day two and three, as roman becomes angry at the fact he is - as you said - impotent to stop her. So he breaks the orders he was given.

I hope this answers some of your concerns, and for what it's worth I'll rewrite some of the dialogue to explain the mercenaries actions a little better.

 

[DuskyHallows]

Update for 05/08/17: Sanguine Rose Alpha 1.0.0 is now public on Newgrounds!

 

[DuskyHallows]

Update for 26/09/17: Sanguine Rose Alpha 1.0.2 is now public on Newgrounds!

There's now music, a fully functioning gallery, and an additional scene with Crow and Carmen!

 

[hentaiSpecial]

will there be sound in the future or is there already? i just played the short demo (the feeding scene) and just want to know if something like some sloppy bj sounds are planned

 

[DuskyHallows]

The most up to date version is on Newgrounds (click here) and it has music and a few sound effects but no sex noises yet. It's something we're still considering, and we'll likely be holding a poll on our patreon soon to see how many people want it.