Hi guys! I’m Jasmine (or Lusa), and I’m super excited to tell you about the game that my friends and I are developing for Yaoi Game Jam 2026! (a.k.a, Ramy and I get to write doomed yaoi while we convince our other friends to develop the game with us with turn-based combat)
Introducing: Fell Noon
Gothic-Western. Turn-Based Combat. Doomed Yaoi.
- CW: Body Horror (imagery reminiscent of intestines, tendrils in bodies, eldritch horror) & violence
- Genre: Turn-Based Combat, Visual Novel Story
- Themes: Western Gothic Fantasy, Cowboys & Knights, Eldritch Horror, Toxic relationship dynamics (immortal/mortal love, discrimination, grief, ‘the apocalypse is my fault’)
A rift between worlds has opened in the Fell Noon. Eldritch creatures have poured into our reality, calling for the subjugation of humankind!
“Fell Noon” is a turn-based western horror RPG with visual novel elements. Play as Shemyaza, a sentient Eldritch being who seeks to destroy the bridge between his home world and the human plane. Lead four heroes through an apocalyptic, wicked west full of warlocks, witches, monsters, and organized military powers, to undo a tale of tragic romance. Can Shemyaza rescue the man he loves, or has he truly doomed the world?
Fell Noon features:
- Turn-based battles, with an innovative turn system and character mechanics.
- Visual novel storytelling
- Original soundtrack and art
- Made in Godot!
With the cast of:
- Shemyaza, the Fallen King of Guile. The beauty of humanity changed him, and he has forsaken the darkest parts of his nature.
- Ezra, a witch-ranger and husband to Shemyaza. When Shemyaza denied him immortality, he pursued it elsewhere.
- Mirah, a warrior-poet and apprentice of Ezra. She cleaves through the eldritch wasteland with song and limerick.
- Evengeline, once a ranger for the Order of the Untarnished, which she abandoned after becoming infected by an eldritch plague.
- Paler, an Oathkin caught between two forces. They seek to cleanse themselves of their rival patrons and return to their family.
- Cassain, an old acolyte seeking to spend his life with his Eldritch-parasitic lover. First, they require a compatible body.
I drafted this setting two years ago, and it has periodically resurfaced in TTRPG one-shots. I like cowboys, I like knights, I like all things eldritch, so naturally you have to combine them! This is the first in a series of blog posts from us. There’s a lot more I’d love to talk about regarding the game design, but for now, I’ll talk about the art style for the rest of this log.
Our Intended Scope: Introduce the conflict & setting through the visual novel medium, tutorial combats, and a boss fight!
The Art
So far, what is completed are the visual novel sprites for the appearing characters. I was debating between a few styles: from a painted look to a sketchy comic book look. My two main concerns were: visual cohesion and readability. Beyond the sprites needing to look good, they needed to be clean to let the other visual components of the VN segments also read clearly. I ran a few style tests and was not satisfied with either. A painted style put the sprites at risk of inconsistent edges or turning out messy. A sketchy comic book art style also sounded fun, but would require the other UI elements to have that depth of shading. They needed to be easy to produce (so I could churn them all out within four days to meet my other deadlines!).
I went with a clean-lined style for the sprites, with flat colours and gentle gradients. The pen I used had 0 pressure sensitivity for consistency, and it challenged me to work with precision! I’m high on Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier series, particularly their hatching on clothes and drapery to emulate texture. These sprites complemented the rest of the UI design, which was flat with some patterning. They also don’t overpower the set piece art. I’m not the best at full-scale environment art, so the art is reduced to flashcard-esque tritone pieces that get the idea across.
Here are all the visual novel sprites for our game, featuring our rogue cast of colourful characters! I’d love to talk about the characters themselves and their designs in more depth in a later log. I wanted to reflect the aesthetics of the Wild West era with a fantasy twist; there are witches in this world and knightly orders! So it’s not far-fetched to see someone with a desert duster and a witch’s hat, or a knight wearing a ten-gallon hat.
The set piece art for some locations the game features!
An early mock-up in Figma with the style test sprites!
Here is a screenshot of our visual novel UI in action! Our wonderful Ramy was in charge of implementing this!
Wawa Works
Wawa Works is a small indie studio based in Toronto. It currently consists of:
- Jasmine— Art, UI, Writing
- Ramy — Narrative Systems, Visual Novel Programming, Music
- Jayden — Combat programming, game design
- Mankirt — SFX
I pitched Fell Noon for Yaoi Game Jam in June: “Cosmic Cowboys Fight on a Grid”, and we took off from there!
If you’re interested in following our future work, join our mailing list!