My name is Skye and I'm a creative writer and independent scholar from Iowa. I first had the idea to write a story for a visual novel after watching gameplay videos by ManlyBadassHero on Youtube. It inspired me to use my writing skills for a new platform--Ren'py. "A Soul's Price" released on April 4th to Itch.io. It is my first Visual Novel project and my first time coding with Python (or anything else). It took a year and a month to complete and I was the sole dev for everything except the sprites. (I'm super grateful to KokoIsGod111 for the art.)

This story is inspired heavily by my own college and grad school journey, though I didn't do any soul-selling. (I swear I didn't, for real.) But the exploration of good and evil, what kind of god runs this world (if any), why do we suffer, do I want to believe what I was taught growing up or do I want to decide for myself what my faith is? All these questions I wrestled with during my time at the University of Northern Iowa and studying for my MA at the Harvard Divinity School.

The story began from a moral dilemma I'd had in the back of my mind for a few years. 'If you sell your soul to the devil for something, you're guaranteed to go to hell when you die.' 'But, what would happen if I bought someone else's soul and then sold that to the devil, would my own soul still be safe or would I be destined for hell'? The question relies on the nature of the soul and whether it's possible to sell your own, let alone another person's, and how that factors into the way your fate is decided in the afterlife. It's too risky to actually test this out in real life, so the next best thing is exploring the potential concequences of a deal like this in fiction.

Enter Cordelia Kennett. My somewhat socially awkward but spunky protagonist who is going to test the issue for me! Cordelia is a grad student in her final year and she's doing her senior thesis on this very issue--will people sell their souls for money? can I buy them? But the real interesting stuff happens after she's bought the souls. That's when Cordelia tests out the questions I asked earlier by offering souls to satan in exchange for certain things happening...like, another grant for her study? 

Cordelia is joined in this journey by her best friend, Shirley (who I'm not sure I ever gave a last name to). Together they offer the player different conceptions of good, evil, justice, god, and religious faith through their actions, discussions, and friendship. Interestingly, both Cordelia and Shirley represent parts of my own philosophical reasoning. 

Cordelia embodies a more modern agnostic perspective and is searching for meaning in the context of the evil and suffering of the world and how that relates to the supposed 'all-good and all-loving' nature of the Christian god. Shirley on the other hand represents a more traditional faith perspective--believing in God, goodness, and love despite the evil of the world. 

I did my best to present both options as reasonable and candid perspectives on Christianity. I didn't want to give the player an answer, but rather to give them some options about how they might engage in the world through religion and philosophy. The point of the game isn't to mage people believe what I believe, but to encourage contemplation on the big questions of life in their own way. And also to imagine what crazy scary things can happen when you mess with the devil, of course!

I believe some of the best works of fiction both create entertainment and provoke thought. And that's what I tried to do with my visual novel. It's dark, creepy, and fun, but it's also there to make you think. Though, it's up to the player whether I succeeded at that goal or not.

Interestingly enough, working hard for over a year on this project hasn't left me burnt out on visual novels. I'm actually excited to start another one! I think VNs are a amazing way to combine the beauty of writing with the beauty of art and give the reader/player a deeply engaging experience.  I'll still be publishing poems and stories as they are, but I'm looking forward to creating more multi-media experiences like visual novels. (Don't tell anyone, but I already have an idea for my next one!)

A Soul's Price will always have a soft spot in my heart though, since it's my first VN.

Thanks for playing,

~Skye