Confluence: An Of Sense and Soul Soliloquy
Story
Confluence (noun): a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point; the joining of two rivers.
In the epilogue of his happy ending, Hugo waxes poetic on the scale of his life and love and how, wondrously, the littlest of things can also be the most precious.
Features
- An emotional reflection on personal growth through love and change.
- 8-15 minutes of playtime
- Full voice acting
- One sprite, one soundtrack, and one background
- Dynamic cinematography and effects
- Gay thoughts 🌈 💭✨
About
A short kinetic novel spin-off from Forsythia Productions' Of Sense and Soul, a Queer Victorian Romance Visual Novel.
Confluence was created during the O2A2 (Only One of Any Asset) VN Game Jam: Queer Edition 2023.
To see more of Hugo's love story, check out the main game below!Content & Spoiler Warnings
Confluence takes place after the events of Of Sense and Soul, and contains vague references to the best ending in which Hugo and Seamus are in a relationship.
No OSAS plot events are detailed in Confluence, and you can still enjoy this without knowing the main story.
- Rated G.
- Motion: Animations for a rotating background and cinematography are used.
- References The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.
- Major themes include queer belonging, change, personal growth, and hope.
Credits
Direction, Art, and Writing by ingthing
Music composed by Henri Tikkala
Hugo Brooks voiced by Max Herzfeld
Special thanks to Fraser, Shaun, and AKA for supporting the creation of Confluence!
Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram | Patreon | Press Kit
Download
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Development log
Comments
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i am totally sold on of sense and soul after this! the amount of polish here is insane, and you guys did an amazing job at using the limitations in your favour versus bumping up against them.
the use of a spinning background alone was a great workaround for the cg limitation, but combining it with the darkening/lightening and panning in and out of the graphic as well, it just elevates the visual storytelling done here into such a new level, bravo to ingthing for melting all of it together so seamlessly! it honestly feels theatrical in presentation, and i loved every minute of it.
max's voice is perfect for hugo, and they really do a great job of conveying the emotion that drips off of every one of hugo's lines. he seems like a real tender hearted softie, and i find it really endearing, especially when he talks about seamus. (i get such a kick out of imagining them as having met on victorian craigslist.)
and the writing too! i've always been particularly enamoured with stories set in a victorian setting, so i'm no stranger to the particular way you have to write those stories for them to not sound "off", but that's not at all an issue for ingthing it seems. the tone and vocabulary used are amazingly well done.
seriously just a GORGEOUS little game in every way, from script to visuals to audio, absolutely incredible. 🤎
what a beautiful story!!!! The writing and feel of the game is so heartwarming and eloquent!!! The softness of the art accompanied with the transitions and voice acting... I also love how clean the UI is!! I can just feel the love pouring out from this it made me so happy to play through
the voice acting in this novel is so good!!! and the UI is so pretty, too!!! The art is so great as well... and I liked the usage of "seeing the forest for the trees" as a positive thing, I haven't heard the phrase used like that before but it worked so well! and also the typewriter noises in the UI are so fun hehe. This was also SO SWEET, I'm so happy for Hugo...!!! and what a great usage of the ugly duckling fairytale too... just so many good and fun things in this game I am struggling to list them in order hahaha. Wonderful stuff!!!! Extremely well executed!!
What a wonderful experience, it truly felt like the epic ending monologue of a stage play, with how the contrast and the background is used, I adored it!
Lovely work! Really enjoyed the use of contrast and a rotating background to make the most of the O2A2 limitations. Max did a wonderful job voicing Hugo, as always. Can't wait to see the full game and what lies in store for our "queer little ducklings" :^ )
!!! OMGGGG this is so PRETTY! Everything about it is gorgeous! I'm especially in love with how you used the background and Hugo's sprite -- Zooming in and out -- it's very dynamic! It feels like I'm watching a movie. The music and voice-acting is beautiful as well! It really brings everything together! What a wonderful experience~
Now THIS is my cup of tea.
Hi! I played the game and first and foremost: THE REALISATION??? It was MAGNIFICENT! How the writing, the GUI, the sprite art, the music, the background art, the voice-acting would come together as a single piece of art, wow!!!!
To give more precise details: of course, the artstyle is gorgeous! The details, the expressions, aaah! And also, the rotating background was a very original touch (and a relevant one: time is an endless loop, after all, in the great scheme of millenias).
The music was amazing too! It really fit the game and plunged me gently into the story. Also, can I say how much I LOVED the voice-acting? The emotions, the hope!!!!! This was so hopeful!!!! I really loved Max's portrayal of Hugo Brooks.
And regarding what I felt... Nostalgia, of course, but I'd mostly say: warmth. The warm of feeling confident through love; not because we need love to feel confident, but because our lover has showed us we deserve to be seen through his eyes, whether or not he's here. That was wonderful! Really, a soft and warm parenthesis of pure exaltation from love, and how significant it is, despite it being a detail in the history of humanity!
In the end, it really was a very sweet, enchanting, polished and poetic experience (and I NEVER use the word "poetic" lightly)! Thank you!
Oh, gosh, I'm having trouble putting into words my experience after playing this. Every single inch of it was both beautiful and exquisite, and the words, especially those last words, together with the music, are still ringing in my head even as I write this now.
I have to first talk about the UI -- LITERALLY. GORGEOUS. I can't even really describe it, it's just... heavenly. I MEAN JUST LOOK AT THIS ITCH PAGE??? NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY LIKE 100X EVEN MORE BEAUTIFUL??? Because that is the effect the game's UI and sheer artistic direction will have on you. From the sepia color palette and its wash of nostalgia to the slowly rotating smoke-strewn world in the background (that at times reminded me of being in like... Planet Earth at Epcot LMAO), it will make you feel like time has stopped and you've been transported to another world for the approximately 10 minutes that the narration will carry you. It's absolutely exquisite, and I feel like I want to simply look at it forever GODDDDD LDKAJLFDS
UMMMM WHAT ELSE. The music??? The gorgeous music??? That at times practically seems to be ebbing and flowing with the Hugo's words??? GUHHH. HEART-THROBBING FR. The sprite??? And the expert use of panning and zooming to give this gorgeous cinematic effect, almost as though watching some sort of poignant short film???? Also in love with the way you used the combination of silhouette and flipping to give the appearance of the shadow on the ground -- that was so unique and lovely!! GAH.
The voice over was DELIGHTFUL. There was so much emotion in the words. It really carried everything along so well and put so much behind each and every sentence. And then of the course the words themselves, that struck right at my heart and made me also feel so many things, too.
Honestly just. This was lovely. Beyond lovely. I enjoyed every second of it. ALSO THIS IS A REMINDER TO ME THAT I NEED TO FINISH PLAYING THE OSAS DEMO I'M LIKE HALFWAY THROUGH BUT THEN GOT BUSY. So I'm going to do that shortly as well hohoho 😌
ANYWAY, I HAVE RAMBLED LONG ENOUGH.
tl;dr -- this was absolutely positively lovely!! Thank you so much for making this and sharing this little experience! Looking forward to joining Hugo (and Seamus) again in the rest of the demo (and the full version beyond). 💕
Ahhhh thank you!! 😭 This is all such high praise! The heartfelt nostalgia is really something I wanted to push with the sepia and story and everything so I'm glad it came across 🥰
The silhouette shadow thing was a real stroke of inspiration, I added it so last minute but I think it was the last element that part of the game was missing! Really grounded that visual, I think.
And omg, I was in disbelief over the music and voicing myself! Henri and Max did such an amazing job with what I gave them in so little time, it helps that we'd worked together on OSAS already but I was still in awe! The emotionality is just so on point thanks to their contributions 🥺
I hope you do enjoy the rest of the OSAS demo! 😆 Here's to the slow, slow burn ahead before they can get to where Confluence has them!! 💖
I just played it and it's an absolute masterpiece!
The combination of the art, music and writing with this talented voice acting is just amazing! - I'm really in awe with the writing, how the "camera" was used and the play with layers and dimensions!
This was so clever put together!
Thank you so much for making this!
Thank you v much for playing it! 😊 I love a bit of fancy renpy camera work, so I'm really glad it was effective here!
This IS SO COOL!! This could be a full game! I loved the rotating background so much, and the voice acting and music is so good. It made me tear up. Also the art is so detailed and beautiful. NICE WORK I LOVED THIS
I'm so happy you did, thank you!! 🥰 (I'd pay for a full game of this too ngl)
this is so well put together omg!!!! to be able to put something like this together in just about a week.. that's amazing!! the art, voice acting, ui, writing, and transitions... the rotating background is beautiful!! the atmosphere is so warm and cozy.. so inspiring!!
Thank you so much! 💖 I'm in a little disbelief I pulled it off myself 😂 Warm and cozy was definitely the vibe, I'm glad you enjoyed it!