History VisualNovel / Lucid9

''[=Lucid9=]'' is a freeware mystery VisualNovel developed by Fallen Snow Studios using UsefulNotes/RenPy. It is being released in three separate chapters and is currently a work in progress.

The first chapter, Inciting Incident, was released on April 14th 2016, and consists of the entirety of the common route. The second chapter, which splits off into the different heroine routes and ''[[TimeSkip takes place 3 years after the events of Inciting Incident,]]'' is currently in development, but no release date has been announced as of yet. The third chapter, corresponding to a True Route, has also been planned for future release. In late December of 2019, the development team released the [=Lucid9=] Heroine Prologues, which act as a teaser for the heroine routes and can only be accessed after Inciting Incident is complete.

A fully voiced version of Inciting Incident is also in development. It was originally planned for a 2017 release, but was delayed several times due to numerous difficulties in casting and resources. On January 19th 2021, a standalone build of the game patched with the voiceovers of Inciting Incident's first three days was made available for direct download. It is tentatively planned for the chapter's full voiceover to be patched to the Steam and itch.io versions of the game later in the year.

* TheAce: Masato and Elizabeth are the top students in the school academically, and ''[[AcademicAthlete Masato is a track athlete on top of that.]]''

-->"Yet, there is unfortunate credence to the saying "Be careful what you wish for"

** As a side effect, unlike common routes in most visual novels, which are fairly short and mainly used to introduce the player to the world and its characters, Inciting Incident has its own story arc relating to the overall plot and is significantly longer as a result, with the heroine routes and true routes expanding upon the overarching story already introduced in Inciting Incident.

* TheMatchmaker: Akira tries to play matchmaker to Yama and Rui. However, it's all but stated in several scenes that ''[[MatchmakerCrush she too has a crush on Yama.]]''
* MockMillionaire: [[spoiler:Elizabeth. She ''seems'' rich due to her demeanor, but this is a deliberate act on her part. Actually, her family is poor and she can only attend the school because she won an academic scholarship. In fact, this is actually why she and Yama are on bad terms; it turns out Yama once did no work on his half of a shared project, and came dangerously close to costing Elizabeth her scholarship, which is her ''livelihood''. Though Yama reveals the reason he did no work is because that day, Elizabeth accidentally mentioned his dead sister.]]
* MrImagination: Female example, as Akira frequently imagines scenarios in her head that she then acts out. [[spoiler:It turns out this is because she thinks this is how she'll make other people happy. Although it also appears to be genuine, as she continues to act different after she reveals that part to Yama.]]

* NoodleIncident: As Yama muses after the incident is over, [[spoiler:we still don't really know ''why'' the culprit committed all these murders, as the culprit's answers are very vague. We know that the culprit despises modern skyscrapers since at least the pyramids and terra cotta army leave people in awe, the culprit sees himself as disciplining the world, he wants something from Yahiko Ikari's family, and the culprit compares himself to an Aztec god whose favor the city must earn by appeasing him with blood, but none of this really explains what his ''specific'' reason was for his crimes.]]
* NotSoDifferentRemark: [[spoiler:In the bad endings, Yama loses it and just kills the hostages, so the culprit claims that he and Yama aren't so different, and that Yama has the same taste for bloodshed and could use the culprit's help. But it turns out that they are indeed different, as Yama doesn't want bloodshed, he wants ''revenge'', so he kills the culprit and then thinks about turning his rage onto the rest of humanity, because Yama wants to kill people out of hatred, not out of being an "artiste" like the culprit.]]

* RedHerring: Throughout Inciting Incident, [[spoiler:three different characters are falsely suspected of being the culprit, when the true murderer is someone else entirely]]

* TheReveal: Two of them, actually:

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The ending of Inciting Incident is this; notably, the ''player'' is the shaggy dog in this instance, making it a {{Deconstruction}} of the MultipleEndings sub-genre of [[VisualNovel visual novels.]] [[spoiler:Since most players will play the game blind their first time, they're likely to get a bad ending where Rui dies either at the hands of an insane Yama or the psychotic Ryota. After realizing their error, the player will try and retry (and maybe use a [[GuideDangIt guide]]) and finally choose all of the right choices and manage to escape with both Rui and Yama still alive. Things seem to return to normal until Yama is forced to move back in with his parents thanks to the danger he was recently in. He goes to Rui's house one more time to say goodbye and finally confess his feelings towards her. When he gets there? [[AllForNothing She's already dead; lying in a pool of her own blood.]] So much for a GoodEnding.]]

* FashionModel: Misaki works as one, and it's a demanding enough job that the school is willing to let her leave class as long as she keeps her grades up. In one optional event, if Yama accepts a request from Misaki, [[spoiler:Yama can make one of her modeling jobs much more successful by acting out a scene in which they're a couple.]]

* TheLostWoods: Isamu forest is the site of the student murders [[spoiler: excluding the fourth]]. In the past there were plans to cut down a sizable swath of it for urban development, but after a number of unnerving occurrences they were scrapped.

* NotSoDifferent: [[spoiler:In the bad endings, Yama loses it and just kills the hostages, so the culprit claims that he and Yama aren't so different, and that Yama has the same taste for bloodshed and could use the culprit's help. But it turns out that they are indeed different, as Yama doesn't want bloodshed, he wants ''revenge'', so he kills the culprit and then thinks about turning his rage onto the rest of humanity, because Yama wants to kill people out of hatred, not out of being an "artiste" like the culprit.]]

A fully voiced version of Inciting Incident is also in development. It was originally planned for a 2017 release, but was delayed several times due to numerous difficulties in casting and resources. On January 19th 2021, a build of the game patched with the voiceovers of Inciting Incident's first three days was made available for direct download. It is tentatively planned for the chapter's full voiceover to be patched to the Steam and itch.io versions of the game later in the year.

A fully voiced version of Inciting Incident is also in development. It was originally planned for a 2017 release, but was delayed several times due to numerous difficulties in casting and resources. On January 19th 2021, a build of the game patched with the voiceovers of Inciting Incident's first three days was made available for direct download. It is tentatively planned for the chapter's full voiceover to be patched to the Steam and itch.io versions of the game later in the year

The first chapter, Inciting Incident, was released on April 14th 2016, and consists of the entirety of the common route. The second chapter, which splits off into the different heroine routes and ''[[TimeSkip takes place 3 years after the events of Inciting Incident,]]'' is currently in development, but no release date has been announced as of yet. The third chapter, corresponding to a True Route, has also been planned for future release.

A fully voiced version of Inciting Incident is also in development. It was originally planned for a 2017 release, but was delayed several times due to numerous difficulties in casting and resources.

In late December of 2019, the development team released the [=Lucid9=] Heroine Prologues, which are meant to be played after the main game is complete.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucid9.jpg]]

--->"Yet, there is unfortunate credence to the saying "Be careful what you wish for"

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The ending of Inciting Incident is this; notably, the ''player'' is the shaggy dog in this instance, making it a {{Deconstruction}} of the MultipleEndings sub-genre of [[VisualNovel visual novels.]] [[spoiler:Since most players will play the game blind their first time, they're likely to get a bad ending where Rui dies either at the hands of an insane Yama or the psychotic Ryota. After realizing their error, the player will try and retry (and maybe use a [[GuideDangIt guide]]), they'll finally choose all of the right choices and manage to escape with both Rui and Yama still alive. Things seem to return to normal until Yama is forced to move back in with his parents thanks to the danger he was recently in. He goes to Rui's house one more time to say goodbye and finally confess his feelings towards her. When he gets there? [[AllForNothing She's already dead; lying in a pool of her own blood.]] So much for a GoodEnding.]]

In late December of 2019, the development team released the Lucid9 Heroine Prologues, which are meant to be played after the main game is complete.

On December 11th, 2019, the development team announced that the [=Lucid9=] Heroine Prologues have been completed and will be released on Steam on December 15th, 2019.

* ADayInTheLimelight: Late into the game, we actually get a scene told from [[spoiler:Rui's]] perspective (though Yama doesn't appear), shortly before [[spoiler:she is kidnapped by the murderer.]] Later, all 4 heroine prologues play out like this.