Beyond the Silk Sea

Salve!

You are Severius of Caesarea: capable, brilliant, heroic--

and utterly lost in the court of Tang Taizong, the Emperor of China.

Your job is to discover the secrets of silk, and smuggle it back to Constantinople. But when romance alights, can you still complete your mission?

Reasons to Play This Game? You can...

Become a dexterous dancer, a fearsome fighter, or a studious scholar!

Win a game of cuju, the oldest recorded form of football!

Ignite a fierce board game rivalry with the future Empress!

Discover palace intrigue based on real-life events!

Flirt with Meixue, who is very cute!

Learn real facts about medieval Chinese culture and history!

Rewrite the story of the Tang Dynasty!

Instructions:

Beyond the Silk Sea is a visual novel with light RPG elements.  The storyline branches based on skill checks, and you will be alerted whenever you pass or fail a check. Every skill is represented in the story, but some may prove to be a little more useful than others.

The game is intended to be played multiple times to try out different strategies and experience different outcomes. Hold down the ESCAPE KEY to skip text; this is helpful for skipping through dialogue you may have read before.

There was a soft lock on week 10 in the original demo, but I patched it out within the first hour. If you downloaded the game within the first hour of release, please re-download for the fix. Sorry for the inconvenience!

About:

I made this game in one month for the 2020 "Game by its Cover" jam. When I read the description of the original Famicase, I knew it was perfect for me! So, I reached out to the artist for permission to adapt their famicase; little did I know that I'd make a good friend in the process!

Credits:

Concept and cover art by the famcase artist. Backgrounds are modified public domain photos with appropriate licensing. Fonts used are Jann Script and Lilly; they are both CC0-licensed fonts.

Everything else by me!

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