penthos: some questions answered
With the trailer for Penthos now out and our (planned!) release date inching ever closer, we wager it’s time to lift our veil just a little bit and answer some questions you might have about us and our upcoming debut title.
Who are we?
We’re Cruelhouse! To be more specific, we’re artist Noah Segura and writer Sem Roolvink, two best friends who go under the banner ‘Cruelhouse’ when collaborating. We’re both recent college graduates who, after years of honing our skills and developing a hunger to tell a story, are excited to work on a project of this magnitude and share it with you.
What is Penthos in a technical sense?
Penthos is a ‘kinetic novel’, a term used for visual novels that tell only a linear story. For those out of the know, a visual novel is technically a video game, in the sense that you download it to experience it, and it features extensive visuals, music and voice acting (more on that in a moment!). That said, there’s not much gameplay in a visual novel, as the focus is more on telling a story and giving a stronger impression of the characters and world. Hence the term, ‘visual novel’.
This means that when it comes out, you’ll have to download Penthos to experience it. Currently, our plan is to release on Windows, Mac and Linux. And don’t worry: Penthos will be free to download and experience in full.
What is Penthos in a creative sense?
Fulfilling, quite frankly! For us, anyway. While we like to keep the exact details of our plot under wraps due to the nature of it, we’re happy to let you know that Penthos is the kind of full-length three-act story we’ve been dying to tell for some time now. We’ve put a lot of ourselves and our own hearts into it, and we hope you will enjoy playing/reading/hearing/experiencing it (all apply; visual novels are odd!) as much as we enjoyed making it.
Who else is working on Penthos?
While we’ve worked hard and are continuing to work hard to make Penthos independently, we’re also very lucky to have recruited some immensely talented people to work with us!
Composers Azure and Daniel Puentes have composed original pieces of music for Penthos that bring our world and atmosphere to life. They are both incredibly talented and versatile musicians who have been kind enough to share their gift with us. Writing and art is one thing, but their talent and music will move, scare and thrill you more than we could’ve ever dreamed possible.
As for our characters, we’ve worked hard to make each of them a true individual, but every human deserves a voice. We have a team of passionate and talented voice actors who have lent us their voice to breathe life into our rogues gallery of characters. Ruby J. Shilan stars as Agnes, and Jerron Bacat voices co-protagonist Byrne. Ariana Rosario, Ghastly Dipper and Caleb Honore voice Yumi, Axel and Guro, respectively. Sam Slade voices Helena, and Michelle Jin voices Ms. Vera Flores. Finally, Allen Chan and Hannah Chapin round out our cast as Agnes’ father and mother, respectively.
Everyone involved has put an incredible amount of hard work, passion and talent into making Penthos special - another reason why we can’t wait to share it with you soon!
In closing…
As of writing, we’re still working hard on crafting Penthos, and will probably be perfecting it up till the last day of development. (We’re perfectionists like that.) In the situation that something changes, please keep an eye on this very blog and our Twitter.
But for now - Penthos releases on October 16th. Click here for the official Itch.io page!
WHAT IS PENTHOS?
Welcome to Cruelhouse! Doesn’t matter how you found us, but it’s good to have you here.
We’re currently working on Penthos - our further blog posts will be concerning Penthos, with relevant updates leading up to the planned release date of October 23rd.
What is Penthos? It’s the story of a teen clique in Walpole who are thrown into chaos when a murderer ravages their town.
But mostly importantly - Penthos will be a completely free, interactive experience.
We’re laying low on most of the details for now - after all, we’re making a mystery - but we hope to share more with you soon.
Until then, keep an eye on this blog right here!
And of course, see you in October.