A coach ride, a haunted castle, an elite academy, and a classical string instrument: all of these are hallmarks of Victorian horror and are conveniently present in the visual novel White Violin. Developer Purin Productions launched a Kickstarter for the game over the weekend and cued the orchestra to start the performance.

You play as Luna as she tries to unravel the secrets behind the Ophelia, the ghost girl of the castle and the eponymous white violin. The ancient stone structure also serves as your classroom as you compete against the virtuoso Marie and learn all you can from your teacher Lucy.

The game will feature up to 10 hours of gameplay to match the 10 different endings. As the trailer shows at multiple points, the sprites will have many variations to mimic movement as well as appropriate fashions for a Gothic visual novel. While the art-style doesn't exactly pop for me, there is a fair amount of creepiness within the still images, music, and the text which makes this campaign stand out.

The game is set to release in early 2017 if the Kickstarter is successful on PC, Mac and Linux and a demo is also currently available for those platforms. The campaign is looking to $50,000 HKD (approx $6500 USD) by Oct 23rd. Time will only tell if the white violin will have a chance to be played or will gather dust in a forgotten part of the castle.

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/2633467/video-703737-h264_high.mp4