Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!
With Chapter 1 of Fiction Paradox finished and just 10 days away from its Steam release, we wanted to take a moment to look back at how this project came to life, and share where we're heading next as we begin work on Chapter 2.
From Concept to Naventu
The idea for Fiction Paradox was born in mid-2024, driven by a strong belief: the visual novel is one of the best formats to tell a story. It blends the immersion of cinema, the interactivity of video games, and the personal pacing of novels. All in one!
For several months, Dakno worked alone on early drafts of the story, characters, worldbuilding, and core mechanics. Not long after, Eón joined the project as the lead artist, and Naventu was born.
Although Fiction Paradox is our first game, we set out from day one to meet the highest quality standards we realistically could. >:)
Developing Chapter 1
Development officially began in January 2025. Eón focused on visuals: images and renders. Dakno handled everything else: programming, writing, direction, production, asset costs, and commissioning the original soundtrack.
We started from scratch. It took 4 months just to complete the first characters and the Prologue. During that time, we even designed a fully original environment that serves both as a narrative introduction and a way to establish the protagonist and gameplay systems:
However, as development progressed, it became clear that our original scope was too ambitious for a small, independent studio. To ensure the project's sustainability, we made two important decisions:
Postpone additional protagonist variants (gay male, straight female, and bisexual routes) until we have more resources.
Shift from releasing 3 chapters per release to 1 chapter per release, allowing us to fund development more effectively.
At the same time, we increasingly ran into the technical limitations of Daz, the standard tool used by many AVNs. While final renders can look great, the workflow is often too slow and restrictive...
Animations were especially challenging. Even with modern hardware, Daz offered limited support and unreliable tools. We managed to complete the game's first NSFW scene through a lot of trial and error, but that experience made it clear we needed a better long-term solution.
By December, Chapter 1 was fully completed: polished, bug-fixed, and localized into English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese. It offers around 2 hours of content, acting as the beginning of a much longer and evolving story.
Behind every character, location, and scene, lies extensive planning: design documents, research for plausibility, iteration after iteration to reach the quality we're aiming for, etc.
Our characters are unique because every detail matters to us: from facial features and body proportions, to hands, feet, skin texture, posture, and subtle gestures. We want them to feel believable and expressive, not generic. It may sound obsessive, but we believe it's worth it!
We'd love to release many more hours of content each time, but as a small team, we need to balance ambition with sustainability. If you'd like to support our work, the best way is to wishlist and buy Fiction Paradox on Steam, and leave a review after finishing all the content. It helps more than you might think!
Chapter 2 Roadmap
Starting today, we begin the development of Chapter 2. 🔥
Our ideal target is to have it ready around May or early June, though depending on development and available resources, it may move to September or October. The success of Chapter 1 will play a key role here: more support means more resources, and faster development. :)
In parallel, we're planning a major technical shift: we aim to fully migrate our 3D pipeline from Daz to Blender, handling 100% of renders and animations there. The transition will take time, but once completed, it should significantly improve both productivity and visual quality, especially for animations.
The scope of the story will expand significantly in Chapter 2. You'll meet many new characters, deepen some relationships, and explore new sides of the world of Fiction Paradox. We're also planning several fully animated NSFW scenes.
Over the coming months, we'll keep sharing updates as development progresses. ^^
Thank you for following us, and for being part of this journey!
— The Naventu Team 🚀