Finding Color in the Ashes
A downloadable game for Windows
Finding Color in the Ashes is a fantasy dating sim where you rebuild an inn and hang out with a witch named Lucy.
It's a mostly cozy management game where you slowly rebuild a ruined inn, choosing how you spend you time. The day is divided up into mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights - and weekends have their own events as well.
You also need to keep the surrounding area clear of monsters, equipping yourself with weapons and spells and engaging in turn based dice-combat. There are a variety of weapons, armors, and spells to buy, learn, and upgrade.
You earn experience points by talking with Lucy, the guests at your inn, crafting potions, fighting monsters, etc. Spend experience on abilities to improve your combat effectiveness, learn new spells, or make changes to the inn.
The Game takes place over a year, and starts in the summer. Each season is about 90 days long, and has its own gameplay associated with it.
A long time ago, there was a calamity that occurred and stole all color from the world. The source is a massive rip in reality in the faraway Ashlands. It's a land filled with strange monsters and stranger anomalies. Adventurers from all over head into that cursed land to try and find a solution - but to no avail.
You play as a young adventurer who's just inherited a run-down inn located on the road between the Capital and the Ashlands. Recently a mage named Lucy has moved in as well. She spent too much time in Ashlands, and has been cursed as a result. She's doing her best to overcome it, while helping you to rebuild the inn.
Those cursed by the Ashlands are called Fractured - and they exhibit a variety of strange effects, but notably, they are some of the few in the world who carry color with them.
There are 8 different sex scenes in the game right now, with more on the way. Each has several variations, and some include more interactions.
There are quests, events, and plenty of dialog centered around Lucy. Progressing your relationship with her will unlock more content.
There are plenty of weapons, armors, spells - and ways to upgrade all of them. The turn based combat is dice driven with plenty of ways to spend experience and unlock new abilities.
Right now, this is an early build of the game, including only summer. The other months will come in updates as they are completed. Though, you can technically play endlessly in this build, new events won't show up past summer.
Future updates will include more events, sex scenes, combat encounters, and other content. Additionally, we'll continue to update and polish what's already in the game.
Definitely leave us a message below, and let us know what you like or don't like, and give us ideas for what you'd like to see in the game!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Alpha Update 32 days ago
- Alpha Update 28 days ago
- **UPDATE** Alpha Update 1.115 days ago
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
SUBSCRIBESTAR/PATREON WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!
Looking into it! I will definitely post about it here when I get something set up, but thank you so much for the interest.
Fell in love with the art style and the inn management loop. The setting has neat and creative ideas. The progression of the character and the inn feel at a good pace. Overall very cozzy and charming. I'd play it even without the lewd scenes.
Definitely at the mercy of some bad weeks RNG, which early game can be a problem but starting over with a better picture of what to prioritize first and where to focus made things go much more smoothly.
I'm looking forward to the characters' relationship to continue evolving and future seasonal events, and perhaps more recurring characters. It was all very good so far.
In the meantime, bits of feedback/thoughts :
- Like it's already been mentionned, settings could be nice, namely to adjust sound volumes.
- It might be planned for the future but I expected something to happen or for scenes to look different at 100 Fracture. Something like how in the begining, we see Lucy's 'Other' self holding her up. Expected to see "her" more at 100 Fracture. I'm sure it's planned for future story developments, but I'll still mention it.
- If it's intended to work like that, that is fine, but I was a bit surprised that the availability of Merchants and their Safe prices were a one-and-done thing. What I mean is that I absolutely don't mind if once you bring the Monster Presence down to Safe, the game becomes lenient, but it would feel expected that the roads going all the way back to Dangerous would have an effect. It didn't seem to be the case other than reducing potential guests for the inn. I think once unlocked, it could be fine for things to stay unlocked for Safe and Low, perhaps go back to expensive prices at Medium and High but still have all Merchants, but hitting Dangerous again, it would feel appropriate Merchants aren't showing up with their cheapest prices. The gameplay loop is fun enough I wouldn't mind recurring problems like that. I think.
- Couldn't find a way to see the state of the Kegs if there was one. So either include where to find that in the help/guide page or perhaps add it somewhere if possible. Just having an idea during the week of how many are still fermenting.
- No kissing during the interactive scene :<
I really enjoyed my time with this game so enjoy this little support as I eagerly wait for more :)
Also, potentially spoilers question : is there currently any scene triggered by keeping Lucy's desire maxed without doing anything about ita number of days in a row, or have I just been really mean to her for several days?
Hey, thanks for taking the time to give feedback.
1. Settings are absolutely coming, for sound and other things. I need to make a nice menu for it all.
2. Going to 100 fracture (and above) will actually have a huge effect in an upcoming update. Lucy's fracture is actually her own character with her own progression, but is not implemented yet. Keep an eye out for future updates, I'm very excited to introduce her.
3.Merchants absolutely go back to being limited if the roads reach a high enough level of danger. It's just kind of hard to reach that level because when the roads are dangerous, you encounter more monsters, and beating monsters lowers the danger.
4.The kegs are a place holder for now. I'm going to have new systems like farming, forging, and other inn related activities with their own UI. Something much nicer than the current kegs - but the game in its current form needed a way to get a little alcohol in the middle of the week, so this is a placeholder. It's fine, but far from perfect.
5.So, sooo many more lucy interactions coming. I promise haha.
6. No current scene for leaving Lucy frustrated, absolutely will be, tied in with response 2.
Thanks again, I love all the feedback people are leaving.
Impressively polished for an alpha, and a solid core gameplay loop.
Some loose observations:
Overall I love it, this is just minor nitpicking.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely be adding more comprehensive options menus through development, and much better tutorials / help screens. UI will see changes as well - there's quite a few pieces of gameplay not added yet, and so I'll be adjusting as needed.
I came for the porn and stayed for the surprisingly well done cozy story about a new family being created between MC and Lucy as they rebuild MCs family business (and the porn was good too). Legit props for this and all the work done so far. I looking forward to what's to come in the future. Take your time though, I can be patient. One thing I would like to see added at some point though, that I hadn't seen mentioned after a quick glance through the comments, is multiple save files to see how the other choices in the opening affect things.
Thanks, glad you like it!
Multiple save slots absolutely coming.
feels like you can accidentally do a bit of a sequence break if you manage to get hscenes with her before doing the fractured convos, which feels a little jank.
lucy also feels a little too cheery at the very start of the game, imo... but that's likely because of that sequence breaking. if you had to see the fractured stuff first it'd definitely make more sense.
would really love if the MC growing up here is used more, and if we can at least find some more permanent locations/"landmarks" around the inn. great opportunity to pad out MC/lucy's relationship and help it develop more naturally imo, also gives more natural characterization opportunities which is always in short supply in sandbox style games.
love the setup so far tho. odd question, do you have a roadmap you're willing to share? even making it super vague is ok. I do have an idea to help refine the intro a bit more, make a few things between the MC and lucy more natural/logical, but it's not a priority imo, unless you feel stumped at that.
this was playing on the first alpha tho, so i haven't seen stuff from the update, cracking it open now :), kinda hyped about world events.
maybe i'll find time to make a mod (lol, probably not) to change up the shopkeeps to more Against the Storm's style, where shops aren't by fixed categories but by specific merchant, and some merchants sell a full set of one category while others sell a variety. That would be convenient for adding a larger set of merchant characters to interact with (scope creep has entered the chat)
notably, i play stuff like FTL, xcom, etc so a bit of resource management is not a huge deal, but the variance can be rough for people starting out, and it'll definitely cause some nerves if a relative noob accidentally picks a bad intro build. i also won't be starting a new game quite yet so if the early game has been modified, it won't be reflected here yet.
when lucy makes her comments at nighttime, should maybe have an option for her to not bring up the same thing again, or maybe have the threshold increase every time she mentions it? dunno. it gets repetitive and somewhat breaks immersion.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. A lot of what you are saying makes perfect sense. Keep in mind, it's the alpha, lots of things left to add - and plenty of what's already there needs to be polished.
There will be more NPCs, more events, more equipment, more spells, more skills, etc etc etc.
The build currently has most of summer, the following seasons are coming. I'll have new gameplay in each season, and more ways to change the inn once you've restored it.
The frequency of night dialog is absolutely going to be tweaked and there's already a few fixes in the next build for sequence breaking.
As for bad builds etc - there really isn't a fail state in the game right now, and it's far from being fully balanced, I would simply say not to stress about it too much. It's pretty hard to end up in a spot where you ruin your file since the play is essentially endless.
np.
For reference, "restored" is level 6? Haven't quite gotten there yet, took it slow so i'm in fall but still lvl 5. Customization post-lvl 6 sounds exciting.
Good to hear fixes are being implemented, and thanks for the overview.
I'm well aware there's no actual "bad build" beyond like the first two weeks, i'm not particularly stressed but i saw some posts on another thread where players were grappling with it early on.
It's already been mentioned by others, but i can't wait for lucy to get more outfits as well, tho i understand that's very art asset intensive.
Yeah restored would be level 6. Right now it's sort of the last thing you do, but it's intended to be the jumping off point for further content.
Thanks again for the feedback, I really appreciate it.
Hey!
Would you mind creating discord server so we could keep track of your updates?
Hello, we will look into it!
really love the game so far. I hope there's customisation coming in the future - I'd love to give Lucy different outfits
Thanks, and yes, there's plans for outfits and other things.
This game looks really nice and has lot of potentials
Thank you, glad you like it.
Looking forward to see more of this! Looking good so far :)
Thanks! More coming soon.