The new Key and VisualArt’s kinetic novel Harmonia has gone live on Steam Greenlight, and is now open for voting to get a release on Steam. The official English VisualArt’s Facebook page made the announcement on Monday, and the page went live Friday evening.
VisualArt’s has also revealed that the game would be releasing in English prior to its Japanese release, a first for a company that has previously released games in Japanese only, let alone releasing in English before Japanese. The announcement came alongside the new English trailer below, which can also be found on the Greenlight page.
Harmonia is an upcoming kinetic novel meant as a celebration of Key’s 15th anniversary. The game is set in a postapocalyptic future, in a similar vein to their earlier kinetic novel Planetarian, also available on Steam from localization company Sekai Project (who are also working on a localization of Clannad). A kinetic novel is a visual novel that follows a single plot line, without any choices or multiple endings of any kind. The plot follows a “Phiroid”, a kind of robot that can feel emotions, named Rei. Rei awakens after the war that ruined the world, and finds himself unable to experience emotions anymore. Following the sound of singing, he happens upon a girl named Shiona, who cares for him after mistaking him for a collapsed human boy. As she cares for him, Rei begins to rediscover what emotions are.
The project planner for the game is Kai, who also worked as a scenario writer for Clannad, with original art for Itaru Hinoue, a character designer for Rewrite, Little Busters!, and Clannad, among others. The music is being composed by Shinji Orito, who also composed music for Little Busters!, Clannad and Air. The game is set to release in English and Japanese later this year.
