Without a Voice
In the depths of a dark and unforgiving forest, an exiled princess whiles her time in solitude. For a girl raised in the lap of comfort, the woods are impossibly harsh, and day-to-day survival is the most she can manage. One day, however, a mysterious, beautiful maiden appears, throwing her world out of its already delicate alignment. The princess is instantly captivated by this stranger, and begins to fancy herself the heroine of a fairytale, even as the maiden proves herself to be less and less of a fantasy.
Foolish princess. She should know by now that her life is no fairytale.
In seven days, the wheel of fate will splinter. Seven days, for better or worse...
Cassidy, the protagonist. A exiled princess and the eldest child of the Veromere royal family. Cassidy is nice, but rather clueless and struggles to live on her own due to her pampered upbringing
cv. Shara Kirby
Elowen, the mysterious beauty who appears before Cassidy one day. While at a glance she is graceful and beautiful in an otherworldly way, she is also quick to anger and rather self-centered. Sometimes, she becomes quiet and a little gloomy when staring out at the woods outside the cottage windows...
cv. Natalie Van Sistine
- Over 15,000 words
- 8 endings
- 12 event illustrations
- A beautiful, dark fantasy, WLW tale
There's also a 40 page booklet for anyone who pays over $5 as a token of our appreciation! Included:
- A quick, spoiler-free guide to all the endings as well as explanations for them!
- All the artwork from the game!
- Concept art and work-in-progress shots!
- Lots and lots of developer commentary!
- A ton of extra art Laniessa has made over the last few years!
- Lots of love, sappy feelings and a couple of bad jokes
Without a Voice is a short, free (PWYW for tips) VN originally developed for Yuri Game Jam 2016 by L³. The old demo came out November 4th, 2016. The updated demo was released on June 15th, 2018. The final release was on March 20, 2020.
The writing/programming is done by Lorelei, while the art, design, and graphical assets are by Laniessa. Laiska is on editing/testing duty! WaV's music is all composed by ExPsyle and Kana's Sound Factory (old demo only). Trailer narration by Natalie van Sistine. Published by Bellhouse.
Soundtrack by ExPsyle.
If you're interested in translating Without a Voice, please contact us here!
Content Warning: This game contains violence, graphic depictions of death, gore, homophobia, implied incestuous themes and codependency. This list is in no way exhaustive or complete, and not everything listed is present in every playthrough. Please exercise caution while playing.
Download
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Development log
- Without a Voice: Blooming Edition now available!May 28, 2024
- Without a Voice now playable on browsers!Apr 26, 2024
- Without a Voice 2.0.3Apr 26, 2024
- Without a Voice 2.0! Full voice acting and more!Apr 05, 2024
- Without a Voice - Fourth Anniversary and Exciting News!Mar 20, 2024
- Without a Voice - Full Soundtrack!Sep 18, 2020
- Without a Voice - Original Soundtrack!Jun 02, 2020
- Without a Voice Release!Mar 20, 2020
Comments
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Beautiful🤧👏
it is so beautiful!.. i love my tree girlfriend!!!!!!!!
if i were a girl this wouldn't be boring but it is
if you were a girl, you wouldn't write bs like this, sad that you are not one xD
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OHMY GOD
I downloaded this game before the web version released (so before the voice acting) AND EVERYTHING WAS SO PERFECT AND GORGEOUSAHHHH
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for making this game.
Cassidy is amazing. I love her so much. I don't typically self-insert when playing visual novels, but so much of her dialogue was so familiar that it felt like it could have been me anyway:
...where did you get my diary? Could I, um, get it back?
At the risk of being too personal, I also grew up in a sheltered, not-so-healthy environment. (For better or worse, I did not grow up as an exiled princess in a forest.) Sometimes I look back on all of the things that I believed and it feels so, so stupid. If only I'd been a bit less trusting, less blind to the world. If I only I hadn't been such a fool! I'm free now, but my past can still haunts me — and having to sit with my mistakes makes it worse.
Cassidy doesn't start the game as, uh, the brightest leaf on the branch. It's rare to see that in a VN — the protagonists I've seen have usually been more scheming or aware. It meant so much to me to see her grow throughout the story, to watch her face her life and exile and imprisonment. She's absolutely pampered, but she doesn't have to be a genius to be kind — and when the situation calls for it, she can be so incredibly charismatic.
I followed the guide for Good Ending 1, so I haven't seen the full story. Judging by the ending descriptions, I don't think I'll be emotionally ready to read through all of them for some time. Even so, the game left a mark. The art and design are so charming. The soundtrack is used so well. It's a short game, but some of the lines hit so, so hard.
I mean, come on. And on top of this, women in love?? with women??? So incredibly cool.
Thank you so much for playing and your thoughts!!! It really means so much to us! Lore really did so well on the poems, they're so incredible.
It was a great pleasure to return to "Without a Voice" and to be able to listen to the dialogue voiced. The voice acting is on point and it adds a lot to the enjoyment of the story which, as it turns out, remains one of my favorites despite reading dozens of other, much longer and more complex visual novels in the meantime. However, there is a special kind of magic to what you have created. Two questions though: the achievement for completing all endings says "short story unlocked." What short story? Also, despite finshing all endings, there are still two pictures locked in the gallery, so I'm confused. It says my game completion is only 91.95% and I understand I could have missed some lines, but CGs?
PS "Together, We Are Eternal" is such a beautiful ending.
Thank you so much for coming back to the game and enjoying it!! 🥹
The extra short story is in the Achievements section under the skull icon! One of the two pictures should be from that, but not sure what the other one is from. If you could email screenshots of which ones you have unlocked to adirosa@vnstudioelan.com, she’ll have a look to see!
Thank you for your help. Now it's only the final picture in the gallery missing. I've already sent an email with the screenshots. Now I'm looking forward to the Blooming Edition. I wish you best of luck with this and any further projects.
@ChimeraDD
Hi — Without a Voice 2.0.1 has just been released, which addresses an issue that can cause the final gallery image (※ which was newly added in 2.0) to never unlock if persistent save data from 1.0 was somehow loaded in 2.0.
Please try this version and see if it fixes your issue — simply opening 2.0.1 should be enough to trigger the new unlock validation.
Apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for playing Without a Voice.
It is unlocked now! Thank you :-)
can this be made fully blind accessibl?
Hi! On April 5th, we'll be coming out with a voice acting patch for all of the dialogue. Hitting V will enable self-voicing as well, which will read out the game's narration and menus using your computer's Text to Speech settings.
Looks great! It was a pleasure to be in the Queer Halloween Stories Bundle with you!
Thank you!!! Same here :)
Literally cheered after getting a good ending after the first three bad endings, I was so happy
I love these mfs
This game features too many dialogues at the start and very little player interaction, the story is good though. More interaction in the game, such as player movement and action would be great. It's very boring if there is no interaction, there are times were I would get bored and skim-read the dialogues and have my hands on the WASD keys preparing to move the character, but the game seems to feature little if no character movement whatsoever, I have not finished the game yet so I only know what I played up to so far. In a normal RPG game, if you have only gone through a bunch of dialogues at the start and have not interacted at all other than choosing the words of a character's speech, then that means you have not started the game properly yet. I know that this is intended to be more like a novel but I did expect it to be more like a game though. Perhaps it would be great if it was made so that the actions are done by the players such as picking up objects by pressing a key, walking up to people etc.
good thing this is listed as a visual novel and not an RPG
I’m not used to the visual novel genre so me coming from conventional video games, I find it less engaging and I thought that more interaction would be good especially for people with a shorter attention span like me. Also I finished the game btw.
ok cool but like..this is a good visual novel that abides by its genre's standards. saying "it would be great" if it did things visual novels rarely if ever do is not a really valid critique, it's a personal subjective issue with the format of this genre. i have very severe adhd and a very short attention span and still enjoyed this (and other games where i dont move the character but can activate my imagination) quite a lot
This was such a beautiful story, meaning both the storytelling and the visuals! Also, the choices are very thoughtfully built. (While I couldn't figure them out myself, after reading the guide in the artbook, I am impressed.) I enjoyed the little verses at the beginning of every day, was a nice little touch. And you did a great job with the foreshadowing of who Elowen is. I only wish there was more of the game, if we could have read more of the conversation between the two ladies in the seven days. I really enjoyed this game, you all did an amazing job, thank you for making it!
Beautiful.
What an enjoyable experience. I'm still in the process of unlocking all the endings, but I wanted to say that I love the artwork and the writing. The GUI is also so stylish. Thank you for making this visual novel.
It's such a beautiful game and story. Thank you for creating it! :)
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS GAME I JUST FINISHED PLAYING THIS GAME AND IT'S EVERYTHING I COULD'VE ASKED FOR... The characters are so well-written it hurts, the background and just the art in general is so gorgeous and and suits the story so well, and I love the writing!! The dialogue flowed well and the verses (?) at the beginning of each day and ending were PERFECT, my favorite one was this one: "Without wisdom or experience,
storms shall ill-weathered be.
But when you are nearby, dear one,
no storms can bother me."
So cute... This game was so cute. I'm missing just one bad ending right now but I'll figure out how to get it eventually. THANK YOU!
Hello everyone! I hope you've been well. It was the 1 year release anniversary for Without a Voice a couple days ago, and while I couldn't prepare anything grand, I wanted to draw a Elowen/Cassidy kabedon, so I did!
Thank you for all the support and love throughout the year, everyone!
Honestly, I gotta say this is unexpectedly good. The art style, the music and the storyline just go so well together. Thank you guys for the masterpiece
Gorgeous game and story, wonderful soundtrack. It seems I got the "good ending" and it just touches my heart. Can't wait to discover the others.
I love the story but getting any good ending is hard. Sometimes it may be hard to tell if the choice is meaningful or not. And some answers sound a bit similar. Could you write some kind of ending guide?
Edit: After few more tries and rethinking my choices I was able to get Good Ending :D no more need of guide... at least for me ...
♥
for the first good ending, you mostly need to do the top choices and only 2-3 bottom choices; make elowen love cassidy and screw alexander
for second ending, when you get the letter or write the letter for alexander in day three, you just need to choose all of the top options
or you just choose all top options in general for second ending
I LOVE THIS SO FRICKING MUCH, I DON'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO DESCRIBE THIS ALL
Artwork was great, the story was nice, but the gameplay to unlock stories was quite off. I couldn't find much logic into the outcomes, and had to follow a walkthrought list. Which is kinda sad. :o
This is truly stunningly beautiful. I ADORED the art, it seriously fascinated me! I COULD STARE AT THE CHARACTERS AND THOSE BACKGROUNDS FOR GOD KNOWS HOW LONG. This is just extremely well made and I could see the ton of hard work put into it! I love the story (although i don't know everything about it just yet, still exploring but but it's very interesting!) and the romance between the Elowen and Cassidy (ok but lemme take a moment to point out how beautiful their names are ;;) is so astonishingly well written, as i read through, i almost could feel cassidy's emotions, aNd HELL IT'S ADORABLE. Awesome story telling tho, although as a bookworm, i read EVERYTHING regardless, this never got boring at ANY point which happens a lot with many other games i played! LOVE THE CHARACTERS, THE GIRLS ARE MY BABIES NOW GOSH ILOVETHEMSOMUCH. oVEraLL, THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS!!!!! I'd love to support but being broke really isn't helping me here :'D cOLLEGE IS DOING ME DIRTY SO I NEED EVERY PENNY, but I'll definitely try and support when I got more money on my hands >-<
Lmao tho,,,, EVERYONE IS GETTING THE GOOD ENDINGS FIRST AND STRUGGLING WITH WITH THE BAD ENDINGS AND ENDING 8,,,, and then u got me,,, I GOT ENDING 8 FIRST,,, iS thAt weiRD??? =^='''''' I didn't even try cUz I juST stARteD pLAYinG. bUT I GOD I LOVED IT. Not leaving spoilers cuz apparently people are having a hard time with it? idk but comments be telling me that 0-0
Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. The was this visual novel was put together was like reading a play. The writing was in tune with the setting and time period and made the special moments and good endings wonderful. I only played through the 2 good endings, I was too scared to go and find all the bad ones. The was the love between Cassidy and Elowen progressed and bloomed dident seem rushed or burdened by common VN tropes. The fact that it was a Yuri love story wasent flaunted or just used as a excuse to show them nude/partially nude or suggestive. It the writing dident seem hindered and the story was written with such eloquence that it felt like a real story told through time. I loved everything, the writing, the poems, the art, and the music. Everything was put together in such a astonishing way that I couldent stop reading until I got both good endings. The romance is sweet and almost childlike, and the tinge of supernatural gave it more depth. I really enjoyed reading this beautiful story it was really amazing!
Such a beautiful VN, I really enjoyed reading it and finding all of the endings <3
And sorry for asking you here, but I couldn't find any email or anything like that: are you planning translating it in other languages, perhaps? My first language is Russian, I have a linguistics degree and I'm currently trying to find projects where I could participate so that later I would have a nice portfolio. I'd be really glad if you would agree to at least discuss this possibility. Thank you!
Hello! Thank you so much for playing, I'm so glad you enjoyed it!!
We don't have any plans to translate it to other languages - I can't speak for the quality of the TL since I can't speak Russian, but there seems to already be a fan Russian TL of Without a Voice! I think the team name is Sol Taere..? Thank you so much for offering though.
Really enjoyed this, one of the better VN's I've ever played. The relationship between characters felt real and sincere, as well as individual choices affecting ending not just adding up points to a possible outcome. I can only look forward to your next project.
Aww thank you so much! We're so glad you enjoyed it. Balancing those points between the endings was definitely one of the trickier parts of making the game.
We're busily working on some more stuff, so hopefully we'll have that for people to enjoy soon!
I'll definitely play it when it comes out, thank you for the game!
Hi! I'm absolutely excited to play this game but I have a question. Would it be alright if I stream while playing this game? I'm new to streaming and have waited for the game to finally be released so I can play it on a stream, please reply to this comment and let me know! I appreciate the hard work put into the game and I will give full credit to everyone involved in the making of the game. Thanks! 😀
Hey there! Sorry for replying so late! Of course, I hope you have fun ❤︎
Typo it says "The final release was on May 20, 2020." its may 18 2020 and your final release was 59 days ago I think you got the wrong "M" month but the game was Really good
Thank you so much for playing! And... Oops!!! That's embarassing!!! I've edited the game page, thank you so much for the catch!
Nice contrast of good endings. I like my yuri romantic and you achieved that. Good job over all. Maybe we will see something else by ya'll.
First, let me say that this is so beautiful!! Thank you so much for creating this game. I love everything about it (I could listen to the music all day!)
I had purchased the DLC through Steam but I can’t seem to access it at all. I’m worried I should have downloaded it directly though itch in order to view.
Oh no! Sorry for getting to you so late!
On Steam, you'll have to go to the game folder itself. From Steam, try going to your local files and see if it's there! If it isn't please let me know and I'll figure something out for you.
Oh, and, thank you so much for playing!
Thank you for getting back to me. I was able to get to the DLC. I LOVED the game and the art. Such beautiful work.
I really enjoyed reading this! I especially liked the lovely background art with all the flowers. I also thought it was really cool how each character had their own little dialogue box that went translucent when the other was talking. If you ever consider writing up a tutorial on how you programmed that, I'd love to see it!
I have played this game on steam and I really loved it. Can't describe with words how much I ship those cuties <3 . Thanks for making this wonderful game.
I just completely finished Without a Voice and I just wanted to say I could see the huge amount of effort and love put into this project and I cannot wait to see what you will be producing in the future.
I just finished getting all of the endings and this game is so beautiful. All of the bad endings broke my heart, but the good endings were so lovely that it makes getting them all the more satisfying. I downloaded and played the game on steam but I've also happily purchased it here as well so I could get the beautiful artbook. <3
i really enjoyed this!! i'm currently trying to get a happier ending :( but wow!! this game is really beautiful with a great story!! super enjoyable, and congrats on the release!! <3
edit: i just got ending 8 and i could not be more pleased :')
I was wondering how you can get bad ending 1 and 2? They seem to be the hardest to get...
Congrats on the release!!!!
Thank you very much!!!!
I find myself utterly unable to get endings 2 and 8! Any hint, please? ;D
Ending 8 is the ending you get when you don't trigger the other endings - it's not too important but being a little nonsensical might help. For ending 2... try feeding into Cassidy's paranoia.
Edit: I made a mistake and I'm a terrible dev, I was describing ending 6 instead of 8!!!!!!!!!!! I am sorry. feralphoenix has it right though!!!
I am having the same problem xD, reply to me if you manage to get one of those.
i had a hard time with those too lol... there's a guide to how to get each ending in the artbook if you can afford throwing 5 bucks at the devs!
if not, i'm not sure what would be good advice for getting ending 2, but i think getting ending 8 takes a delicate balance of having cassidy believe the best of elowen/not dwell too much on her ~true nature~ while Also not completely giving up faith in alexander. at the "what's cassidy's final impression of elowen" choice i had all 4 options which had never happened before in my other playthroughs.
Oh dear, I spent another 2 hours yesterday trying to get those two missing endings... and I couldn't manage it. I've had all four options too and yet they did not make a difference.
It's nice to know that there's an artbook with a guide but right now it would be really irresponsible for me to spend money since I got sent home to be in lockdown without my paycheck :(
To the devs: you just released this and I'm already yearning for another game from you ;D
Ahh you can do it!!! Another tip for ending 2 would be, hmm... Cassidy needs to figure things out, while having a healthy dose of mistrust towards everyone around her.
ALSO thank you so much!!! We'll do our best!!!
So you said you were workin on it, and turns out, you were ACTUALLY REALLY workin on it! That is so rare!
Gongrats with release!
Is there any changes in first demo-days, or they can be skipped?
There's a little bit of updated CG directing and art! I think most of the text is the same but, (probably bad to admit this), I'm not entirely sure!
Well yeah it looked pretty much same to me. But thats ok.
And btw with this overly-complicated nonlinear system i really suggest you made a simpliest walkthrough to answer further cries and complaints - just plain list of choices for each ending.
Oh also, thank you so much!!
March 20...
Soooo...
Wheeeeen?
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WORKIN on it!!!!
Okaaaay...
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