Bliss Stage: Love Is Your Weapon was the planned official Visual Novel adaptation of the Tabletop Roleplaying Game Bliss Stage, by PH Lee's imprint, These Are Our Games.
The game was being produced by Perpetual Motion Games .
Links to the Mediafires for the public demos for Mac, Windows, and Linux are available here.
The story expands on the events and characters from the one-shot, Final Act, published in the first edition of Bliss Stage. It follows the adventures of Joshua Castellano Preston, the newest pilot of The Treasure Island Resistance and son of its Commander, Jim Preston. They are fighting a losing battle again an Alien Invasion by the Nightmares, a race of Eldritch Abominations from a dimension adjacent to our dreams.
His weapon? The ANIMa, a reverse-engineered alien device that creates a psychic manifestation of his intimate relationships. But time is running out for him... Bliss happens, and if he drags his feet too long, or acts like a Jerkass, he is going to either die messily or fall to the Bliss.
After the release of the demo, development stalled out, and all communication regarding the game ceased in late 2014, leaving only the very unfinished demos behind.
The demo contains examples of:
- Author Appeal: The character designer openly admits to a fetish for scars.
- Discriminate and Switch: Early in the Meredith path, Josh delivers a compliment about her intelligence using the phrase "someone like you." It isn't obvious to Meredith that he meant a teenager by 'someone like you.' Hilarity Ensues.
- Glass Cannon: Keenan has a lot of low-Trust, high Intimacy relationships at the beginning of the game, this greatly enhances his ability to succeed at dishing out damage, but also makes him far more vulnerable to Bliss.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Sara's hair is in Twin Tails (well, French braids) to really hammer the "innocence" thing home.
- Mission Control: Meredith serves as Joshua's aide during the introductory combat sequence, integrated into the story as well, as she is his anchor.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Much to Sara's annoyance, Derek is deeply suspicious of anyone taking an interest in her.
- Race Lift: Joshua Preston from the Bliss Stage Canon main rules was of unspecified race. Josh Castellano Preston specifies it as Irish and Colombian.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Meredith can give one to Josh to encourage him to Pilot on his first mission, depnding on your choices up to that point.
- Transforming Mecha: Lin's ANIMa switches forms from a jet plane, a chicken-walker VTOL with arms, and a monkey-like mecha with a staff. Like all ANIMa, that's also a symbol of her relationship with her Anchor, Meredith.
- Unrequited Love: Heavily implied this is the reason Mulan joined the Resistance with Anna Lin.
