Beaconing: A Lost Cause

Explore a supposedly-haunted lighthouse with your ex-situationship-turned-frienemy in this unsettling, surreal visual novel! Made as a Toxic Yuri VN Jam entry.

The historic Cape West Lighthouse has been scheduled for demolition, having recently been damaged in a storm—but rumours of a haunting drive the demolition workers away. Private detective M. Marlow is on the case, having been roped into it by police detective Halley Arches, an old... familiar face.

Suppressed feelings are nothing new, and work well enough in the short term for getting the job done alongside a bitter ex... But the lighthouse has other ideas, and as a storm rolls in, Marlow finds herself drawn in by a mesmerizing beacon.  

GAME JAM NOTE: version 0.9.0 is unfinished and contains placeholder text and images! Some of the features listed below may not be available yet. All are coming to post-jam update and version 1.0.

  Scroll down for Accessibility Information!

FEATURES

• Two sapphics full of Baggage™
• Creepy abandoned lighthouse exploration with your bestie horrible ex
• Queernormative setting—homophobia plays no part in making the yuri toxic
• 3 endings  [coming in post-jam update]
• Hand-painted illustrations with watercolor and charcoal
• Hand-drawn pencil sprites [coming in post-jam update]
• About 6000 words of NVL-style prose 
• 7 textfont options for reading comfort including Atkinson Hyperlegible, DyslexicLogic, OpenDyslexic
• Cinematic 4:3 aspect ratio
• Unlockable gallery with illustrations, concept art, music box, and extras
• English & Portuguese-BR language support [coming in post-jam update]
• Textural, surreal soundtrack by Leo “ArcanaXIX” 
• idk if this counts as Denpa but fans of that genre might enjoy this
• You can kiss a cop if you think that’s a good idea 

SENSITIVE CONTENT (possible spoilers)

• Tobacco use & discussion
• Alcohol use & discussion
• Anxiety—physical and mental effects
• Emotional manipulation
• Gaslighting
• Verbal abuse
• Unwanted physical restraint
• Confinement/locked in closed environment
• Perceptual distortions, loss of reality, hallucinatory imagery & discussion
• Suggestive intimacy under altered mental state (player’s choice whether to proceed)

ACCESSIBILITY 

• Compatible with Ren'py's self-voicing mode (press V to activate)
• Press Shift+A on the keyboard to access Ren'py's accessibility menu, or click the link provided in the Settings screen
• Images described in alt text
• Sound effect captions option
• Music captions option
• 7 font choices including stylistic, plain, and low-vision/dyslexia-friendly
• Text color choices
• Autosave upon quit (creates new quicksave)
• Support for easy unofficial translation additions

The game comes with Portuguese-BR pre-installed, but supports additional unofficial translations. [coming in post-jam update]

Translation Instructions:

• Download the zipped folder "yourlanguagehere"
• Unzip the folder
• Change the folder name to your language in all lowercase (e.g. french, italian, etc)
• Use an editor such as VSCode to edit the .rpy files with your translations
• Find and replace all instances of "yourlanguagehere" in the .rpy code and change them to match your language's folder name (again, in all lowercase)
• Depending on your language you may need to add or change default font styles and/or images (see additional Ren'Py documentation about translations here)
• When done, copy the entire "yourlanguagehere" folder into the game/tl directory of the game's folder. The game should automatically detect folders placed here and add them to the "Language" section of the settings menu. (script credit: Bamboo Calculator)
• To distribute translations: zip the completed translation folder (whatever you changed "yourlanguagehere" into) and upload it to your distribution method of choice. Include instructions to unzip and place into the game/tl directory.

Support for unofficial translations is included as a courtesy and does not constitute endorsement or supervision by Quandtuniverse. Use at your own risk. Official translations may become available if I have enough funds to pay for them.

CREDITS

Narrative, art, animation and programming by Quandtuniverse
Music by Leo "ArcanaXIX"
Blues guitar performed by Leo ArcanaXIX's dad
Based on characters co-created and developed by Quandtuniverse and Robin Nightmares

JAM SIBLINGS
Survived Toxic Yuri VN Jam together!
Curled in Ice by Lunar Crossing & Scoliwings 

IN MEMORIAM
SketchyNonsense
1997–2025

This game was made in Tovaangar, ancestral land of the Tongva people who still live here today. Sovereignty was never ceded. We fully support their right to Land Back and encourage all to learn more and make Kuuy Nahwá’a (guest exchanges) at the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy.