Home
My Selected Works

Livber: Smoke and Mirrors

A horror visual novel set in one house. Elbek comes back to Lilith, the lover he thought was dead.

Livber: Smoke and Mirrors key art. A red-haired woman smiles in shadow beside the game's logo.
Role
Writer & Narrative Designer
Team
5 people
Studio
InEv Games
Format
Visual novel
Status
Released on Steam, 28 October 2025
Tools
articy:draft X, Miro, Unity, Dialogue System for Unity
SteamPlay the prologue on itch.ioLivber in articy:draftThe Miro board
85%
Positive Steam reviews (42, Nov 2026)
80/100
AltChar review
6.5/10
IGN Greece review
8
Endings across three acts
48,014 words
Script length, fully voiced

Highlights

  • Wrote the whole script.
  • Designed the branching to eight endings.
  • Built every scene in articy:draft and storyboarded it for the artists.
  • Wrote voice notes for every character.
On this page
  1. Elbek returns to the lover he thought was dead.
  2. I wrote the script and designed its branches.
  3. I developed the dinner scene through script, storyboard and implementation.
  4. Lilith’s dialogue introduces the porph meat.
  5. I built the conversation and its branches in articy:draft.
  6. I prepared the storyboard on paper and in Miro.
  7. The finished scene combines the dialogue and illustrated memory.
  8. I organised the branches, endings and character voices.
  9. The player can reach eight endings across three acts.
  10. Side conversations return to the main scene.
  11. Each character has a defined way of speaking.
  12. The supporting pages contain the scene and storyboard documents.
  13. Reviews discuss the released game.

Elbek returns to the lover he thought was dead.

Livber is a psychological horror visual novel about guilt, set in one house across three acts.

Five years ago Elbek turned his lover Lilith in for black alchemy. He believes she was executed. A letter in her hand brings him back to her house.

Each room of the house is a scene with its own choices. The Narrator wants the story to keep looping.

I wrote the script and designed its branches.

Writer and narrative designer on a team of five. I wrote the script, designed its branches and moved the articy project into Dialogue System for Unity. The developer handled the remaining integration.

I developed the dinner scene through script, storyboard and implementation.

The dinner with Lilith shows how I developed an Act 1 scene through writing, storyboarding and implementation.

  1. LilithEat. It’s porph meat... cooked just the way you like it.1. “Gods! Porph meat?”2. “I didn’t think it could be eaten.”LilithAfter the festival where we met... we saw a porph.1ScriptLines, choices, stage directions.
  2. The dinner flow in articy:draft: dialogue nodes branching and rejoining, with frame comments.2articy:draftEvery node and branch.
  3. The dinner on the Miro board: the articy map with frame 6 and its variations boxed, and frame 6 tied to its articy IDs.3StoryboardFrames tied to articy IDs.
  4. The dinner in the game: an illustrated memory of the beast Lilith describes, horse-like with a long mane, opens over the dialogue panel.4GameThe memory opens over the dialogue.

Lilith’s dialogue introduces the porph meat.

Lilith serves porph, a beast with a long mane.

Livber: Smoke and Mirrors · Act 1, dinner with Lilith (excerpt)
Elbek

Your madness will be the end of us both.

Lilith

You saw to that when you reported me. Eat. It's porph meat, cooked the way you like it. The fat melts under your tongue. Then you taste the herbs.

Player choice
  1. Gods. Porph meat? Lilith, have you lost your mind?
  2. Porph meat? I didn't think it could be eaten.
Lilith

We saw one after the festival, the night you first told me you loved me. Such a long mane. You kept telling me how beautiful it was. I had to sit there and listen. Then we went to eat. I've remembered that evening ever since.

Player choice
  1. We didn't eat together that night.
  2. I remember being happy. Perhaps that's why the rest hurt so much.

She strikes the table with both hands and leans across it.

Lilith

We ate this. You said you loved me. You said we'd never part. Do you remember what else you promised?

I built the conversation and its branches in articy:draft.

Green bars mark the storyboard frames. SEN is the player, ANLATICI the Narrator. Click for full size.

The dinner flow in articy:draft, the longest conversation of the act, with frame comments marking the storyboard frames.

I prepared the storyboard on paper and in Miro.

Frame VI on paper becomes frame 6 on the board.

Three hand-drawn storyboard sheets for Act 1 on squared paper: a list of the act's scenes, frames I to IX sketched with cuts between them, frame VI showing Lilith at the dinner table, and a written description of frame I.
Act 1 on paper, frames I to IX.

On Miro each frame carries its articy IDs, so the artists can find the exact nodes. The character art is moodboard reference.

The dinner on the Miro board: a render of the dining table, the articy map with frame 6 and its variations 6.1 to 6.4 boxed, and a list of frames with articy IDs, including the flashback.
Frame 6 and its variations. A variation redraws the frame for another branch: in 6.1 the knife cuts Lilith’s index finger, in 6.2 her thumb.

  1. A passive protagonist

    ProblemLilith drove every beat. He only reacted.

    SolutionI gave him an inner voice and built the choices on it: “I feel like I’m walking into a trap, but I can’t let it show.”

  2. Explaining the dish too early

    ProblemObjects open a tooltip when clicked. The meat sits on the table before Lilith offers it, so its tooltip would give it away.

    SolutionThe meat becomes clickable only after Lilith tells him to eat.

The finished scene combines the dialogue and illustrated memory.

0:33 · Sound on
The memory Lilith describes opens over the dialogue.
The scene in Dialogue System for Unity, and two more Act 1 shots
The dinner conversation in the Dialogue System editor in Unity: the node graph from START, and on the right Lilith's opening line with its English text and translations.
The same scene in Dialogue System for Unity.
  • Lilith lunges with a knife while the dialogue panel shows her distorted, stretched-out lines.Lilith’s lines break apart.
  • A dark cellar door, with the dialogue panel offering a single choice: close your eyes and accept Lilith.The end of Act 1.

I organised the branches, endings and character voices.

The player can reach eight endings across three acts.

Act 3 top-level flow in articy:draft: the prologue loops out to Keenan's and Clara's resolutions, then Lilith awakens, then Truth: the ritual and Past: remembering, three endings each, all leading to The end.
Act 3. The player picks truth or past, and each route ends three ways. Two flags set earlier decide whether Lilith has her face and her tongue.

Livber has eight endings: one early ending in Act 1, one in Act 2 and six in Act 3.

All ending flows are on the articy page.

Side conversations return to the main scene.

0:39 · Ambient sound, no voice
The opening. Yel, a winged cat, waits at Lilith’s door.
The At the door flow in articy:draft: the opening narration branching into many short exchanges. Three jump nodes marked Loop send the player back to the narration, and a marked rejoin point leads on to Yel and the door.
Loops go back to the narration. Every other branch rejoins before the door.

Side questions are loops: ask, hear some lore, come back. They add depth and leave the main branch the same size.

Lore one hover away: the opening narration (0:40)
0:40 · No sound
Underlined words open short lore notes.

Each character has a defined way of speaking.

From the character sheets I wrote for the cast.

Voice notes for six characters
The NarratorThe voice of the story
Literary when setting a scene. Commands when Elbek resists ("GO TO THE DOOR NOW!"). Close to pleading when it loses control.
LilithAntagonist, Elbek’s former lover
Slow, with long pauses. Swings from "my love…" to an icy command.
KeenanElbek’s conscience, in chains
Fast and erratic. Every barb hits a weakness.
ClaraA victim of Lilith
Whispers and stammers. Repeats what Lilith taught her ("I must be beautiful").
LeigeaElbek’s mother
Calm and unhurried. Puts hard truths in plain words.
YelA winged cat
Meow. Meuv. Mrrrr.

The supporting pages contain the scene and storyboard documents.

Reviews discuss the released game.

“Livber is beautifully written, and its descriptive language complements the visuals perfectly.”

AltChar, review, 80/100

“How one line of dialogue could completely throw your run under the bus…”

Vice

Click the picture to zoom · click outside to close