Vanillaware Veteran's Gamebook-Style RPG Verita Tales Launches Demo
The demo shows a Vanillaware background artist applying his craft to a solo-developed, gamebook-style RPG that prioritizes tactile, tabletop-like mechanics over flashy presentation.
Reporting from 1 sources: Denfaminicogamer.
Yoshio Nishimura, a Vanillaware veteran who worked on Odin Sphere and 13 Sentinels, released a free demo for his new RPG Verita Tales: The Witch of the Dark Castle during Steam Next Fest in June 2026. The game is a digital gamebook with dice-roll battles, over 300 hand-drawn illustrations, and branching story paths. Nishimura spent six years developing the title while living in a mountain village in Nara Prefecture.
Yoshio Nishimura, a background artist who worked on Odin Sphere, Dragon's Crown, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim at Vanillaware, has released a free demo for his first independent game. Verita Tales: The Witch of the Dark Castle is a digital gamebook RPG that reproduces the feel of paper gamebooks and tabletop RPGs. The interface shows a book with yellowed pages, a pencil, an eraser, and a coin on a desk. Players roll dice for battles, erase and rewrite stat numbers on a character sheet, and choose between two protagonists. Nishimura drew all over 300 illustrations himself. The demo covers the first 30 minutes of the main game and is available on Steam as part of the June 2026 Next Fest.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.