1966 WIP 344k words (UPDATE 20/6/26 +100k words) [Mystery, Romance, Horror, Lovecraftian, Supernatural]

[Starwish_Armedwithwi]

I mean honestly there’s not really a lot of characters you can use to replace him in Lovecraft’s work if you want a trickster god archetype, and King in Yellow doesn’t really have a lot of connection to Lovecraft as a whole, since we don’t even have a single coherent framework to unit all the entities anyways, it’s pretty much whatever the writer says goes, I’ve seen Dagon being on the same power level as Shub Niggurath in a very well written Chinese Lovecraft webnovel and there’s nothing wrong with it, go nuts if it makes a better story.

Personally I can’t wait to wreck this dollar store Dionysus or die trying, even Cthulhu is way cooler than you by having the iconic Call of Cthulhu, sure he’s very popular in tabletop as a Skeletor figure, but outside of Lovecraft he doesn’t really have a unique niche that others can’t fill.

My disdain though is mostly from a meta perspective, the character itself is pretty well written in the story, can’t wait to see what happens next!

[SchLoZo]

Is this scene supposed to have the shard set to “mc”? because if yes, it doesn’t set shard to “mc”

Also I can’t find any choice in the chapter that will set shard to “lost”

[BlueSoulOfIntegrity]

As I said, I like the character’s inclusion. I was just curious about how they came to the decision and what ideas influenced them.

[UnholyTyrant]

Are we the king in yellow? At the start we get a few descriptions which I thought let us pick different eldritch gods but now im not sure if that decision really mattered.

[dorquemada]

People seem to think so. Anyway, here he is is with Nyarly from Unspeakable Vault (of Doom):

TBH, both him and Nyarly act more like Unspeakable Vault’s clowns rather than original ones, but it’s not a bad thing maybe, as I eventually decided after my brain got over “romance” and “Lovecraftian horror” being in the same sentence and read it. Rotted some guy’s nose off, that was fun. Brought a piece of long-overdue justice to some two-bit criminal even if I didn’t particularly care about the meatbag delivered to my place. Noticed quite some branching in the code, here’s hoping I can do some brainrot on the other paths too. Love the shabby town, has “Doomed!” feel stamped all over it. I do hope we could get one over Nyarly without waking Ol’ Tentacleface up, disintegrating a realm just to spite annoying fellow Old One is not becoming of a god, although if there’s no other way, then oh well.

[an_inspired_guess]

oh okay

[SchLoZo]

My 1966 MC isn’t the only eldritch version of my MC

The mold in my Marshal’s cowboy hat head is the most powerful and malicious eldritch being in the multiverse. It is only barely kept at bay by my Marshal’s obsession with Rade.

Also Cowboy Gov’nors ride pink Utahraptors to battle

I only realized while drawing this that both my 1966 and ITFO MCs wear crowns over their hats

[tipofmy_tongue]

Hello!

I found some typos/bugs (I will add more when I find some). Should I send them here or via tumblr?

Summary

ctr+f “he hasn’t” at 22:

                    This makes you pause. The truth is—${ghe} didn’t. “**He** hasn’t,” you say. “Not yet.” Perhaps you can still collect your debt."

“fuyons” at 22 (2 times the same line)

And it moves again, faster, to you.

*if withroulet
“Fuyons, fuyons !” ${roulet_name} urges under ${rhis} breath.

And it moves again, faster, to you.

Also, it would be really nice if someone reacts to you running around with a crown on your head, if you choose to wear it. Like for exampme the ghoul, when he says “I beg your Majesty’s pardon. I didn’t know you at a glance.” (And then you gives tou back the crown you lost in the fight, or he comments something like “even though your headgear makes it quite obvious”)

And i have to add: I adore your story! I diccovered Cthullhu lore and spread it through my friends, we all play the pnp now. I’m including the ghoul in my next campaign and mc at some other.

[Glyck]

This was great, love the update !

I think my favorite moment was definitely the scene turning into a Play when the MC lost it. Very confusing at first (especially during my first run with the messenger intervening at the end, because I’m always ready to blame them for everything ahah) but it was a very fun idea.

Also the ghoul being the best, as usual

[tipofmy_tongue]

I don’t know about the clowns thing. It depends on how you play your character. When you get insight into a horror, it always loses some of its mystery. I DM a lot of horror PnPs, and if my players knew what I know, they probably wouldn’t be nearly as thrilled. (I mean, they’d still suffer or die most of the time, though - the characters obviously.)
Considering you play one of those horrors and therefore have some insight, sure, it feels different viewing eldritch beings as one of their equals. But the eternal imprisonment is a horror of its own. You just have to let yourself immerse and really see it from that perspective.
Also it depends on how you play mc. I mean you can play them as a nearly human, funny person or as an otherworldly, unsettling being. You just have to view it from humans perspective, the mc’s powers will always be somethibg between unsettling and horrific for them.

[LiliArch]

I chose to earn money by painting portraits, but the game then pivots to me having started a salon instead?

Also a pronoun error

The option should say “her” and not “his”

[Lys]

I’ll try to get the death screen later. However, I ran into something similar with Larry.

Page 1 shows this:

“Larry, it’s all right,” Marie says carefully and takes a slow step forward to stand between you and Larry.

“Is it?!” Larry’s voice rises in a sudden and nervous inflection. “I saw that bitch die!”

Stay quiet and let Roulet talk.

“And you think you can kill that bitch?”

Page 2: I pick “And you think you can kill that bitch?”

This leads to a page with:

“And somehow you need to be as close to shoot me as to poison me,” you scoff.

Larry takes the bait and comes up very close to you. “Maybe I just wanna make sure you actually die this time.”

Choices:

Stare.

“Well, if at first you don’t succeed.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

“Twat”.

Page 3: I chose I’ve survived worse

This goes to:

Larry suddenly punches you in the jaw with the stock of his rifle, making you stumble backwards a few steps. Oh, that’s gonna leave a bruise, all right. “I’ll make your face worse!”

Because Larry has turned his rifle around to hit you with its stock, he is not currently aiming its muzzle at you.

You have a chance.

Choices:

Push Larry.

Grab Larry’s rifle.

Page 4: With the choices I made, I could only Push Larry (Grab the rifle was out)

There are a few pages you can’t skip, but eventually you end up at:

Another second later, you notice Roulet staring at the blood with pure shock in her eyes and a bloodied pickaxe in her hands. “No-no-no,” Roulet drops the pickaxe. “Is he dead?”

Choices:

“He’s not at all well.”

“Just resting his eyes.”

“You’d rather he wasn’t?”

“Yes.”

Page 5: I chose "you’d rather he wasn’t’.
The very next page asks if you want to drop a beam on Larry: Obviously, Larry got hit with a pick ax and shouldn’t be walking.

“You’d rather he wasn’t?” You glance around. Perhaps you can cause a distraction and sneak away. There is an unstable support beam.

Choices:

Or perhaps Roulet can lure Larry out.

Can I slip past unnoticed?

I want to drop the beam on Larry.

[Ominous_Oracle]

Really enjoying this so far, I love an Eldritch/cosmic horror premise! :] I found some bugs that are sorta spoilery for recent content so I’m going to put them below:

• Variable bug in chapter 5.2’s detective route where the “pal” variable is set to “etas” when choosing to go to the museum for assistance, but then all later checks (hotel, docks) are looking for pal = “ghoul”, so none of them trigger. This is especially noticable after returning from the hotel as no explanation/exposition text is actually displayed (since the variable doesn’t match any of the possible if branches)
• Related: Obviously couldn’t trigger it but noticed in the code that there’s a conditional when the ghoul joins you at the docks that triggers based on f_romance (Marsh) instead of g_romance – unsure if this was a typo or intentional (in which case nevermind)
• Multiple instances of hardcoded (incorrect, in my case) pronouns for the messenger during the chapter 5.2 detective visit/scene (specifically, hardcoded instances of he/him; I don’t have the exact lines to hand but could go back through and find them if preferred)

Thank you for sharing your writing! You’re very good at creating vivid imagery/descriptions of the world, and the cast is compelling and appropriately neurotic, lol. I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on this one going forward and I’m excited to see how things unfold!

[Reaper3]

I was wondering if there’s any chance of female characters getting to wear more masculine clothes? Suits with pants, tailcoats with breeches, etc?

[david125655]

“Dawn never cooks breakfast, but we can go to a café for nearby a bite of something.”

Should’ve been “nearby for a bite or something” unless this is intentional for Roulet’s dialogue.

“I’m guessing there should be someone at the church now who can help us,” Paul says. “Are you ready for a trip to the Order’s church? You leave the opera house, once again, to walk the empty, cold streets of New Ackerbury. The opera house being on the outskirts of the town, you and Paul walk for about fifteen minutes without seeing any other pedestrians or cars; however as you pass one street-junction you briefly see, at some distance down, a procession of hooded figures, but they disappear behind the corner before you can make out any details.

Where does the dialogue end?

[hjm]

When i Clicked on the Lie back option i got this error (chapter52_detective line 3381: Non-existent variable ‘m_sex’) this also appears if i click any of the subsiquent flirty lines with N. Is that a way to fix this?

[an_inspired_guess]

@hjm fixed. sorry! i’m afraid you’ll have to restart though

[tipofmy_tongue]

Here some bugs

Chapter 34

Summary

I got the text from \*else, even though I got protected by the ghoul. I have no idea where it went wrong in the code though.In a way, ${ghis} presence is comforting. \*if ghoulpast = “protected“ $!{ghe} protected you in the past: maybe ${ghe} would do so again. \*else You helped ${ghim} in the past: and you know you can work together.

Chapter 31

Summary

Although I’m not sure if it’s intended, it hinda feels weird to choose “I want to help” and the say “I can help”, when “I can help is an option on its own”

   #“I want to help.” 
        *set r_servant %- 20
        “I can help,” you answer.
        *goto roulet_quest_help
    #“I can help.” Bestow your servant some gratuity.
        *set r_servant %+ 20
        “I can help,” you offer ex gratia.

Chapter 22

Summary

Gender is wrong in this sentence.

the preacher is a man.
        “Hello,” he smiles kindly at you, lifting her head from the book.

I didn’t make a note there but…

Summary

When in the end, you get the option to watch one of the reels or read the paper the reels were in, you can choose the paper and one reel. But everybody reacts as if you watched both reels. What I mean is: I chose to read the paper and watch the first reel. Everybody said mcs body was a murderer, when it’s not clear by just watching reel 1. Also it doesn’t really mak sense when they watch the first reel, that they wouldn’t watch the second one (except mc doesn’twant to) - there is no time issue or someone interrupting. I think it would make more sense to let them watch both, especially with everything that’s said afterwards.

I finally finished the game. The branching is enormous, wow! And I love your writing so much, damn I got creeped when home in the dark after getting the reel. This whole “something is wrong, or am I getting crazy”, is really well done, I totally felt that.

[wwarara]

Oh gosh - I have so many thoughts about this IF and not enough eloquence to articulate it all lol. I thoroughly enjoyed this demo! I really appreciated the different archetypes we could play towards as the MC. Whether it was more human-leaning or all the way in the Untouchable God camp, each personality path felt natural.

On a similar note, I was surprised by how organic the romance developments were! The ghoul especially threw me for a loop - that church scene where they sit together is one of my favorite moments. I am admittedly a big sucker for old flame romances, tsundere pining and cat-and-mouse dynamics - so reading this IF was a feast.

Dreading the wait for the next update, but also really excited to see where the story goes. Absolute gem of a game!

[terracotta]

Loving this so far! Caught some typos here and there, but overall the writing is great and keeps me on my toes!

Not sure if I’ve run into the end of the demo or if I’ve caught a bug: Chapter53_actor line 2429: Non-existent variable ‘doorbell’ comes up when I try to open the door the morning after you watch the tapes.