A Witch's Curse (W.I.P) (Updated 3/2/2019)

Hey y’all.

I’ve started working on game in my free time called A Witch’s Curse. It’s my first ever interactive fiction as well as my first time coding. There will probably be a lot of bugs and growing pains because of this, I know it took me the better part of a day to get just the teaser up and functioning. Criticism and feedback would be wonderful! I’m very curious what people think of the story as well as my writing in general.

Also, I want to give a warning, some of the content in the story might be a sensitive subject for readers. I will update this as the story continues, but in the first chapter at least there are brief mentions of child and animal abuse as well as suicide and murder.

A Brief Synopsis: Your memories are faulty, full of minor contradictions and things that never could’ve happened. Other than that your life is simple enough. That is until a strange leather bound book falls in your lap, or rather, you fall onto it.

Characters

The Witch a.k.a “Mom”: Your overbearing mother, she’s been sick for as long as you can remember and you help to take care of her. But, there’s something off about her, you can’t explain it… The two of you are constantly moving around.

  • Not Romance-able

  • A witch who has cursed you to believe that she is your mother, and you, her obedient child. After you broke into her house and were found out, she cursed you. Her spell was to have you work for her as a mindless servant for the rest of your unnatural life. The two of you move from town to town to avoid suspicion from it’s residents, and you later learn she erases your memories every twenty years or so, so as to keep your own suspicion low. But her magic is starting to falter and she ends up having to move the two of you back to the origin area of the curse to ease the strain.

The Best Friend a.k.a. “Landon/Lorelie”: You remember very little of them, but they seem to keep appearing in your memories. They keep leaving you clues, but how? They’re supposed to be long dead…

  • Romance-able

  • They grew up in a large house just down the street from yours, being the bastard child of a wealthy scion, they had a more privileged childhood than most and ended up becoming a well read and charming child. However, it was a lonely life to lead, being the only child in the household. You remember spotting them through the window as you and the other children would play. Eventually, they started to sneak out and run with your little gang. This is where they discovered their second greatest talent- lock picking.

  • Appearance: They have light brown skin, dark brown eyes, and curly black hair. They love wearing bright and expensive clothes when they can, but often have to wear more muted colors for practicality’s sake. Their living circumstances are… interesting to say the least, but they’re always near by when the MC needs help.

The New Neighbor a.k.a “Maria/Miguel”: There’s something eerily familiar about them, have you met them before?

  • Romance-able

  • A smiley new neighbor who is either far too nosey, or has already met you in a past life. There’s not much to say about them, for popping up around town as often as they do, you can’t seem to remember any details about them.

  • Appearance: They have tan skin, straight dark brown hair, and hazel eyes. They dress very simply and casually, going for what is comfortable over what is fashionable. Not to say that they’re sloppy looking, they care about looking good, just don’t need to break the bank in order to do so. They’re the new next door neighbor, so their house is kind of a mess, but in general they’re a very organized person. They can often be seen around town with a messenger bag packed to the brim with who knows what. No one’s really sure what they do exactly.

The Librarian a.k.a. “Calvin/Claudia”: Has taken an interest in you because of your knowledge that seems to pertain to their research on the history of witchcraft in this town

  • Romance-able

  • A native to the town of Windrip. They’ve grown up keenly interested in the occult happenings that have occurred here in the past. Working at the town library has given them access to all sorts of documents for their research and while they’re a very kind and helpful librarian, they locks up as soon as the clock hits 7pm and dives into their work. They mostly keep their research a secret, and don’t socialize much outside of work.

  • Appearance: They have fair skin, gray eyes, and curly red hair. They wear thick wire rimmed glasses and often dress in business casual clothes for work. More often than not they carry around a book with them. They always have pen and legal pad with them. Their work space itself is very tidy, but their house is a mess as they often don’t spend much time there and when they do it’s to hurriedly eat food and get dressed because they accidentally fell asleep at the library and would be mortified to be seen in yersterday’s clothes.

Setting

This story is set in a world more or less parallel to ours. Magic exists, and has existed for as long as people have been able to utter a curse. Magical hot spots exist all over the world. The spots act like magnets, collecting energies of the people that surround it. Eventually some discovered that the energy could be manipulated and used to perform the impossible, and the people that could take advantage, did. However, not everyone can perform magic and it’s always a dangerous thing to toy with. Even the most seasoned of spell-casters have died from either over using or misusing it, because magic, just like anything takes its toll on the body. This has lead to a mass extinctions of witches over the years, either at their own hands or the hands of others, and with the dying of magic users comes the dwindling numbers of people versed in how to combat it. Today, very few people believe that magic and witches are real. This suits your mother just fine, making it much easier to hide. However, all that hiding over the years, so far from a hot spot, has taken it toll. The strain of it all has finally forced mother dearest to move closer to the original source of magic to keep her spells intact. But she doesn’t seem too worried, after over a hundred years who’s left alive to remember her? You don’t realize it yet, but you’re back in your home town. Welcome home. Welcome to Winthrop.

The town of Winthrop is nestled right up against the edge of a forest with a creek running through it, and a small lake at the edge of town (that is known to be haunted). The location I’ve left purposefully vague, but I take a lot of inspiration from the American South (if the name of the town is any indicator). American gothic literature, especially short stories, has always been one of my favorites to read. The home where the witch and the MC live is not the same house from the prologue, but it is built on on/near the same spot. While the MC’s house is generally falling apart the neighborhood they live in is actually quite nice.

The creek runs through the forrest and now splits the town down the middle. It used to be a mile outside of town but the place has grown quite a bit and now is considered the marker between old town and new town. MC and the witch live in old town. During especially hot summers the creek bed dries up and strange objects have been known to be found. Local children do not go near it.

There’s a park, not far from the center of town which the creek cuts right through. Well, park might be strong word, it’s more like a small patch of cleared land that no developer ever bothered to mess with. As the town grew and carved a place among the forrest trees and highway road, the people grew fond of the empty patch and adopted it as their own.

It is generally accepted that you don’t go into the forest unless you have a death wish, or are so fond of nature that you don’t mind disappearing and never coming back. There are a few well trod paths but even they tend to get overgrown and aren’t always the safest place to be. Lots of different strange sightings have happened there.

New DEMO: https://dashingdon.com/go/3810

OLD DEMO: https://dashingdon.com/go/2742

Game Blog: https://a-witches-curse.tumblr.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/NUyY38q

Note: If you’re not comfortable posting feedback on the thread, feel free to DM me or send me a message through the game’s tumblr. :slight_smile:

Other Stuff:

Thank You everyone who has read and liked and commented on this thread, I hope you enjoy the story!

359 Likes

Sounds interesting!

How old are we when she takes us? Do we stay the same age forever?Edit: oooh, and what about the time period?

3 Likes

Nice nice. Interesting premise! Burn the witch! Oh, and can we smooch any of 'em?

2 Likes

I’ve imagined that you’re about in your late teens/ early twenties, when doing stupid things like breaking into a house sounds fun, but I left the age kind of vague on purpose.

And yes, you’re more or less frozen in time due to the witch’s spell. You’re meant to be her eternal servant after all, so the more youthful the better!

Yes, you can! Landon/Lorelie, Maria/Miguel, and Calvin/Claudia are all possible RO’s!

9 Likes

Loved it! Definitely gonna follow this one, interesting premise and nice writing. Just out of curiosity, have you decided what the total word count might be once it’s finished?

Also, if we do manage to eventually break the curse, shall we start to age from that point onwards? Or is it gonna be like the myth of Oisín where we die immediately because our actual age catches up to us? I understand if that would be too spoilery to answer though.

1 Like

Ah, no, not yet. Since this is my first ever choice script game, I’m kind of just feeling it out as I go.

That’s a spoiler!

UPDATE: I ended up extending the teaser a little. I just felt like there wasn’t enough for anyone to really sink their teeth into. So, yeah, there’s a little more now. And hopefully you get more of a feel for Landon/Lorelie (or, uh, L for short)

6 Likes

that was fun I hope you keep on going

1 Like

This seems interesting I wonder if their will be a option not to betray our “mother”

1 Like

You’ll have to wait and see, but I will tell you, the obedience and will stats are not there for nothing!

1 Like

Loved your writing an the story line. take your time with writing enjoy it!!! can’t wait for more of your work to :star_struck:

2 Likes

Hey everyone, there’s a minor update today! It’s pretty much just me fixing a few typos, fleshing some of the previous options out out a little more, and adding more to character customization. Like I said, it’s minor, but it needed to happen.

I’m still working on the prologue at the moment, and still expecting it to be finished and up for play testing by the end of next week (maybe earlier)!

9 Likes

I love the story and love to test it when it’s in Bata :grinning:

3 Likes

The complete prologue is up! (Hooray)

Please tell me if you see any errors or typos. I got so excited to put this out that I didn’t do as thorough a check as I probably should have. Also, please let me know if there are any options you’d like me to add.

In the next chapter you’ll finally get to meet the other love interests but it’ll probably be a little longer until I can get that chapter up. And finally, I’ve noticed a lot of writers have a tumblr page where they answer asks and give sneak peaks. Would any of y’all be interested in me making one of those?

9 Likes

Yay finally got to meet “mother” she’s everything I’ve ever wanted although I wonder ow long it will be before she has me dragging girls back to her cottage so she can restore her youth ? Or what she will have me do? I’ll do anything for my “mother” anything .

1 Like

Lorelie is female


Same

I noticed just a couple mistakes

Summary

Landon’s got wrong pronouns here

I think this is supposed to be “along with”?

Should be a “she” between these two words, as well as in the same screenshot, there’s a “hallow” instead of “hollow” and “Sh” instead of “She”

Other than that, I’m getting kinda into this story. ^^ I’m interested to see how I’ll be able to break this curse, with “Mother” not noticing what was up too early. (And what I’ll do afterwards :thinking:) Also how Landon will be an RO, given the circumstances.

Btw, what time period is this set in? Will it be modern day (or close to) after the time skip?

1 Like

It was an interesting read and could be good, I’m looking forward to it!!!

During my first playthrough, I did find a couple mistakes as well… A few of the obvs. ones were the ones that other people have pointed out, however…

1.) I come from a religion background and so the line “And bastard daughters are raised to be god fearing” is a little on the offense because God is always supposed to be capitalized unless you are talking about multiple gods like Zeus and Hades and them. So, you could rephrase, “God-fearing.” and I’d totally be okay with that =)

2.) I was playing as male and when I chose green eyes, my stats said I had brown eyes… ?

3.) You could probably add more hair color? I noticed that you didn’t add any Red color option…

Oh, oh, oh!! The part with the mirror?? It kinda reminded me of the Mirror or Erised from Harry Potter, I liked it! Like I said before, looking forward to seeing what you do with the rest of the story!! xD

2 Likes

@Noah and @pandaboi Fixed! Thanks for pointing out the pronouns problems! Can you tell I write L as they/them and go back and change it when I write the code? As for the question about the time period, there will be a large time skip after the prologue (200 years, more or less) and the story proper will be set in the modern day.

@SneakyFantasy Fixed! And thank you so much for pointing out the eye color thing, because when I went to look at the code I actually messed up quite a few of them and hadn’t noticed. As for the mirror part, I’m glad you caught that! I’ve never really been a Harry Potter fan but I got dragged to see the movies when I was younger because a lot of my friends were fans? Anyway, I remember watching the scene where Dumbledore is like “A lot of people went crazy in front of this mirror Harry” and thinking, how on earth did it not get broken at some point?

1 Like

No more L? but i liked them

1 Like

There will be plenty more L, I promise! It’ll be made clear what happened to them by the end of chapter 1 :slight_smile:

4 Likes