Updated 02/28/20 (Minor additions and typo fixing)
Bigger additions around the new year, if you haven’t checked it out yet this year please do so, though it remains somewhat rough and emphatically unfinished.
Hello, I’ve been reading these things for a long while and meaning to write one of them for almost as long. Now having finally gotten something far enough along to present I give you…
Alphas and Iotas.
Humanity is lost. You’re quite dead yourself. So is the universe, but a funny thing happened on the way to extinction. Mankind uploaded its best and brightest, storing their minds in the computational framework of a generational ship which is basically a Dyson sphere constructed around an artificial star, hiding in a higher dimension to avoid the death of the universe. Now the best and brightest are being awakened to do something about the whole extinction thing.
I have no idea how close I am to being done, other than not very. I suspect bad coding on my part has quite skewed the word count I’m getting, but I’m guessing about 20k for a playthrough in the demo which at the moment is introductory stuff, character creation, and a taste of my writing style and world building.
There’s way more world building and background info on the setting viewable through the stats page.
To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/justhefax/alphas-and-iotas/mygame/
Features:
- Sci-Fi in a very distant future
- Rich history for that very distant future
- Customizable main character (and recustomizable… eventually)
- Partly randomized side characters
- Around 7 romanceable characters (see post 10 for more info)
- Mamadou Aoki - Premier of Oceanic Republic
- Mercedes Skorupski - mid-transit era Captain
- Abraham Carvajal - Deathwatch Transit era Chief Engineer
- Penelope Zaboul - Bio-tech Professor during Post Transit Renaissance
- Jibril Rosenthal - Chief in Post Nomad Era
- Esther Farid - PhDM in Post Nomad Era
- Taylor Alcantara - Professor of Physics in Post Nomad Era
- Dialogue heavy with focus on character interaction
- Update basic views of MC toward characters determined by your choice (Not all dialogue has been updated to reflect this)
- Unique introductory sequences for the above romanceable characters changing based on the era of origin of the MC.
- Lots of meditations on the nature of humanity and/or AI
- Introduced Hamid Gustafson: new AI on the Labrador
Any and all thoughts are appreciated. I hope to update this on at least a monthly basis.
Update #1
- Added very first part of chapter 2
- Added one last name (Udoh)
- Last name choice now has small impact on stats (very small) family description should indicate what profession the families are affiliated with.
- Improved recognition of gender change selection in subsequent dialogue.
- Added two choices to chapter 1 fleshing out relationship with colleagues
- You can now actively loathe or at least cordially disrespect colleagues
- Small additions/changes to background information
- Fixed erroneous description of the number 29 Quintillion
- Miscellaneous typos
- This close to getting out of that room
Update #2
- Finally out of that room
- Added new stats to reflect MC’s views on economics and governance
- Extended discussion on status of the Beagle
- Introduced a few legendary figures that mostly won’t interact with your character much
- Discussed the future evolution of basketball
- Introduced the future home of the humanity
- Added chance to define romantic preference(still no actual romance)
- Miscellaneous typos (hopefully fixed, possibly created)
Update #3
- Added new opening sequence accessible via the first choice after selecting era of origin(old opening still accessible)
- Realized I should probably consider introducing the romanceable characters earlier
- On a related note have introduced romanceable characters(still can’t actually romance them)
- In new opening, the old opening is shown via flashbacks
- Introduced annoying roommate for MC
- Changed naming system for non-Beagle vessels. All are now named after dogs
- Introduced the Labrador and its AI
- Introduced ability to learn specific skills, which may eventually be important
- Added very pointless rock, paper, scissors minigame as alternative to page breaks
- Still don’t have this page break structure down
Update #4
2020 Update - Mostly mentioned in posts 19&20
- Added the support group introductions
- Added one book club introduction (you have to use the post-transit renaissance origin to see it.
- Provided proper intro for Bastl, most of one anyway along with some more info on the romanceable characters.
- Minor updates to the stats page
- Grew skeptical of the new Labrador based opening. See post 20
- Trying to figure out how to make a sim interesting when your character is stuck as the tractor beam technician.