Apex Predators (WIP) (On Hiatus)

MOSHED-2019-4-18-18-37-14

What happens to a vampire during the zombie apocalypse?

You were a vampire living a pretty cushy existence before the zombie apocalypse hit. Although you’re immune to the zombie virus, your only food supply–humans–very much aren’t. Now starving to death, you encounter a group of survivors who are willing to bargain their blood for your supernatural protection. Suddenly you find yourself the leader and protector of their group, responsible for making the decisions that will keep them safe. Will you be able to get your herd of humans to a safe haven–or have they just made a deal with the devil?

In Apex Predators, you can…

  • Play as male, female, or non-binary; straight, gay, bisexual, pansexual, or asexual.

  • Choose your vampire name, powers, and personality. Will you be sexy or scary, sincere or sarcastic? You decide!

  • Keep your humans alive! Anyone can die in this game, including you. Can you forge your group into a force to be reckoned with, or lose them all to the zombie apocalypse?

  • Manage your resources, relationships, and group morale; make tough decisions for the sake of your herd.

  • Fight off zombies, human scavengers, and even other vampires who are after your turf.

  • Choose between keeping your hunger at bay, maintaining your humanity, and becoming all-powerful.

  • Form relationships with humans or other supernatural beings, be it a dictatorship, rivalry, friendship, or even love.

Characters

The Herd

Romance options are bolded. Every character is recruitable depending on your choices, and also able to killed or lost, depending on your choices. Anyone can romance any RO. :slight_smile:

  • Nick Conway: an earnest homicide detective investigating you as a suspect for a string of gruesome murders. Dedicated, stubborn, serious, protective.

  • Claire Wong: a cynical local news anchor who’s weary with the ways of the world and journalism. Hard-working, severe, cold, calculating.

  • Allen White: Claire’s ex, and an experienced ex-soldier. Hot-tempered, righteous, judgmental, distrustful.

  • Olivia Torres: Allen’s ten-year-old stepdaughter, and Barry Bower’s biggest fan. Optimistic, trusting, worshipful, helpful.

  • Barry Bower: a singer in the world’s hottest boy band (before the apocalypse hit and all of the other band members died, that is). Gentle, courteous, considerate, sincere.

  • Casey Yates: a passionate college student who’s also on the track team. Active, idealistic, articulate, sheltered.

  • Dolores “Dolly” Yates: Casey’s grandmother who’s visiting from the north. Kind, maternal, clueless, submissive.

  • Aleister: a male vampire the MC can encounter during their travels. Perceptive, suave, enigmatic, a little lazy.

  • Valerie: a female lycanthrope the MC can encounter during their travels. Blunt, assertive, compassionate, easy-to-read.

Powers

Base Powers
  • Mesmer: the ability to hypnotize victims and bend them to your will. Not fool-proof–humans have varying strengths in willpower–but your main way to manipulate the actions of humans. Does not work on other Fey.

  • Superstrength: the more blood you drink, the stronger you are…

  • Flight: that’s right, you can fly! Not very far, but enough to get out of danger. Now if only you could lift your group of humans up along with you…

Unlockable Powers
  • Shapeshifting: only available if bitten by a werewolf.

  • Hemokinesis: only available if you’ve drunk the blood of a master vampire.

  • Enthrallment: only available if you’ve drunk the blood of a master vampire.

Links

Tumblr

Have burning questions about the game but don’t want to derail the thread? You can use the Apex Predators tumblr here.

FAQ

If you have a question, be sure to check that it hasn’t been answered here!

Main Project

This is a side project. My main ChoiceScript WIP is Shepherds of Haven!


Demo [On Hiatus]

Demo length: ~15,500 words (100% of the prologue, 5% of Chapter 1.)
Last updated: 8 March 2019

Author's note

Author’s note: So far this is just the barest bones of the game, meant to set up the story and the premise (I wrote it during a two-hour layover in the Atlanta airport). The douchebag victim and random victim paths have not been written yet, so they’re blocked out for now. The entire story is plotted out, but I will only update this WIP sporadically: my priorities are my book and my other WIP, Shepherds of Haven. This was just intended to be fun, quick, silly side project. :slight_smile:

(The premise of the story is also shamelessly inspired by the book Double Dead by Chuck Wendig. Aside from the main conceit, I don’t feel they’re that similar, but if you like dark humor mixed with the supernatural, go check it out!)

Warnings

This is a game focusing heavily on the perspective of a vampire, so discussions of blood, gore, death, and supernatural violence will be prominent (and fairly casual–it’s hard to faze a vampire!). There is also heavy cursing and (in the far future) optional sexual content.

Updates

Changelog

13 July 2018

  • Wrote more of the prologue (75% done)
  • Introduced all herd members, sort of

7 March 2019

  • Finished the prologue
What's next
  • Implement non-binary MC options
  • Continue with Chapter 1

Patreon | Ko-Fi

607 Likes
To anyone who knows me from Shepherds of Haven...

I know, I’m sorry! What am I doing?!

I placed Shepherds of Haven on temporary hiatus because the game is so complex and vast that it takes a lot of time, energy, care, and detail to write it the way I want it (and because the story and characters are so near and dear to my heart, so I want to give them the time they deserve). I can’t do that at the moment when I’m focusing on my novel, so that’s why I haven’t been able to work significantly on that game.

This game was something I dreamt during a plane ride, so I just had to write it down before I forgot about it. It can move much faster and easier because I’m planning on keeping it fairly simple, without a ton of crazy variables and paths for each determinant character. This way, the writing moves at a much faster pace–though I hope it’s still just as enjoyable.

Stray thoughts on writing this vs. writing Shepherds of Haven:

  • The MC intentionally has a much stronger voice in this game. In Shepherds of Haven, I wanted the player to have a lot of control over the MC’s personality and reactions. Here, it’s harder to believe a vampire hundreds of years old would be shy and naive, so there’s a measure of sarcasm and detachment to their voice to begin with. That can maybe change as time goes on, but it may feel different from the MC of ShoH.

  • The writing style is obviously much less formal and (I think) funnier. It’s meant to be something of a dark comedy.

  • The story necessitates way less world-building, for better or for worse. Everyone is familiar with the narrative of the “real world” undergoing a zombie apocalypse… no one is familiar with a Ket or the Autarchy.

  • You could consider this a polar opposite of Shepherds of Haven: not only in that it’s a low fantasy to ShoH’s high fantasy, but also because the MC of ShoH starts in a position of absolutely zero power and slowly works their way up; while the MC of Apex Predators starts with all the power in the world (money, freedom, privilege, status), and loses it all…

  • No gender locks on the characters this time because I just made them up, rather than had them exist in my head/writing a certain way for many years. :slight_smile:

  • There will be something like a day-off system here, in that you can choose which NPC you want to spend time with in a limited free time space (and which one you want to drink blood from). No separate character arcs for each character like in ShoH, though; their stories are closely intertwined with each other, and you can’t exactly leave the group and go off on your own like in ShoH.

  • Story decisions will impact character relationships more than in ShoH. In ShoH, you could still romance someone even if they disagreed with certain choices and worldviews you picked; here, Nick will 100% not be with someone he considers to be an immoral, inhuman monster, etc…

  • Shepherds of Haven is still my main project, but this will be something I turn to when I have writer’s block, need a break, or just want to let off some creative steam!

To anyone who doesn't know me from Shepherds of Haven...

Here’s a gif of a cat. Enjoy.
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91 Likes

This is fantastic. I have no doubt that this project will be as excellent as your other work.

10 Likes

Wonderful writing style for this genre. Also…

I would love it if the MC discovers that the zombies were a plot by a master vampire to enact their rule. Perhaps that master can feed from the zombies somehow, or control them with a special type of mesmer? Or is the whole thing biologically engineered so that the children of the night can finally rule the world?

Please. Continue.

6 Likes

Oooooh, this sounds perfect.

2 Likes

Thank you, all! :pray: That’s definitely very encouraging, and I’m so glad you like it! @Carlos.R your ideas are incredibly interesting, but I won’t speak to them yet for the sake of spoilers… :wink::grin:

16 Likes

I’m so jazzed for this!

4 Likes

Give me more, I’m digging this.

…I wonder how the encounter with the group of humans is going to go.

6 Likes

You will meet all of your main group in the upcoming concert, but when you encounter them again after civilization collapses, it will definitely be interesting… :laughing:

8 Likes

I really like what you have so far! Looking forward to more.

2 Likes

It’s an interesting concept and the demo is pretty well done, can’t wait to see where it will go ^^

3 Likes

I like it ! But ARGHHH…so short ! XD

4 Likes

-banging fists on table- more more more

7 Likes

This premise is so creative! I`m excited to see how it plays out :grinning:

5 Likes

Well I can throughly say I’m looking forward to more of this😊

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Darn it, I was hoping I could be a psychic, maybe wearing a firefighter outfit.

Is this the bat or wolf form only or just general.

1 Like

Bat and dog/wolf and maybe rat form, a la Dracula. I think being able to shapeshift into anything would make the MC a little too OP. :slight_smile:

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Disappointed grumbling

So if that would be op… what are the limits on enthrallment, hypnosis and blood magic?

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Interesting can’t wait to try it out.

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The mesmer is only as powerful as you are, so if you’re low on blood, you can’t mesmerize well. Humans who are particularly alert, scared, angry, whatever are also extremely difficult to fully mesmerize; they can get used to it if you do it to them too much, recognizing when you’re doing it, and it can also ‘break,’ meaning they can snap out of it. Also strong personalities (such as Nick or Claire’s) will constantly challenge it, so it’s not super easy to control people like them.

Edit: Oh, and you also can’t mesmerize several people at one time, unless you’re a master vampire.

Hemokinesis (or blood magic) does not work against zombies, and it also only works at night and for as long as your own blood supply lasts.

Enthrallment is both 1) turning someone into another vampire and 2) making them a slave to your will so that they serve you (if you’re a master vampire). There isn’t really a limit on this except… you’re creating more vampires out of a very limited amount of humans… so who will you all eat lol?

9 Likes