Blades Of Damascus (WIP) {I'm back!}

This is my first attempt at a choicescript game and not scrapping it after the first month. I hope you guys enjoy, and this is planned as a trilogy with two side arcs as differenct characters (very back burner though).

New Synopsis:
Going home was supposed to be a comfort, yeah that didn’t happen. Now dragged into a world you didn’t know existed, can you survive or will the chaos consume you?

  • Play as a male, female, or non-binary 21 year old student.
  • Let your fear become your strength.
  • Try to survive while your soul gets hijacked on a regular basis.
  • Use your new gift to help others, or be a selfish jerk.
  • Wield a variety of weapons
  • Learn about various events in time as chronicled by a phoenix.
  • Romance anyone from your best friends to an ancient volatile kitsune.

The RO’s

Briar

One of your childhood best friends, she is a few months younger than you, and is attending college to eventually obtain a masters in medicine. She’s 5’6 with a slight figure. Has chocolate colored eyes and shoulder-length black hair that fades into a lavender ombre.

Luca

Your other childhood best friend and a year older than you. Currently he takes online classes so he can help out at his family’s restaurant. He’s 6’0 with a well-built figure due to excessive track and basketball. Has emerald green eyes that complement his tousled caramel hair.

Gwen

An 18 year old excitable MMA fighter, she joined the Blades right out of high school due to her accomplishments physically and academically. She’s 5’10 with a willowy frame that hides her toned muscles. Has light blue eyes and honey blonde hair that’s kept chin-length.

Zac

A 22 year old who’s family is descended from one of the original founders of the Blades. He is completely committed and trained under Reuben’s tutelage from a young age. He’s 5’7 with a muscular frame.

Nyx

An ancient and volatile kitsune. She’s very odd and will rarely talk about her past except random offhand comments, has a very unusual fighting style. She’s 5’3 with a slight hourglass frame. Has crimson eyes and waist length raven hair.

Weylin

The friendly neighborhood wulver, he works as a liaison and informant for the Blades and goes out of his way to help the less fortunate. Is very self conscious about his true form around humans and usually uses glamour charms to appear fully human. He’s 5’9 with a slightly toned figure. While under a glamour he has messy curls of dark gray hair and while in his true form he has gray fur and sapphire colored eyes.

New secret not so secret RO?

Not 100% sure with it but I want to roll with it
Dane: The alpha of the local pack allied with the Blades, he works as a liaison for Reuben and the other packs. He’s 6’1" with sun-kissed skin and blue-green eyes. His dirty blond hair is styled into an undercut faux hawk.

New word count w/o code: 16,883
To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/starfoxed/blades-of-damascus/mygame/
I have a tumblr for asks & etc: https://starcrossedkitsune.tumblr.com/
The new update schedule will be minor updates around the 15th and major updates around the last day of the month. This is still true.

Feedback I’m looking for:

  • Does the story flow well or seem broken in some parts
  • Character feedback, do their personalities stay the same or do you feel like they go off on a tangent?
  • Typos, grammatical errors, punctuation.
  • What do you think would be interesting to see happen as you read?
  • Does something get mentioned then you never hear about it again?

As of 06/06/21:

Update 06/06/21
  • Word Count: 9,951
  • Revamped demo, some original scenes are still going to be implemented (TOS and blanket forts)
  • Worked on making the demo feel less rushed… at least I hope so.
  • Complete rework of the coding, so that’s probably where most bugs will be.
  • Complete overhaul on the timeline (This really doesn’t matter currently though, not until the next major update at least)
  • Some new paths you might enjoy and also heads up. Choosing the WIP choices will still move the story forward
  • Nap vs. Walk, definitely choose walk :wink:
  • Cordelia is the new official canon twin, Castiel will still appear in the Blades universe… just not in the way you’d think.
  • Nyx was also coerced into taking anger management, hopefully it sticks.
Very Minor Update 06/08/21
  • Word Count: 16,883
  • Most of the prologue before the sacrifice scene has been corrected on the your/you’re mixup, still going through them and the rest when I find more should be updated on the 15th
  • Added in the Nap choice scene I still need to work on the text scenes with Briar and Luca and by the end of the month those should be hopefully done, as well as adding more into the scene when you go walking and meet Nyx and Weylin
  • The nap scene isn’t meant to really have choices due to Briar and Luca’s main interactions being in their texting scenes
Old information

Old Synopsis: It was supposed to be a regular winter break, going home to see friends and family. That is until your mom tried to sacrifice you. Now with a primeval sharing your soul and family you didn’t know existed will you be able to survive battles & college?

old count: 43,641

Update 4/16/19

Total word count is now: 31,011 adding 9,185 to the original 21,826.

  • Fixed various typos
  • Complete coding revamp for CC, easier for finding possible bugs and typo errors
  • added a “balding” option for hair type
  • added an exact height option after you choose your height, mostly as flavor text.
  • fixed height to more appropriate ones due to gender
  • fixed reworked sentence about “tall mom”
  • added early feeling checks that should help set the MC’s personality
  • rewrote various scenes to add more description
  • added descriptions for the dye colors in hair
  • finally added a fleshed out blanket fort scene for those who choose that path
  • added a choice where you set why you’re going to school, limited choice that adds to the MC personality or skills
  • added scene after the gas station
Minor update 4/20/19
  • Stats balance (hopefully)
  • Excerpt elaborating on Nyx’s past which is accessable by entering ‘echo’ on the input password page.
  • poll on post # 36
Update 4/25/19

Total WC is now 41,812 from 32,000 most of what is added is Ch.1

  • Small tweaks to stat gain/ relationship gains
  • Added more to the part where you talk to Reuben after the hospital
  • PAAAARTAAAY
  • Chance to participate in something, not spoiling it.
  • Added a content warning due to one of the scenes depicting partial nudity -it is completely avoidable though if the reader so chooses.
Minor update 5/11/19

*Current WC is 43,641 compared to the previous 41,812

  • Added the option to not have a first kiss when asked in ToS
  • Added more to the Chronicles page
  • Fixed various typos in the Prologue and Ch. 1
  • Added in missing dialogue if your characters stats were “middling”
    *Fixed some more missing goto labels
    *Star wars references :sunglasses:
305 Likes

I like story it fun read

1 Like

Welcome to our community!

This is the first time I’ve seen such a in depth customization

2 Likes

I love it~ Waiting for update! :slight_smile:

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Thank you! I’ve always liked reading the other WIPs and the HGs that had heavy customization and I think they add so much more to the story:)

3 Likes

Would it be possible to add an “Are you sure?” choice regarding which phobia the MC has? I was expecting to click on one of the phobias, read about what it was, and then choose which one I best liked after I had read them all through.

Excited to see more WiPs dipping their toes into this genre! Best of luck! And thanks for sharing your WiP with the community!

7 Likes

I have been lurking on the forums for a while, I look forward to reading more. It’s so well written, I will have to agree with @AChubbyBlackCat about the phobias, I had no idea what a couple of them were.

4 Likes

@AChubbyBlackCat @Zenobrighter that would be no problem to add it! And I’m glad you both enjoyed the demo so far

2 Likes

Is there any reason for restricting the eye colour based on the phobia? It seems oddly restrictive, given how inclusive the rest of the character creation is. :confused: Also, would it make sense to have skin colour as a choice, too?

1 Like

The eye color does end up being tied into your phobia and that will show in the update the mc will end up having heterochromia, the eye color you wont be able to select denotes your power.

I did want to add the option for skin in but I just wasn’t sure where to add it, probably either at the mirror scene in the prologue or a bit after point where the demo ends currently which is where it’ll reveal why in story why certain colors were not an option.

I noticed this error when choosing Taphephobia

played the game an i liked it,it was fun to play so gonna keep a eye on it for updated,presses on the tracking button.

2 Likes

@s_yzygy Thank you for catching that! It should be fixed now.

@John_Hindley thank you :slight_smile:

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@StarFoxed I was still customizing my character when this popped up;

Thank you for catching that! It should be fixed now

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This seems like a start to a great story I love the characters

Sounds good I will try it soon

I’d like to give some more story-based comments, but other than the conflict set-up stuff, I don’t feel like I have much of an idea about where this story is headed yet =P

In Customize Now, checking without entering data is kind of hilarious “[…] and you have skin, and if you had a sibling they would call you . You also have colored eyes, and hair that is kept in a style. You’re pretty in height.”

The initial descriptions of the main characters actions and attitudes didn’t endear me to them. Some options as to how to react to the driver in the first scene, and how to feel about cleaning the kitchen, even if they don’t currently do anything, might allow the reader to relate better to the character, or get into role-playing them in a certain fashion.

The ‘respectively’ structure of the “low rumblings” sentence is a bit temporally awkward since you are bouncing back and forth in time as you read it. Could restructure.

In Customize Now, the custom address pronouns don’t have any prompt (such as: ‘What would you like to replace he/she/they with?’)

In Dive In, even if I do take after him, it’s kind of odd to immediately be bald just because my father is. A balding option might be nice to throw in at that point?

In Customize Now, hair length, typo: “abit” rather than ‘a bit’.

In Dive In, when asking about my father’s hair color you probably want ‘dyed yours’ instead of “[…] dyed it.” Otherwise it kinda sounds like you dyed your father’s hair =]

Speaking of the hair dye colors, some color descriptions to go with the names (e.g. ‘Toxicity (Dark Green)’) would be nice.

In Dive In, there is a typo on skin tone: “Oive” rather than ‘Olive’.

In the Dive In version, I tried to back out and change my fear but it couldn’t be changed despite the option (it just loops). The variant used in the Customize Now version works though.

Also, it seems that the notions of height do not seem to be sensitive to gender. 5’ 9" is not especially tall when describing the height of a male. The Dive In version makes a bit more sense since you are indirectly describing your mothers’ height.

In Customize Now, you can choose to fill out the fields in any order, allowing you to choose otherwise forbidden eye color / fear combinations.

The bit with the blankets is kind of annoying in that it feels like you don’t really get to do what you chose to.

Typo, ‘and’ outlet mall rather than an. (Cleaning dishes scene) In that scene, that last sentence (about the town’s amenities) could easily be three =]

In the tease option when Briar says: “[…] Those three stuffed more than a turkey on thanksgiving day prove that as well as this.” I had a hard time making any sense of it.

Missing the word ‘out’ I assume in: “He stuck his tongue before hopping off the porch […]”

There is a lot of exposition here about the school. Is that going to be meaningful later on? It doesn’t seem related to the story so far.

It seemed temporarily odd to me to rush past the hour without describing it at all, then flashback immediately to describe an event that just happened =?

Given the rest of the sentence I think you want ‘you are somewhere’ rather than “[y]ou were somewhere […]”.

Missing the word, ‘is’: “Realization dawning on you.”

I like that you chose to do the beginning of the capture scene in present tense. Changing back after the description works; keeping the immediacy might increase the tension though.

The description of my mother towering over the crowd behind her is unusual unless they are all female, which would be odd to assume, or she is very tall indeed.

I like that each fear is linked to the related power / primeval.

I like the idea that each of them has a different role and sphere - it seems like there are some good possibilities for story variety driven by those choices alone.

The Nerida/Nessie option is nonsensical when not talking to Nerida. I’d rather it not show up under those circumstances. It also is the only option that doesn’t become unselectable after you choose it once, and as fun as it is to ask about it over and over again, you probably shouldn’t be able to do so.

The hard cut scene changes are rather abrupt; personally I prefer some description of the events in between for the sake of continuity.

You could make use of description more in helping to set the atmosphere. For example after letting out your friends, focusing on the lingering coldness of the outdoors rather than the warmth of the inside to help set up the ambush scene.

Look forward to seeing where you go with this =]

9 Likes

Hello again, my first two read through I chose to create my character before starting the story, the next time I started I went with the story, when it came to the fear, thanks for adding the description, but when I chose pyrophobia the only option that worked was “yes” when I chose “no” it just stayed in a loop asking me if this was my fear. Selected no 3 times but it just loops back to the question.