Blink (WIP) [Sci-fi, superpower, Urban Fantasy]

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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You were born in a concrete box, forged for one individual purpose and sharpened by experience. You thought you would die there. But against all odds you didn’t.

You escaped. Thrust into a city of noise and shady undergrounds, concealed beauty and dangerous company.

Will you build a new life for yourself, or will you risk it all for the chance to bring everything down?

It’s your choice operative.

Cogdemos Demo

Features:

  • Play as male, female or nonbinary.
  • Fully customizable main character.
  • 5 romance options to choose from or not choose at all.
  • Forge a new future for yourself or throw it all away for revenge.
  • Find purpose in a life you have no idea how to navigate.
Trigger Warnings

This story contains instances of the below themes which could be triggering/harmful to certain audiences, please read the below and be advised.

List of themes:

  • Abuse
  • Child abuse
  • Self-harm
  • Violence
  • Kidnapping and abduction
  • Death and dying
  • Blood
  • Mental illness
  • Classism
  • Torture
Romance options

The information broker: Echo [f] -
Supposed best friend of your employer and owner of one of the biggest information networks in all of New York, with connections to every organisation, criminal or otherwise, in the city. A charismatic figure with a soft spot for you, but is it all a mask for something more refined underneath?

The undying memory: Cyril/Cynthia [Gender selectable M/F] -
A constant and reoccurring figure from your past, your lives bound together for almost as long as you have been alive, but that all changed after they left you to fend for yourself. Yet there is a pull that drags you towards each other, no matter if you like it or not. Is it fate or just a dependence neither of you can leave behind?

The shadowed stranger: Achille/Aimee/Avril [Gender selectable F/M/NB] -
Charming, sly, and elusive. In the past 2 years that you have been navigating the criminal underworld, you have met your fair share of their type, but something is different with them. A glint in their eye so similar to the one you see reflected in the mirror, will they drag it to the surface or convince you to drown in it?

The sober veteran: Salem [f] -
Stern and cold, she has been hardened by too many years seeing the darkest sides of the city. In a never-ending war to create a better place, she has learnt to stay steadfast to her beliefs and always trust her instincts. So why does seeing you act give her so much doubt?

The caring silencer: Harper [nb] -
Quiet and thoughtful, they approach everything with a gentleness and caring that is as rare to see in the city as a clean pavement. It makes you wonder how they have survived as long as they have, especially with the job they carry. Could a far darker side lie underneath the surface?

Currently Working On
  • Completing the final scenes for Chapter 1
  • Additonal entries for the data codex
Writing Plans
  • Rework on customation options
  • Additional text for trans gender options
  • Additonal entries for data codex
  • Flavour text for clothes and vehicle options
Tumblr

Tumblr Link
Feel free to follow and send questions, I will also be putting some dev blogs and other updates outside of full game updates.

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First one here and have too say very excited

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Ive enjoyed what ya had when i first came across it i forget how long back lol keep up the good work. :smiley:

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I’ve been waiting for you to make thread in this forum because I love what I see and read. Good luck on your project and of course I can’t wait to see more of this good work :wink:

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Will we be able to develop new mutations or improve our existing ones as the story goes on? Looks amazing btw!

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This is a really exciting beginning! :grinning:
For some weird reason I have never heard of teleportation being painful in other stories but it really makes so much sense. Is the limit places they can see?
(Have you read the Jumper books? They are so much better than the movie they made.)

As for typos they are the common ones of mixing up “there/their/they are” and “to/too”, writing “would of” instead of the correct “would have”, writing “well” instead of “while”, and 's instead of just a “s” in plural words and some times in sentences like “she pull’s” (I forget the technical term for verbs used after he/she/it)

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So the plan at the moment is to keep to just the two mutations that are currently in the game and then coming up with new ways you will be able too use them in the story, maybe new equipment/upgrades like the glove. Thanks for the comment.

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Thanks so much for the kind words, the limits that I have so far for the teleportation is that it’s limited to only spaces that MC can see and they can only carry themselves so far. Haven’t fully come up with an exact range yet.

I haven’t read the Jumper books but after doing some googling definitely on the read list, completely forgot about the movie as well but after watching the trailer it rang some bells in my mind. Thanks for the typos and grammar issues.

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How does the class system work in this universe?

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how many ro’s can you have at ones all or one or anything in-between?

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This was so good! I love my little murder machine of an MC, they are perfectly fine and well adjusted, absolutely nothing wrong with them :innocent:
the whole deconstructing without reconstructing thing the stats screen hints at sounds super cool for a future use of our powers

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So you will be able to flirt/build up romance points with all the RO throughout the story and the plan is to include little flavour text stuff were the other RO’s will pick up on this, then later in the story pretty near the end there will be an actually lock in with an RO. I have thought about polys/triads that might work but I haven’t really decided on wether on it yet.

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So the class system for the mutations work’s that at a young age, people will be tested for the mutant gene, which is an additional chromosome that anyone in the universe can be born with. This will then give an idea on whether they can actually develop any sort of powers from the mutation or if it just part of their DNA, it isn’t however a confirmation if the individual will ever actually develop any powers or not however.

Then it’s just a matter of regular test overtime to see if any powers start to manifest, for anyone born with physical mutations that might indicate powers (e.g. MC swirly eyes) than the first part is missed out and it’s more just the regular test to see what powers might be manifesting. Once the power does manifest it weighted against other individuals with similar powers to get a baseline and potential for growth into a more powerful variant and that’s where the actually letter class comes from. This can then change overtime if the individual is re-tested.

The specifics of the test heavily depend on what the examiner’s believe that the manifesting power is, so it’s a system that is littered with flaws. However it is currently the best way to classify how useful a individual might be in a work setting and was picked up as the standard for medical practitioners.

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I’d love a love triangle with echo and 18! (assuming that they are a RO option like I think they are)

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@Kane_Smith_B_In_K_Pa There will still kind of be some love triangle stuff even if I don’t add any poly romances, as some of the ROs will be jealous and react if you flirt with the other ROs. But set love triangle routes could also be really fun to write as well.

For anyone interested, on the Tumblr there are now physical descriptions for all the RO’s as well as a complete list of the RO’s on the intro post. I didn’t think there was any real point in keeping it a mystery, as they will all be in chapter 2 anyway. I will also update the main topic here when I can as well.

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Wait we final have a forum page. Heck yeah.

(Just noticed that I still don’t have a profile picture🫠)

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Really enjoyed this one, very interesting start, cannot wait for more!

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If you do a official love triangle path I would suggest doing only one to keep things simple on you. A good example of this is the ROs in the Wayhaven Chronicles. There is 4 ROs but 5 romantic pathways. This would keep the complexity component of trying to do the option of any two ROs together since that would turn 4 ROs to 10 romantic pathways.

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Very cool story. I played through to the end - here are some thoughts.

Some thoughts

Great opening. Gets the ball rolling very quickly. Having no choices in the opening memory reflects the idea that only after escaping does the MC get any agency over their life, and also makes for a nice, snappy intro.

I love the contrasts here, like the super-killer choosing to live in a blanket cave (the topmost option). They’re congratulating themselves over their tactical decision to not have a door - “I can be battle-ready and moving in one point seven seconds” - and then they immediately trip over a blanket. Cringefail assassin

Simple and clean, you just like the way it makes you feel.

I guess MC escaped confinement by building a shitty raft.

The Professor is great. They have lots of character, and make a good guide to an unfamiliar world for the player (and maybe for MC as well).
Walking down the street in an obnoxiously fine suit while the other two look like gremlins in hoodies made me think they were deliberately and effectively drawing attention away from their allies.
Or maybe not. They did seem disappointed we weren’t dressed for the occasion. Honestly, if I’d known I was going to a nice club, I would have dressed up.

A shame the Professor got outsmarted by Carmela, but I did appreciate the quick line where they disable the gear they just gave away. You gotta have that sort of thing to maintain the impression that your smart characters are smart!

The big fight scene having no choices felt odd but makes sense. It wouldn’t do for a living weapon to be capable of making bad choices in combat.
Come to think of it, is that a deliberate callback to the opening sequence with no choices, indicating the MC is mentally returning to that state? That’s good.

MC’s negative self-talk added quite a bit to their characterization. It hit uncomfortably close to home, which is what you want.
But it’s kind of funny how they hate themselves this much while so many people are in love with them: Echo, Tracker, Shadow. Even Carmela, technically. It’s funny, and realistically depressing.

or maybe she could just send you a card: ‘Sorry, I’m a worthless piece of shit; please forgive me.’

Match made in heaven.

One more thing. At the moment, I don’t have an impression of how bad Chronos and friends really are. The only reference we have of the MC’s time with them is that the living conditions were kind of crappy, and they were sometimes sent out on missions, which they enjoyed. I don’t have any deep revenge-hatred - at least not yet.

And also a bit of proofreading, as requested.

Proofreading

Most of what I saw were misplaced apostrophes, but there were a lot. Here were a few errors I noticed:

This isn’t restricted to just hero’s,

Should be “heroes”

she might of just alerted the whole building

Should be “might have”

and just as it’s about to land, your gone,

Should be “you’re gone”

Messy, there is only one word for it, however its your mess.

Should be “it’s your mess”

greeted bye kitchen space

Should be “by kitchen space”

it’s so easy to just imagine yourself as the Spector,

I think you mean “Specter”. I’m not sure Spector is a word; when I searched it to check, all that came back was “Harvey Phillip Spector was an American record producer, songwriter, and convicted murderer.” So, kind of accurate, but probably not what you meant.

"Ellis, you can’t do that. If you won’t take my money, How about I throw in a tub of my homemade kimchi? The famous homemade kimchi,

I think there’s supposed to be an end quote after the question mark.

“as the door’s retreat into wall cavities.”

Should be “the doors”

Your guess is that it’s Carmela Agosta, surrounding the desk, and their boss is a group of seven men and women.

This reads like “Their boss is a group of seven men and women.” Talk about micromanagement. But maybe the line should go “Your guess is that it’s Carmela Agosta. Surrounding the desk, and their boss, is a group of seven men and women.”

Eye’s hyper-focused on the professor.

Should be “eyes”

She crouch’s dipping her gloved finger into it,

Should be “crouches”

There were a bunch of those. Might be worth doing a thorough look-over to catch some.

The setting and characters are great. I’d be glad to see more. Hope the writing goes well!

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Thank you so much for the above; both the thoughts on the story and the proofreading are super helpful. Hopefully, the spelling/grammar mistakes should be fixed with the next update.

So glad that someone caught the Kingdom Hearts.

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