Daemoniacus Altor [Cancelled]

Dark tech theme (intended version)
https://dashingdon.com/play/interestedparty/daemoniacus-altor-dark-tech-version/mygame/index.php?cb=97478

Original choice script them (eye-friendly version)
https://dashingdon.com/go/1310

It started with a war.
In our world, the Dark Ages is widely remembered as the bloodiest and most miserable part of human history. It eventually ended with the Renaissance, but what if history took a different turn?

In this world, during the climax of a long and brutal campaign, the centuries of bloodshed drew the attention of beings from another world. So much death in such a small amount of time weakened the walls that separated our world, and the fires of Hell. Seeing this weakness, the creatures of Hell struck, forcing themselves into our world and bringing about a new age. One with humans as the prey to an unstoppable force that feeds off of us.

You play as a character from before the Convergence. Trapped in a suit of sentient armor that requires constant feeding of demon blood, you use this ability to survive in a demon infested world and hunt any unholy creature that crosses your path.


Now then, it should be known, I wrote this for me. I was feeling bored, saw a few clips of the new Beserk anime and thought ā€œthat looks like the kind of world it would be fun to make a game in.ā€ Not really planning to finish it. Someone else can, if they want, or maybe Iā€™ll expand on it if I ever get the feeling to write an action packed demon slaying simulator again.

Update: Changed my mind, I will finish it.
It will be fairly short, around the length of the first chapter of Tin Star. And Iā€™m going for the title of ā€œDark Souls of Interactive Fiction,ā€ a game thatā€™s really hard and requires the player to earn things rather than have success be guaranteed. A choice game thatā€™s really not afraid to say ā€œYouā€™re not good enough to see the rest of me! Do better!ā€

Few questions to answer:
Q: Can I choose my gender?
A: No, the main character is female.

Q: Why?
A: Because this was written for me, and I wanted a female character.

Q: But I want to be a dude!
A: You can always close your eyes and imagine. Might be hard to read like that, though.

Q: This stat screen looks pretty minimal.
A: Correct, there arenā€™t any skills. Fights are decided based on your tactical choices.

Q: What is ā€˜Artorā€™
A: Thatā€™s the name of your sentient armor. That stat is based on how hungry it is. It will continuously tick down outside of combat, and only increase when you kill something. If this were expanded, then you would need to continuously kill things in order to avoid being killed by your own armor. Here it doesnā€™t really do anything.

Q: Is there romance?
A: No.

Q: ā€¦Wait, what?
A: There isnā€™t any romance

Q: But every game has romance! Why not this one?
A: Could have something to do with you being 1) trapped in a suit of armor, 2) the ugliest woman alive, and 3) a mangled mess of mutilated flesh and stitched together muscle tissue only being held together by a suit of armor and literally nothing else.

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Well as a normal person, it would be a ā€œbeing raped/tortured/murdered/eatenā€ simulator, not necessarily in that order. Because demons are horrifying and ordinary humans do not have much chance against literal Satan.

As a citizen of hell, it would be a ā€œrape/torture/murder/eat humansā€ simulator, again not necessarily in that order. Because in this universe, the Bible is considered canon. And in the Bible, demons are absolutely horrifying and amoral and not friends to humans in any way.
It is much more enjoyable to write being the person who murders such creatures, rather than to write from their twisted perspective.

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I actually found this reply oddly amusing :no_mouth:

Anyways, a fixed female MC might be nice for a change.

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Didnt mean normal in the sense of you arent special or anything, probably shoulda worded it better

I learned to sleep with my eyes open for school, I can learn to read with my eyes closed! Somehowā€¦

So there is also a bunch of giant half human half demons running around destroying everything?

If thatā€™s in canon. Admitably, though I read my bible every night, I am not in any way a Demonoligist. So there may be a few inconsistencies in that department.
Iā€™ve never heard of a half-demon, but if you say those are a thing then I guess Iā€™ll have to take your word on it.

Iā€™m no expert but I think thatā€™s how the Noah story started. They were called Nephilhim. The angels mated with humans and then combined with the evils of mankind God decided to flood everything. The angels were dubbed demons and cast out of heaven.

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If this was written for you then why would put it out on the interwebz.

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Oh, good point. I guess Iā€™ll just take it down then. :unamused:

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Just wondering. But, it is not my decison, so do whatever you want with it.

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Wow, I really enjoyed what youā€™ve got so far. I totally understand where youā€™re coming from on the fixed gender being because this was for you, but if this ends up becoming a bigger project you might even wanna publish eventually I think itā€™d be better to have different gender options.

Anyway, I really like the idea of being this awesome demon-slayer. Iā€™ve been reading a lot of comics lately, not necessarily fantasy but I think this is something that would make a good comic! I hope we get to find out soon how we got ā€œattachedā€ to Artor. Because this doesnā€™t sound like good ol cookie cutter possession to me, since it appears we have control over our mind and actions, and our body is ā€œaltered,ā€ to say the least. Tbh, playing this character feels like being a totally coherent, badass zombie. Or vampire maybe? Just a vampire w/ especially specific dietary habits, w/ the demon blood and stuff.

Wait, scratch that. What about ā€œvampiric demon-woman of steel?ā€ Unless our armorā€™s made of something different? I kinda like the sound of it but thatā€™s just too many wordsā€¦

Anyway, love the wip so far! :grin:

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Sorry for being snippy. Arguing with people on this site has made me pretty snippy.
When I say ā€œI wrote it for me,ā€ that doesnā€™t literally mean I wrote it just so I could read it to myself. I meant that I wrote it not to be published, but because I just kind of wanted to.

That might have been viable but then I started thinking and imagining and accidentally created what I think is a pretty decent backstory for the main character, that unfortunately if they were to change to a male would kind of take a sledgehammer to human history.
But oh well, Iā€™ve found this communityā€¦is actually not all that understanding. But hey, thatā€™s why itā€™s called a passion project, right?

It probably would, if there werenā€™t such a thing as Beserk. Iā€™d rather not face any lawsuits at this stage of my life.

When you put it that wayā€¦yeah, that fits pretty well.

Brimstone, actually. Though ā€œvampiric demon-woman of brimstoneā€ isnā€™t much better.

Oh thatā€™s great! Do you have a plot in mind?!
Iā€™m kind of stuck for what might happen after killing the demon thatā€™s terrorizing the village.

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Oh :confused: thatā€™s unfortunate. Iā€™d usually suggest something like simply altering that part of human history, like youā€™re able to do in Choice of Broadsides, for example, but that already sounds like a whole additional undertaking on top of the story itself. In the end, itā€™s your story so all of this is up to you.

Yknow how I mentioned comics? You should check out the Wynonna Earp series! Itā€™s almost like this, except present day, western, and the main character is 0% demon. Itā€™s more like a ā€œinherited demon-killing powers through bloodā€ kinda thing, complete with a special family heirloom (cool ass gun), and a special badge, so sheā€™s more county marshal than outlaw. Anyway, thereā€™s a show based off the comics too that you could watch for possible reference? idk, medieval and western settings seem so far apart to me, but the protags are ultimately doing almost the same thing, right?

Stories like these are right up my alley. Dark and gritty; it was always my childhood dream to become a dark knight! (Well, a princess turned dark knight cause I still wanted a reason for the dressā€¦not so much now :smirk:).

Anywho, although short it was a great read. My first time through I played a stoic and cold heroine who still held on to a bit of humanity. Iā€™d be damned (literally) if I let a demon take my soul too.

You say you got the inspiration from Berserk? Iā€™ve never seen any of the animes but I do remember reading a few of the comics as a kid down at Dark Horse while waiting for my mom to finish up work next door. I wasnā€™t supposed to read it (ssh), but what I did read I rather enjoyed. I think my favorite character was a little flying thing named Puck (was he a fairy or an elf?). Would you suggest the anime as worthy watching? Battle scenes lack a lot of times in animation compared to their print counterparts.

I would certainly recommend both of them. There have been two seriesā€™ so far, Beserk (1997) which covers the ā€œGolden Ageā€ arc of the manga and gives you some critical backstory on Guts and his antagonists and explains what happened that made the world so demon infested. Every review Iā€™ve ever seen of it has been glowing, and while the animation is a bit stiff compared to modern day works, it gets across the weight of combat pretty well, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it leaves off on a massive cliffhanger.

Beserk (2016) picks up where the last one left off. It covers the part of the manga that its most famous for, the demon slaying and Guts being a complete determinator fighting creatures of ridiculous power. Although unlike the other anime, they made it in 3d animation, which a lot of people seem to have a problem with; itā€™s pretty choppy at times, but I never minded since I donā€™t have a very good eye for detail plus itā€™s at least continuing what I think is the most interesting part of Beserk. Not to mention, while human scenes look a bit weird in 3d, the demons look exactly like how demons should. Otherwordly, and horrifying.

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For what to do next, that would depend on what the MCā€™s goal is.
Did the main character have anything in mind when the started the journey?
Is there some kind of revenge they want to fulfill?

You had mentioned a backstory, can we read it?
It would help to understands what drives the character.

Great story so far!
Although I would like to point out there are quite a bit if grammatical errors, the main one being that the story shifts between different perspectives (ex. sometimes putting ā€œmyā€ or ā€œyouā€ in the same sentence).
Donā€™t know if itā€™s useful since you mentioned it was just for fun but I just wanted to add that in case you ever wanted some help proofreading.

If this is a personal project, I suppose I canā€™t really complain about the genderlocking. And itā€™s always nice to play a character that makes other people quiver in fear.

That being said, the current formattingā€“red-and-black layout, the unusual font in the title- is making my eyes bleed. Please consider changing it back to black-and-white.

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Decided to make an update before I start working on the fight scenes, since those will take a very long time to get done. Going to be trying to improve how I do fight scenes, make them more difficult and require tactical thinking and preparation. I saw someone mention the ā€˜Dark Souls of Interactive Fictionā€™ and thought that would be a pretty neat title to have. As such, the fight scenes are probably going to take up about 80% of the gameā€™s development time.

And yes, I am most likely going to continue this, but it will still be a pretty short game by COG standards. One playthrough would probably be around the size of a playthrough of Gambling with Eternity or the first chapter of Tin Star, for time references.

That and I usually hate it whenever a game does that. I remember my first time playing CoB and thinking 'oh, so I can be a female navy captain in a world dominated by males? What an intriguing idea. I wonder how that will alter the story and what new obstacles will be put in my- oh, youā€™re just going to change all of human historyā€¦well whatā€™s the point of being a different gender in the first place?

Well its the armor thatā€™s consuming the blood, not the MC. As for how it actually does that, itā€™s pretty vague but close your idea of the blood splashing on your armor and weapon.

Thatā€™s probably because of muscle memory on my part. My other main story is written in first person and that occasionally leaks into this, especially immediately after an option.

Was hoping to go for a ā€œthis world is unnatural and deformedā€ vibe to make the player uneasy, but if it causes actual pain, I guess its better to go with what people are familiar with.
I suppose there are other ways to go about that.

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Happy to be of help :blush:

Oh then I am expecting a lot of dying.

So I finally got enough practice to close my eyes and pretend Iā€™m a guy.

  • But any wall will break apart when hit with enough force, and with
    so much death in so little a time, humans finally wore out walls meant
    to millions
    of years in just a couple thousand.

  • Meant to last?

  • ā€œMarvelousā€¦ā€ Sometimes you are resentful that you am the only one cursed to hear its voice. This is not one of those times.

  • are

  • Of course thereā€™s no way he could no that in your case

  • know

ā€œPoetic, and so wonderfully twisted. He he heā€¦ā€

Thatā€™s a weird laugh.

  • You hear more whispering and cluttering sounds. Difficult to tell what
    exactly it is or whatā€™s going on inside, but whatever it is, itā€™s
    causing noise.A few moments, the door swings open, and single man stands
    in the doorway.

  • Needs a space after noise.

  • ā€œHeā€™s right on that point. We had only begun settling in this ruined
    hamlet when it appeared, claiming that we weretrespassing on his
    property and would now become his property. It all went down from
    thereā€¦ā€

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