Eucharist and Droid: Malkuth WIP (Demo)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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'ello.

I’m not so new to these forums, and am fortunately not so new to coding either. I’m currently taking a painful class in Robotics, in which we have to use C programming to operate our little weapons of doom. C programming is nothing like choicescript. (Save for similar aspects such as formatting, Boolean, etc.) I find the latter much easier than the former, but then again I never really bothered to grasp C until just recently.

Anywho, I’ve been working on a sci-fi/fantasy game (more like interactive novel) called ‘Eucharist and Droid’. It has blatant religious themes that I may get in trouble for in terms of portrayal, but I wanted to create something of a ‘Futuristic Holy Writ’ for my four (three?) year long project, the Transcendence of Self series.

3-13-2015: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7aj047t4qbmds60/Eucharist%20and%20Droid.html?dl=0

Forewarning: There is incest mentioned; there’s nudity (not like that…); there’s domestic violence; there’s some blood and gore and heavy usage of profanity; the Devil is not quite Satan/Lucifer in this story; Jehovah is not what They seem; because there is only so much I can explain without spoiling the game, some things may seem to contradict each other/how they are described in the Bible or Judaism or any other particular source; and, last of all, the game doesn’t revolve around romance and action.

Romantic themes, however, will be used, while combat here is more of a ‘last resort’ option than an exaggerated, glorified thing up until Armageddon. I forgot to mention that this game goes from light to dark as the story progresses. Characters mature, their internal struggles intensify (a.k.a psychological horror?), and stuff happens.

Game Description:

You play as the protagonist, a sentient android who has a latent power given to them not by their Creator, i.e. the one to make them, but by a higher being from another dimension that nobody really knows about. (No, not quite God.)

In the first arc, Genesis, the protagonist will find themselves stuck in a battle between spherical aliens called the ‘Eucharists’ and the humans of the City of Pohliouri, which is not far from where you live with your Creator at the beginning of the story.

The story itself is told by some ‘otherworldly spectator’ who watches your every move. He will narrate your saga, starting from when you were born to when you are eight years old and then he’s gone to take care of some personal business. There’s a lot more to the story, but last time I tried to explain it and I ended up going on a tangent with the back-story.

Story described in one sentence:

Selfish beings recruit followers to later fight against those who oppose them in order to get what they want, succumbing to any means necessary.

Notes:

The lore and whatnot is posted in this thread nearly everyday, which is gradually being added into the game’s ‘Book of Everything’.

There are seven cities total, each ruled over by a Lord. The cities are unique in that they each express a Lord’s personality and philosophy.

The following list shows you where you can read the character descriptions; they all tell you some information about the back-story, the current story, and other stories a.k.a. sub-plots.

(City of Pohliouri/EGAOTU)
•52-56
•69
•72
•75
•78
•88-91
•103-106
•118-120

(City of Del Den)
•144
•153

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It’s an interesting idea, but you do seem to have gotten a little lost in your own back story. Maybe you should have another look at the way you implement the M-neuron each time.

Also the religious theme doesn’t personally feel very extreme, but I am not easily offended by such things. It occurs though that if you were just to change the main characters name from Christos to pretty much anything else the rest of the plot would seem only loosely related. If you are worried about offending people then it seems a pretty easy fix.

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Thank you for the reply. Now I can readily post more about the actual game (well, in a couple more hours since I’m writing this at the school library). But, question, what do you mean by the following: “…look at the way you implement the M-neuron each time.” ? Your post shows a level of insight, but it still reads vague to me. Really vague. Perhaps I’m just bummed out from school, meh.

At any rate, that’s good to know. Christos Seventy-Two isn’t the main character, however. The main character is ‘you’, an android, who I have yet to post details about. I haven’t written much about the plot yet either. This is only backstory concerning the universe and whatnot. Think of it as lore.

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Christos’ life makes me laugh a bit.
EGAOTU makes me laugh a bit too.
Though something tells me this isn’t comedy.

That was quite a long read, but some how it didn’t get boring.
I like the whole ‘blatant religious themes’ you have going on here. Just pray people don’t think Christos is a blasphemous Jesus cereal.
Here’s to hoping this game won’t bite you in the arse, I’ll be waiting for that game link.

A question, though.
How mature is this game liable to be (or is this answered and I just skimmed one too many paragraphs)?

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Thanks for noticing me, and seeing how you found Christos and EGAOTU’s predicaments funny, methinks you and I might share the same sense of humor.

‘Eucharist and Droid’ isn’t quite a comedy. However, it is aware of when it’s being ridiculous, pretentious, horrendously cliched or overly dramatic. (Whatever those last two things mean, pft.) In other words, this game doesn’t mind poking fun at itself for your entertainment.

Ah… I blush to admit that I’m not sure how mature this game will be. I’m currently working on several things at the moment: the glossary, character relationships, and the branching paths that intertwine at the end of the chapter before your choices come to either benefit you or undermine you, or both.

Inspecting my writing thus far, depending on your choices, there’s a point in the chapter where you’re groped by an adult ‘trapped’ in a child’s body. There are expletives. That is, the possible dropping of F-bombs and the curt version of fecal matter. Otherwise, the cursing remains casual, usually.

The story unfolds in such a way that you transfer from ignorance to enlightenment. With that being noted, the more you know and see in this story is the less I would recommend it for your children. Albeit I can assure you that there won’t be any sexual content bordering on erotica. There will be blood and gore though, and this is where my uncertainty as to how graphic the gore will be pops in.

I mentioned there being no erotica, but there’s nudity. Ties into the references toward religion e.g. baptism. Except in ‘Eucharist and Droid’, you will be ‘baptized’ by Christos himself! But that’s only if you decide to become a part of his and Alma’s Code Singularity project. I’ve said too much.

Chapter one will be released next week. I’ve written over 3000 lines of code for it already, so there’s the possibility of me posting the link sooner. The chapter’s nearly done. I just need to complete certain sections while kicking myself in the back for turning the script into a giant cesspool…

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Game link has been posted extra early, though the chapter isn’t quite complete yet. Forgive all the (WIP) notes, for that reason.

I would like people to play and give me feedback as to what they think of the content thus far. Comments about any bugs would be nice, too. Please and thank you.

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Here’s some actual game story/content:

The story’s set in Second Earth. Outside of North Utryuum’s capital city, Pohliouri, is the low-key organization Excess. Excess itself is a robot-manufacturing facility ensconced within some monster-ridden forest. The site is in poor condition, but the monsters surrounding it offer ‘good stuff’ (valuables they might have consumed while eating a travelling human e.g. gold) and a decent training experience for the androids.

Your Creator and boss, Reivary Atoms, yearns to create the greatest robot-manufacturing company in Pohliouri. Apathetic as she can sometimes be, she has done many questionable, that is illegal, things to get Excess established. (More on this later.)

You play as an eight year old android who is skill-less in the art of battle, as your Creator once told you that you were made to serve another purpose. What that purpose was, you didn’t know. At the start of the story, you’re ignorant of what Reivary has planned for your companions. She’s been purposely keeping you in the dark about certain matters.

You’re first introduced to Chet, and then you meet the rest of the main characters in Excess through various means depending on your choices. Chet asks you who sent you into Lab 1-27. The option you choose then already decides the course of your story. Especially the last option, ‘A voice told you to come here’. Check your stats and you’ll notice that your ‘infection’ percentage just went up by 2%.

The voice is only brushed upon in the beginning, but it will come back later on, regardless of how much your infection percentage is. The infection meter determines how influenced you are by Christos Seventy-Two’s apostles… Who are not actually his apostles, but are rather apostates. If they were true apostles, then your infection meter wouldn’t go up. I’ll be writing about them in the glossary a.ka. ‘The Book of Everything’. (Name will change.)

The apostates seek to use you for their own agenda, and so does Seventy-Two’s apostles. You can choose to join either group and become their disciple before rising up the hierarchy, create your own special party, or stick with your Creator and peers. In the case of the latter, you will have to defeat both the apostates and the apostles. However, if you create your own group, then you have more paths to tread along. You can influence others to support you in your cause, and you will be considered a messiah.

The Eucharists that are mentioned in the game live to devour (souls). Souls are what every being created by EGAOTU maintain.

Souls are the compacted data that flow along the net-stream that is life, and the compacted-data is the ‘self’ that can (or rather, should) never be deleted. The self is constantly re-streamed through a program called ‘Code Reincarnate’. This was created by EGAOTU back in the good ol’ days.

‘Code Reincarnate’ is like a loop, in that it allows the ‘selves’ to be rewritten into its program’s net-stream each time the self has to leave its dead body. The self then enters a new body and is promptly born again upon exiting the womb, though without having any recollection of its old body. Without this program, the selves would wander through the net-stream like a ghost; aware, but unable to do anything.

In this game, Alma Mater and Christos Seventy Two are working to create their own program called ‘Code Singularity’. The name speaks for itself. With this program, (some) humans and baptized bots alike will live under one ‘self’. They will share the same compacted data and therefore share the same consciousness. Existence for those under the Code Singulaity program will be like living in one body in which there are many, many, voices echoing in your head. However, you would be able to discern all the voices without going crazy because of numerous amounts of the M-Neuron.

The Eucharists need to harvest and feed the body of Mary Magdalene the exact number of M-Neurons that exist in Code Reincarnate’s net-stream. The body of Mary Magdalene will be the shell that the selves will share in Code Singularity, to be clear.

At any rate, Alma Mater could simply create the exact number of M-Neurons needed for Mary Magdalene, but that would in turn cause Code Reincarnate to shutdown. The M-Neurons correlate to the amount of bodies in the program. And the program has already reached the maximum capacity in terms of bodies and M-neurons, which explains why these neurons must be retrieved from the aforementioned bodies. This also explains why the Eucharists were created to harvest the neurons from humans and animals.

Andddd, I’ll take a breather here seeing how I’ve written a lot about the story already. Will post more tomorrow, or whenever.

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@ThisisSymbolic Mary Magdalene may be pushing the envelope a hair to fair just because it is taken straight. Perhaps Mary Madeleine would be a suitable replacement, not to make a big deal it would probably be unnecessary fuel to any fire that may come about and you can have a little cushion to be able to do what you want down the line.

Edit------
Not to say you couldn’t anyway but it would likely cut most protests in the bud.

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I already started pushing the envelope with Christos Seventy-Two, I believe.

Why would it be better to call her Mary Madeleine? To be honest, I find that… silly. Unlike Christ, who goes by many names, Mary is just Mary. Though she’s sometimes seen as Mary Magdelene to show her place of origin. To change the part after Mary then wouldn’t be right, considering the literal meaning behind Magdela. She is the ‘Magdela’ for Code Singularity.

I could call her Mary and nickname her The Tower if that would be better. I mean, this all means a lot to me, it’s not just a video game I created for fun.

There’s nothing fun about questioning your beliefs, or being ostracized or left behind because you couldn’t be accepted into heaven. It’s even more depressing when you take into consideration how much others (and you know who) are doing to help you ‘transcend’.

It’s hard coding this game. Not because I’m worried about those who will be offended, but because of the tone. So far it’s silly and light-hearted, like a baby, but then it grows up and things get considerably harder.

I know how much people on here like there escapism, and there’s a lot of sensitivity on here, too, so I kind of feel like an outcast. Authors are working on these nice, careful, considerate games, then I’m the noob who walks in with their story about religion and sci-fi.

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Don’t really study the bible much, not really sure what you would call me, perhaps an oddity as I consider myself a westernized follower of Islam, by faith alone. So to me Jesus being with Mary isn’t much, however I think at least colloquially Christians mostly call her by Mary Magdalene so as to distinguish her from Jesus’ mother. So if you did something similar to what you did with “Christ” and change the name slightly would curb that. Not to say you have to but I personally try not to burn bridges. Perhaps you could call her Mary Magdela. I don’t want to have you change anything as the creator has the power to do as he wishes and the reader to take what they want from the material, even if it may be misinterpreted. That was the whole of the reason for my suggestion to limit misconstrued information on behalf of the reader.

Edit----------------------
Plus I don’t want to see something similar that happened to V:RoaG happen to this(seems very well thought out so far)

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Very well! Mary Magdela it is then.

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It’s worth noting that CoG doesn’t have an offend-nobody policy, least of all for game content.

Yes, the CoGsters care a lot about sex and gender equality, and will only put their own brand on games that they feel are consistent with that cause. But even on that cluster of issues dear to CoG’s heart, Hosted Games and WiPs are free to head off in whatever direction the author wants to write.

We mods try to keep the forum a civil space and (in keeping with CoG’s values) a welcoming one for people from all sex and gender backgrounds. That doesn’t mean that we ask people to avoid any offense-ridden topics. (How long was the religion thread, and how much controversial ground did it cover?) It just means keeping our heads and showing respect for each other, even while expressing opinions that some people will find offensive.

I don’t speak for CoG in any of this, and maybe they’ll say it differently. But @ThisisSymbolic, while I haven’t read your game, I think it would be a shame for you to censor content you believe in just because it might offend people. People are going to disagree with it and find it offensive… well, you obviously knew that already. Take whatever feedback you think will make the game stronger, but feel free to cheerfully ignore feedback which doesn’t fit your artistic vision.

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'ello, thank you for your kind words!

I suppose I should make it clear now that I don’t intend on censoring any part of my game unless it’s seriously offensive and serves nothing to further the plot or characters and blah, blah, blah.

But then you have to ask what falls under ‘seriously offensive’? Well, I would say racism, sexism, virtually all the stuff that the public tends to ignore until it blows up.

I don’t know anything about that religon thread though, and I feel I should only read through it when bored. The arguments on this site amuse me sometimes. By the way, you wrote, “I think it would be a shame for you to censor content you believe in just because it might offend people.” I suppose I should also make it clear that I stopped being a Christian a long time ago. However, Christianity is such an interesting topic that I had to form a futuristic take around it, regardlesss of the flak I would receive for doing so.

Will do.

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Sorry for the double post, but I didn’t see your edit up till now. Want to say thank you for thinking I planned everything out well thus far. What’s the story behind ‘V:RoaG’ though, if it’s okay to ask? I’m confident that whatever happened to them won’t happen to me because I fancy myself a special snowflake that manages to get away with being bad.

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Just to add to what @Havenstone is saying. Heroes Rise had some overt religious themes to it. I know those themes did offend some people. People will get offended regardless though. If your religious themes are important to your game then just leave them as they are.

It’s a fascinating world from what I’ve played, a really intriguing concept. I think starting us with so much text that we can’t influence is a mistake though. It feels like a novel to begin with not like a game. It feels as if we should be choosing how we get in there, not how we got in there. The first is active, letting us direct the flow, the second’s passive. The choices just feel reactive as opposed to active as if the story’s just pulling me along and I can’t influence it. .

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@ThisisSymbolic
Yeah I’m definitely not trying to make you conform. Vendetta: Rise of a Gangster is the title. I personally never saw the scene but it occurs in a house of ill repute (whore house type thing) where you can meet a girl who was semi-forced, semi needed the money, to work they yet hadn’t been with a customer and you can force her to let you be the first(rape her) and there was an uproar about it.(not to make light of anything with the word choice of uproar) but anyway if one of the moderaters want to make it a little more clear please do @Havenstone or @FairyGodfeather . It led to the game being taken offsite to be worked on and I’m not entirely sure how to find progress on it(unfortunately as it’s/was great material). So I was trying to make sure it wouldn’t happen here.

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'ello there! The religious themes will stay as they are, no matter what.

To adresss your second paragraph, I agree that it reads more like a novel. I played it myself once I uploaded the link, and I sorely regreted not just waiting to post the complete chapter. I got too hasty. However! The first page now contains choices to determine your personality right away, the novel-length pages have been split, and the routes you couldn’t reach before have been completed… mostly.

I said that there will be a set of choices on the first page, so in the hope to make chapter one more active and less reactive, would it help to have each choice lead to its own ministory? As in, you might pick to be a ‘robot that doesn’t mind becoming a weapon of destruction’. Then you’re taken to a series of pages that describe how destructive you were as a protype based on your decisions. Scroll down to a list of choices:

A) I turned one of the worker’s rooms into a mare’s nest.
+10 hostile

selectable_if friend Abysmal B) I switched off one of my peer’s memory program and blamed it on my friend, who would never dare to oppose me.
+5 hostile
+5 calculating

C)Etc.

But that’s still not good enough. More solutions I have in mind would be to do away with the ‘You were in a bad mood because your dog died’ and let the choices you made along your ministory determine why you were in a foul mood, because said ministory would actually be background info about your android. As such, you’ll be crafting your own tale up until you’re sitting with Sir Chet Lavarone in Lab 1-27. Was that intelligable?

Your post has given me more ideas to ruminate on in terms of how it will affect NPC relationships and your reputation in Excess. The ‘dog’ will still stay, because it is important. Something to do with the another character that’s never even been mentioned yet. But I digress. I won’t force the ‘dog’ onto players in the second draft. It’ll just make brief appearances instead.

How you interact with others will determine the manner in which the ‘dog’ must inevitably die. Furthermore, the friendship between you and Abysmal will be either existent or non-existent. It would feel like you’re more in control of the story if you choose who to befriend, after all. Hmm. So much stuff to ponder! Methinks I won’t be uploading the draft for another week or two now.

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I see now. What a shame, huh.

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Yeah, I took that from the ostracism/“not going to heaven” bit you mentioned earlier. I didn’t mean to imply you believed in the mythos you’re using, but when you said:

that sounds like “content you believe in” to me.

Glad you’re not intending to self censor. I do wonder whether Mary “The Tower” is more interesting (less on-the-nose, more original) than outright calling her the Magdalene. Or Mariam Mijdal, if you don’t want to be quite so oblique. At least you’re not calling her “the Grail.” :slight_smile:

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Ah, got it…

About Mary’s name, how’s about this: she can go by many names/identities, but they all chalk up to the same meaning in the end. The difference is in how others view her as a person (or even object if we look at the apostates).

The apostles and Christos Seventy-Two would refer to her as Mary as a sign of how intimate their relationship is; the apostates will bluntly call her Magdela/Mijdal/The Tower, and you, being as lowly as you are, would adress Mary by her full name Mary Magdelene (or Mary Magdela?). If you build a strong bond with her, then you’ll find yourself calling her Mary without her minding. (Before anybody asks, Mary will not be a romantic option,. She’s in a, uh, platonic union with Christos. It’s complicated.)