UPDATE 5/26/2018: Story Complete
What is HMS Foraker?
HMS Foraker is a short interactive story set in the same universe as Choice of Broadsides, a fan-fiction, if you will. In it, the player takes the role of the Captain of HMS Foraker, a frigate of the Albion Royal Navy, given orders to pursue, and if necessary, engage, a much larger, heavier-armed enemy. Whether the Captain achieves that goal - and how they manage it if they do, is up to the player.
What Kind of World is This?
As mentioned already, HMS Foraker is set in the world of Choice of Broadsides, one of the first titles published by Choice of Games nearly a decade ago. Broadsides presented a world heavily inspired by the earliest parts of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series, where the maritime power of “Albion” fought against the Republic of “Gaul”, standing in for Great Britain and the the French Republic during the wars of the First, Second, and Third Coalitions.
Foraker picks up a few years after Broadsides leaves off. The Gaulish Republic has been overthrown by an ambitious general, who has established the Empire of the Gauls and managed to embroil most of the continent in a series of massive and destructive wars. However, these conflicts are beyond the scope of this story. On the fringes of Albion’s influence, other rising powers take advantage of the Old World’s distractions to seek redress for grievances of their own.
This is where our story starts.
Why Write This?
Choice of Broadsides was the first CoG I ever read. It’s what got me onto this forum, and it’s what got me reading, and then writing interactive fiction. I owe it a lot. Part of its appeal to me the fact I love this kind of setting, and I love reading and writing about it. I’ve been wanting to do something set in Broadsides’ setting for a while, but knowing that an official sequel or adaptation is out of the question, I knew it’d have to be something done for free and in my spare time. That isn’t something I’d been able to do until now.
Don’t You Have Enough on Your Plate Already? Where the F–k is Lords of Infinity?
Foraker isn’t just being written on a whim. I’m testing a lot of concepts and design ideas I plan on using for Lords of Infinity, like a random event system and some new mass-combat rules. By using a small project as a testbed, I can evaluate the value of those systems before I commit them to the 500-600k word behemoth Lords of Infinity is likely to be.
Likewise, I’m using this project to ease back into the right stylistic modes for Lords of Infinity. “Regency Naval Drama” is a bit of a different setting than “Gaslamp-Fantasy Political Intrigue”, but it’s a damn sight closer than “Fighting Nazis on the Banks of the Rhine”, which is more or less what I’m gearing down from.
Where’s the WIP Link?
The WIP link has been removed pending release.
