Hey everyone,
I’m new to the forum (not new to writing, though!) and have decided to write a CS game that I outlined way back in January 2017. Like most of my stories, it’s based on a dream I had.
In this game, the PC plays as an exiled wanderer from the kingdom of Mordia, a land ruled by King Brio & Queen Vivia, who aspires to use the undead as her military force. The PC was against this and thus forced to flee the kingdom in search of safety rather than oppose her. Everywhere the PC has traveled, (pleasant) rumors and legends about the kingdom of Regalia are flying around, so the story opens with the journey to Regalia, where Queen Vivia’s terror should not reach.
The PC may be male, female, or nonbinary, and this, along with the PC’s name, is determined in the Prologue chapter. Now, about Regalia…
Regalia is an old kingdom that lies at the base of a mountain called Mount Logos. According to local legends, the mountain itself has strong magical powers—supposedly made possible by the Onyx God, Erebus, and the Alabaster Goddess, Zion—that were responsible for the early blossoming of the kingdom. It is said that those who lie gain Erebus’ powers; those committed to the truth gain Zion’s power. That prosperity lasted until the former king, Duddite, abused Erebus’s power and threw off the mystical balance of Mount Logos, resulting in the creation of terrible cursed beings called Tawltaels, who cause sporadic destruction across the kingdom. Regalia is now ruled by Queen Eon, the daughter of Duddite, and she has tried desperately to restore the balance by banishing liars, who she feels are responsible for Regalia’s “impurity,” to the kingdom’s margin. Her oppressive regime of truth-only living has swung the balance of Mount Logos in the other direction, granting her powers that she claims are necessary to defeat and keep tawltaels at bay but that she also uses to impose her will on ordinary Regalians. A faction of former Regalians, going by the name “Tongues,” are planning to fight back against Eon using the power acquired from deceit, pushing the kingdom to the brink of war. An exiled stranger (the PC) from another kingdom wanders into the land and finds themselves playing a pivotal role in deciding Regalia’s future.
Only one path of the prologue is done, but if you’re interested in looking at a fairly complex game with some fun coding (especially the stats screen), please take a look:
Demo is on Dashingdon: https://dashingdon.com/go/2294
I learned CS in about 3 days, but I think I’m doing all right so far! I’m going to try to get another chapter done on the weekend. Well, hopefully…
Note: Players can only do the “#Take the left path.” choice right now since the other stuff isn’t written; however, it’ll at least let the player experience the strange story. Not many stats will be affected yet, though. A lot of the good stuff, the “meat,” is in the next three chapters.
Note 2: Ignore the scene files after reaching the first “Next Chapter” button. There’s no content, haha. I hope it will be a decent game eventually.
Note 3: When it comes to creative projects, my philosophy is that the unfettered creativity of the author should be able to shine, regardless of content; of course, we do have limits based on the publishing platform, but if it is a well-written, high-quality work, I think readers ought to be understanding and not reject it wholesale on the basis of some criteria that they personally believe is the “right” or “accurate” conception of an world that wasn’t even their own…
With that said, I don’t mind, say, fictional worlds with an egalitarian society, but I find them hard to accept if it’s supposed to just be taken for granted, with the exception of non-human societies. Anything based on human society or using humans? Well, I need some exposition about how the society became that way. As a result, a lot of my worlds contain real-world prejudice, privilege, and its intersections. In this game, for instance, two of the most powerful characters—Black-Tongued Soon and Queen Eon—are women. Agatha, the blacksmith, is a woman. However, their lives are not completely remarkable on account of their power, skills, and status; they still face challenges based on their womanhood. But the other side of that coin is that they have their own privileges—Agatha is able, Soon is powerful, Eon is rich and powerful (and sees it fit to oppress women, men, and children altogether). I don’t go around chastising people about intersectionality, but I do like to remind people who like to play the who-is-oppressed-most game (I sometimes use that euphemism “Oppression Olympics”) about how thinking too much in terms of strict hierarchies can lead to moral myopia and even “slingshot” prejudice of its own. Real life isn’t as simple and clean as x oppresses y without a great deal of context—historically, socially, economically, politically, and otherwise. Long tangent…
UPDATES
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Sorry, I uploaded some older versions of some scenes, but I just re-uploaded! First time uploading a game
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Edited the battle scene a bit (even though it’s a tutorial, haha). Wasn’t satisfied with it/thought some things were unclear, e.g., the incantation…I didn’t specify before that the MC is striking the tawltael, not Erebus.
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Fixed some typos in achievements and the Information page. Reduced size of titles on stat pages a little.
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Prologue (Regalia path) is finished. I haven’t uploaded it yet, because I don’t feel that’s a big enough update. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time this weekend to complete Chapter 1. I don’t want to re-upload the game until players can get into it and start making choices that impact more important stats. My apologies…
They’re just stopping for a moment of reflection because they’re both uncertain of how much to reveal to the MC. That’s why they usually look at each other (except for the question about Regalia, which pisses Soon off enough for her to quickly glare at the MC). There’ll certainly be more MC questions, but I assure you that Soon/Null don’t need to stop to answer them!
Now that game is really weird…MC can interchange parts of his/her zombie body (or that of allies) when under the Queen’s Nightshade Curse!
