Leas: City of the Sun - Game Submitted to HG!

[Sailingshells]

Beta Testing is Complete!

Thank you so much to all testers!

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Beta Testing Has Begun!

Beta Testing Has Begun!

You can sign up to be a tester by replying to this thread, or by messaging me

I’m looking for folks who are willing to play the full game in its beta state and offer feedback on things like the plot, characters, pacing, any bugs found, etc. I’ll be eternally grateful for your help (Note: if you’re seeing this now, it means I’m currently looking for testers and would love to hear from you! If at any point testing closes, I’ll update this post.)

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Enter the city of Leas, where humans dwell in safety behind city walls while strange and powerful Fey roam the wilds. Play as one of a rare few skilled enough to explore the outside world, an agent of Den Zarel.

After making a dangerous discovery you are sent on a mission that unfolds into an adventure that will unearth more than expected, and more than you alone can handle.

Fortunately, you’ll have help along the way: a lifelong friend hiding a dangerous secret, a mysterious and taciturn rogue, and an eccentric and charming mage unite under your banner to help save your city, and possibly, the world.

Game Trailer

Demo: Play the current demo here

(Old moody ink demo, migrated to CoGDemos ink along with the platform) Play the current demo here (I’ve switched to moodyink as the game now uses choicescript arrays)

Tumblr (Early demo updates): sailingshellsgames.tumblr.com

Patreon (alpha/beta access + Bonus RO scenes): SailingShellsGames | Creating Interactive Fiction | Patreon

Ko-fi (alpha/beta access + Bonus RO scenes): ko-fi.com/sailingshellsgames

(Patreon and Ko-fi benefits are identical)

(old dashingdon demo link, no longer current: https://dashingdon.com/play/sailingshellsgames/leas-city-of-the-sun/mygame/)

(In-game LI genders are determined by player sexuality)

Keo

Keo's Personality and Appearance

• Personality - An agent of Den Zarel and MC’s oldest friend. Capable, strong, and stoic, with a tendency to get lost in thought. Protective of the MC. The child of a human-Fey union, Keo has seen a great deal of both Fey and human society, and struggles to find the point of balance between them.

• Physical Appearance - Warm brown eyes flecked with gold, tan skin, very dark hair usually worn pulled back in a messy bun, muscled.

Rin

Rin's Personality and Appearance

• Personality - Snarky, clever, and sarcastic to a fault, but fiercely loyal. Not much is known about Rin’s background - and Rin, meanwhile, seems reluctant to share much. Comes from Den Luana of Leas’ sister-city, Dalusin.

• Physical Appearance - Striking silver eyes, pale skin, black hair, intentionally nondescript appearance in how they present/dress, aside from some silver rings and a small cloth tied around the neck.

Wren

Wren's Personality and Appearance

• Personality - Wren is witty, optimistic, and wildly intelligent. A traveling archivist of great renown, new to the city of Leas yet surprisingly well-connected. Silver tongued when dealing with the nobility and always ready with a smile when MC wants to talk.

• Physical Appearance - Sharp brown eyes, deep brown skin, dark hair, shimmering tattoos along their hands and forearms, small scars on their fingers.

Highlights:

• Romance and Fantasy game (with the option for a no-romance route)
• Choose your gender (including nonbinary) and sexuality
• Three romanceable love interests (LI genders determined based on player sexuality, all routes available to all players)
• Choose your specialty within your Den. Play as a prodigy, conjurer, diplomat, focus on a bit of everything as a jack-of-all-trades, or specialize in nothing at all
• Train skills and develop your personality through choices
• No wrong choices: skill checks can be failed, and the content and flavor of the story changed, but ultimately there is no “game over” screen, just different endgame outcomes.

Feedback:

Feel free to reach out to me with feedback in this thread or by way of direct messaging on this forum. I’d particularly appreciate feedback related to stats, as I’m less experienced in that area.

Final Note:

Thank you very much for clicking on this post! I hope you enjoy the game. I currently have a series of three games for this story outlined, so depending on how things go this could keep my writing hands occupied for quite some time!

I’ve been playing CYOA games and RPGs for quite some time now, and this is my first Hosted WIP. Have been reading the forums and this seems like a nice community - I hope to become a part of it

Feel free to check out my tumblr, if you like! I post early demos and weekly writing updates there. I’ve also launched a ko-fi and patreon recently where you can get bonus RO scenes and access to the game’s alpha (and beta, when it’s ready).

August 31, 2022 Update Notes

Chapter 4, and a very short Chapter 5 are up. We’re heading into the wilds! You can also expect a scene addition to chapter 2

December 31, 2022 Update Notes

Chapter 6 is up! We’re deep in the wilds and searching for some answers ~

April 2nd, 2023 Update Notes

A lot of additions this time, so see the list below!

April 2nd Update details

• Chapter 7: ~26,307 words (first half). For comparison, chapter 3 is ~15,982 words.
• Chapter 1: Generally toned Adaan down a little in chapter 1. I reread it and realized I’d made him meaner than I envisioned him Ah, well. That’s what a demo is for, right? Being a non-final draft? Hopefully? xD
• Chapter 1 choice to choose MC’s hair style and color, including the option for players to write their own custom style/color.
• Chapter 4: New scene where MC speaks with either Viara or Tiane.
• Chapter 4: Option to have the Little Wish take the form of MC’s sibling (sibling gender selectable by player).
• And whole lot of behind-the-scenes work to consolidate code and make nice subroutines that no one but me will ever see but I worked hard on so I still wanna mention here xD

You can find a guide on how to get different Chapter 7 scenes here

August 2nd, 2023 Update Notes

• Chapter 7 Part 2 is complete Attend the festival with the date (or friend) of your choice. There will be food! Romance! Probably some weird crap happening at some point!
• Some changes to Wren’s character.
• Choose the style of MC’s quarters at the Den in chapter 3!
• Choose MC’s parent’s gender in chapter 3, and get a little more backstory on MC’s family situation.
• Achievements have been added to the game!
• Enter your own pronouns in chapter 1, if the default options aren’t your preference.
• Change your pronouns from the stats screen anytime throughout the game.
• Jewelry choice addition (by request) to Chapter 7 Part 1 in preparation for MC’s trip to the festival.
• Consolidation of the stats screen (by request). There are now two stats pages instead of three: one for personality and relationships, and the other for MC’s skills.

September 20th, 2023 Developer Diary Notes

Chapter 8 is complete at ~37k words Chapter 9 is in progress with over 47k words written (it’s going to be a long one because of branching paths). MC choices to specify tattoos, and bow as a preferred weapon choice added to final game.

January 8th, 2024 Developer Diary Notes

The first draft of chapters 9 and 10 are complete Two more chapters to go until the game’s ready for beta… Well, 2 and 1/3, since after writing chapter 10 I realized one of the chapter 9 routes needs to be rewritten.

I can’t believe I’m so close to completing the game’s first draft.

February 5th, 2024 Developer Diary Notes

Chapter 11 is done! (Technically finished it yesterday )

March 28th, 2024 Developer Diary Notes
The revamped demo for Chapters 1-7 is up! See below for what’s new in this demo. Chapter 8’s alpha (~31,000 words) is available on my patreon and ko-fi.

Additions & Removals in Chapters 1-7

Additions:

General

• Introduction of auto-success more.
• More weird dreams + strengthening of the subplot around what MC sees in them.
• Introduction of the dream journal mechanic.
• More dialogue choices throughout the entire demo.
• More descriptions of environments: MC’s living quarters, the Den Compound, desert terrain around Leas, and city architecture.
• Rearranged the stats screen and added clarity for MC’s reputation among the Fey via an opposed pair bar.
• General editing (word choice, etc.)

Chapter 1

• MC’s favored weapon can now be a bow!
• Choice added to set MC’s skin color.
• A few more dialogue choices around MC reacting to the vision Keo has in Chapter 1.
• Clearer explanation of MC agent backgrounds. Each now comes with explicit statement of what stats will be increased upon selection.

Chapter 2

• Option to specify MC’s tattoos. There are 4 pre-designed options, or you can design your own! (or choose no tattoos, if that’s not your cup of tea). This includes the ability to add/remove/modify tattoos via the stats screen.

Chapter 3

• Define how MC and Keo became friends.
• Relatedly, more content setting up the fact that MC can’t remember the agent found dead in the warehouse in Chapter 2.
• Virano and Adaan mini-catfight (is it me, the author? am I the drama?)
• Bug fix where a character already in the room would enter that room.

Chapter 4

• A new dream.
• Conversation around Virano’s family’s role in the nobility.
• A little bit of Fey-weirdness around the Ashaad.
• Conversation around the campfire with the team, mentions some of why Wren came to Leas.

Chapter 5

• An explanation of Chapter 4’s Fey weirdness that kind of just raises more questions, but does answer at least one of them.

Chapter 6:

• A new dream.
• Determining which of the three paths to take in the wilds is now a skill check.
• General editing.

Chapter 7:

• Yet another revision of the waterfall dream/flashback scene. This one’s taken so long to get right, but I’m finally happy with it. Victory screech.
• Moved Wren’s reason for coming to Leas into the main story, so the choice option that explored that on their date now allows MC to dig in to learn a little more.
• More dialogue choices in the scene where Keo’s heritage is discovered during Lasan (if it didn’t happen in the wilds).
• Another choice in Wren’s date going into the legend behind Lasan more, and a little about Wren’s family.

Removals:

• Keo no longer goes into seeing the magic in a vision. Removing this was part of a consolidation effort on my part. Tldr; I had too many side plots and needed to scrap some of them. Keo still has a reason for wishing to pursue the magic, if MC tries to refuse Rin. I actually like it a lot better now, which is a happy coincidence.
• In Chapter 7, going to the wilds to see Keo’s mother is no longer an option. Don’t worry: everything I wrote for it will be used in book 2 But for book 1 it created a weird imbalance where the three options were so different they didn’t converge well back into the main route.
• Removed the ability to give Virano a sample of the magic or not. With all the other potential endgame outcomes, this got scrapped to consolidate things. I was finding it didn’t really have a meaningful impact on the larger story despite reading like a major plot point, so in the bin it goes.

[geldar]

Is there a way to specialize in combat? It seems like I can’t be good at it without being good at everything.

[Sailingshells]

Hey @geldar Thanks for checking out the demo!

Short answer: for these first three chapters your best bet is to choose the field work/prodigy background (for the highest combat bonus) or the jack-of-all-trades background (slightly lower bonus). And the more you engage in fighting, the higher your combat skill will go, even if you fail a skill check.

Long answer:
The way the game is set up is that your chosen background gives you some heavy bonuses to certain categories based on what you would’ve spent the past few years training in. For the “prodigy” route, for instance, this includes combat, stealth, and agility.

You can train individual skills like combat by choosing actions that lead you into fighting scenarios - even if you fail an associated skill check, you’ll notice your “combat” skill tick up from the experience of having tried. So you could theoretically be a diplomat with a heck of a right hook, but it would take time to develop that skill over the course of the game.

If you’re looking for the highest possible boost to combat, go for the first choice when you pick your background - field work/prodigy. The jack-of-all-trades route will also give you a boost, though not quite as much.

That said, there’s no way currently to say “I want my background to be someone who’s good at combat and nothing else.” This does not mean you have to train any other skills after your background choice, though - you can theoretically avoid all options that would increase other skills

[geldar]

Hm, perhaps I misinterpreted what was going on, but it felt like in the Archivist rescue scene, I attempted to use combat but couldn’t because my combat was too low, so I instead used magic.

[_Ashley]

Keo is chef’s kiss. Also, I really enjoyed how descriptive your writing is!!

[RenataC]

Wow. Finished now. And I liked it very much.
I have to say that I know Keo for less than an hour but I would die for them. I don’t think I can romance another character because they are so perfect
And it’s very funny to piss off Adaan.
Love your writing. It’s like the reading goes… smoothly? I don’t know the right word, but it’s like I can read a thousand pages and don’t get tired.
Looking forward to reading more, and give Keo some love.
Can you please add some save slots?

[Sailingshells]

Ah, I think I see - so that’s either a bug (in which case I’ll take a look) or you chose the Conjurer (magical specialist) background. I wanted to give the opportunity there for someone other than the “prodigy” or “jack of all trades” background to succeed there, so I added in a sort of combat-magic moment. The thing about early chapters is a lot of the “harder” skill checks (which I try not to have too many of) sort of default into “what background did you choose” just because it’s early enough in the game that there hasn’t been time to train weaker skills yet. But I see how it could come off as a “nah try something else.” That’s great feedback, it brought a smile to my face to hear your explanation of your experience. I’ll add that as something to rework a bit for the next time I update the demo, to make it feel more like a success.

[Sailingshells]

Thank you so much! That means the world I’m so glad you enjoy Keo!

[Sailingshells]

Thank you so much! I’m so happy to hear it, truly I’m so glad you liked Keo!

I’ll admit, I added those “sass Adaan” choices largely out of how much I enjoy clicking on them myself

It means the world that you enjoyed the writing style, thank you.

Save slots have been added! I had it integrated and forgot to check the little button on dashingdon. Foiled by technology again!

[geldar]

I did choose conjurer, but that was only because nothing else seemed to fit at all. My intent was to be a sort of combat-mage person.

[Sailingshells]

Gotcha - for that you’re best served choosing “prodigy” and making your weapon of choice magic if you want to be super successful in magical combat right from the start. You could also choose the Conjurer background and take time to level your combat.

[geldar]

Given that apparently every option except “unremarkable” improves my stealth (and/or agility) for some reason, which I don’t imagine my MC would be good at in the slightest, I think I may actually want to go with unremarkable… Or maybe I just need a new MC concept if the MC is supposed to be good at stealth. And perhaps that needs to be more obvious if it is the case.

[Sailingshells]

That’s certainly a valid choice! I appreciate the feedback, I will keep it in mind as I continue to code

[E_RedMark]

Just started the demo, but I gotta say your personality choices are nice and the dialogues are so smooth. I love it already!

Welcome to the community, hope your stay is warm

[Mei_Hiroshi]

Hi! Nice demo! Here is what I noticed:

[Sailingshells]

Thank you so much! I’m so excited you’re enjoying the demo. It’s always a little nerve-wracking putting stories out into the world so I can’t tell you how happy your kind welcome makes me Thank you again

[Sailingshells]

Thank you so much for playing the demo, and for the feedback! I’ll make corrections to these in the next few minutes. If I may, can I ask what about the “gives me a nod” feels wrong? Is the word “between” causing the sentence to read funny, as if it should be “between giving out orders and [something else]?”

Quick edit to update: the typos with Keo’s description in chapter 1 and Rin’s gender in chapter 3 have been fixed. Thanks again for pointing it out!

[E_RedMark]

hey, @Sailingshells , you can do this when you reply to many peoples at once. Keep your WIP thread clean and don’t feel spammy. Just use @Usernameofsomeonehere and @someoneelsehere and @heretoo

[Mei_Hiroshi]

Hi! Thank you for working on my feedback so fast. Yes, I think that the “a” article is misplaced. Thus, it sounds a bit unusual to me. Usually people say: “he/she gives me a nod”. I have never seen anything along the lines of “he/she give a me nod”. That’s why I think that probably you meant to write the latter and accidentally misplaced the article.

[Sailingshells]

@E_RedMark oh nice, thank you very much! I… think I’m doing it correctly this time? Or did you mean it’s better etiquette on this forum to post a comment replying to the whole thread, instead of like I’ve done here? My apologies, despite being able to code a bit I am not always the most tech-savvy I really appreciate the advice!

@Mei_Hiroshi Ah, I see it now. Thank you very much for the clarification, my eyes were reading it as the correct version “gives me a nod” for some reason. I’ve fixed it in the demo