Welcome to Lux, City of Secrets, the third book in The Evertree Saga!
It’s time to make a name for yourself in the city of Lux. In this first half of a two-part epic, you will discover a vibrant and dynamic metropolis full of mysteries. Meet and mingle with characters old and new, uncover clues and solve cases, wield weapons and magic, and rise to the top before the city drags you under!
Lux, City of Secrets is a 500,000 word immersive interactive experience by Thom Baylay. It’s entirely text-based–without graphics or sound effects–and fueled by the vast unstoppable power of your imagination.
The mayor of Lux believes someone is trying to kill him, and he has chosen you to save his life. But protecting the Luxican aristocracy is not your only priority. Will you be able to balance the responsibilities of life in the big city or will you be swallowed up by an unforgiving urban jungle? Will you prioritize your friends, your reputation, your career? In an open world where, more than ever, the choices you ignore matter as much as the ones you explore, you will need to choose carefully if you are to survive.
Reunite with old friends and enemies, continue to build the relationships you started in Evertree Inn and Sordwin, or abandon it all in pursuit of something new. It’s time to find out if you have what it takes to uncover the mysteries of Lux, City of Secrets!
• Continue a story started in Evertree Inn/Sordwin or play as a brand new adventurer.
• Explore the city of Lux over several days: pursue a career, investigate chilling mysteries, or head out into the local wilds in search of adventure.
• Customize your character’s experience, including five different houses and twenty different professions, each with their own stories to be discovered.
• Build a reputation among the clergy, the Watch and the aristocracy; become a champion of the poor or pursue a life of crime.
• Stick to a plan, or be constantly side-tracked by a myriad of mysteries. More than ever, the choices you ignore matter as much as the ones you explore!
• Meet a cast of vibrant new characters, and reunite with acquaintances from past adventures.
• Develop a romance from Evertree and Sordwin or seek new experiences in the Luxican taverns.
• Play as male, female or non-binary.
• Play as gay, straight, bisexual or asexual.
Directions for beta-testing:
Email us, evertreeinn AT gmail DOT com for access. (This is not a CoG Beta test, but a HG beta test so be sure you email the correct address or you will not be given access.)
- Do not send me DMs/PMs. The author fo this Hosted Games title is managing the feedback and admission for this beta.
- When you send your EMAIL, include: – the game you want to test in the Subject line of the email. – your forum-name — if you want to be credited for your testing in the credits of the game.
- Do not email us multiple times about joining a beta. This is being managed by a single author and time spent replying to duplicate emails is time not spent reading your feedback.
When you have been admitted to the beta, we will send you a link, a username, and a password as a reply to your email.
When you have feedback to submit:
- Return feedback to evertreeinn@gmail, preferably part of the same email thread/chain, rather than a new one.
- Please send screenshots or copy/pasted quotes as often as you can; it helps us track down whatever observation you’re making. In particular, the author may see things that you don’t, and/or the screenshot may contain more information than you realize.
- DO NOT submit feedback using the Bug/Submit button in the game for this beta.
DO NOT POST ASKING WHAT THE BETA EMAIL ADDRESS IS. The first test to becoming a beta tester is inferring what it is based on the above paragraph.
Tips on How to Give Feedback
This beta is mainly focused on testing imported saves. Please make sure you have either a Sordwin or Evertree save file that you can use in the new Lux beta.
Please send in feedback for “high level” and “low level” feedback. Not mid-level feedback.
Low-level = typos and continuity errors. A continuity error is when a character’s gender flips, or someone comes back from the dead, or you run into a plotline that just doesn’t make sense (because it’s probably a coding error).
For these low-level issues, screenshots are very helpful. If you see a problem, take a screenshot, or copy and paste the text that is in error, and email that.
“High level” feedback has to do with things like plot, pacing, and characters. “Scene A didn’t work for me because x, y, and z,” is useful feedback. “B character was entirely unsympathetic, because u, w, and v,” is also useful feedback.
“Mid-level” feedback describes things like grammar, style, word choice, or the use of commas. As I said above, I do not want mid-level feedback. In particular, DO NOT WRITE TO ME ABOUT COMMAS.
“I had a great time and saw only a few spelling errors,” is not useful feedback. In fact, it’s the sort of thing that results in you not being given access to future betas.
Some examples of useful feedback
In Choice of the Dragon, you get to choose what type of wings you have: leather or scaled. Someone wrote in and asked about having feathered wings. Great suggestion! Done!
In “The Eagle’s Heir,” someone asked about Eugenie. They said that the romance moved too quickly–because she only appeared in the last third of the game–and wished they could have had an opportunity to meet her earlier. So the authors added an opportunity to meet her and start the romance earlier in the game (in a scene that already existed).
In “Demon Mark: A Russian Saga” several people commented on how the PC’s parents were unsympathetic, so the authors added a choice or two to deepen the relationship with the parents in the first chapter, to help better establish their characters.
Similarly, pointing out a specific choice and saying, “this is who I imagined my character was at this particular moment, and none of these options seemed right for me. I would have liked an option to do X instead,” is also really helpful feedback.
Another useful piece of feedback: if you choose an #option and then the results of that #option don’t make sense. Like, if you thought an #option might test one stat, but it seems to have tested a different one.