Your submarine is gripped by giant tentacles! You are in a battle of wills with a murdered classmate! You play as every scoundrel in this fantasy heist. Steal a dark power… Escape with your soul!
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Studies in Darkness is an adventurous 30,000 word interactive dark fantasy novel by Nathaniel Johnson, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
In the haunted gothic city of Doskvol, you control the last surviving members of a secret society. Restore your infamous reputation by heisting treasure from an abandoned laboratory. Use ectoplasm-powered steampunk technology to dive deep underwater for a unique and precious artifact.
Beware, you are breaking into the Morlan Hall of Unnatural Philosophy. You will face the result of centuries of experiments with the occult and the undead. But you are prepared! Unleash the power of alchemy, electricity, and each scoundrel’s unique supernatural abilities!
Play as a heist crew of five young men and women.
Experience the award-winning Blades in the Dark system, where your every choice is significant and may bring both success AND terrible consequences!
Jump between the students’ perspectives in each chapter!
Solve a murder mystery by stepping into the realm of the undead!
Fight off the corrupt cops that are raiding your school!
“Flashback” to key events in the past, revealing hidden stories and special advantages!
Tap into your “Stress” resource to overcome impossible odds. Beware, too much stress will drive you mad!
The pressure is rising. Your future has been stolen from you. Steal it back!
Nathaniel developed this game using ChoiceScript, a simple programming language for writing multiple-choice interactive novels like these. Writing games with ChoiceScript is easy and fun, even for authors with no programming experience. Write your own game and Hosted Games will publish it for you, giving you a share of the revenue your game produces.
Found a typo - is there an official bug reporting process? I’ve only ever bought from Choice of Games on steam before, this is my first purchase through the website.
Sounds good, I actually found one more possible typo (unless a back satchel is a thing I don’t know about, I think they meant black) and then a spot where it looks like they were trying to pick between two different ways to say something and ended up with a combination of the two that isn’t proper English. I find myself doing it all the danged time, so I proofread all my stuff for it.
Blades in the Dark (BitD) is a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) like Dungeons & Dragons, with a different system of playing. The setting is a sort of blend between Dishonored and Thief with a light sprinkling of ghosts and the paranormal.
I have very limited knowledge of copyright law and the associated terminology, so I don’t want to accidentally say anything untrue. Everything related to licensing of BitD can be found here.
@crystalis thank you for the feedback! You did a great job providing exactly the issues and where they occured. I am in contact with Choice of Games about fixing those typos.
@EcclecticEgg@AletheiaKnights I did work hard to try to properly attribute this as Forged in the Dark. It is in the credits.
Hey, glad to help. I used to catch little issues like this in old print paperbacks ages ago, and then I could only notice them and not do anything about it. In this new digital age, it is cool in that we can provide feedback and help polish the product for everyone else’s enjoyment. I’ve also done game beta testing before, so I’m pretty good at making notes of where the bug is in addition to what the bug is. Makes it easier on the programmers to go back and fix things if they have an idea where to look.
I bought the game on Thursday when it came out, but haven’t had a chance to play it yet, so I assume there’s another credits page within the game itself? The place where I usually go to look at credits doesn’t have anything about it at all.
(Btw, I wasn’t trying to catch you out on anything by asking about licensed properties and such - just trying to learn more about something unfamiliar to me in the description of a game I’m excited to play when I get a chance.)
Yes, attribution is there in the Show Stats page after you finish the prologue. Also, because it’s a fairly involved system, at the request of the beta testers, the Show Stats page also has a full explanation of how the Blades in the Dark rules work in this story. So it’s an introduction to the larger world if you’re interested.
I am more interested in adventure type of games and this game has adventure in abundance. In addition I am a great fan of fantasy novels and this game is based on one which picked up my interest.
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