Saturnine—The Solar System needs an old android’s help

Announcements
1

Originally published at: Saturnine—The Solar System needs an old android’s help. - Choice of Games LLC

Hosted Games has a new game for you to play!

You are an android. Almost a thousand years of age, you’ve seen more wars and fought more battles than any human ever could. Your experience will soon be called upon, as you battle an ancient monster and fight to preserve the Solar System…or whatever else you hold dear.

Saturnine is 33% off until August 14th!

Saturnine is an interactive novel by Jon Matthieu where your choices control the story. It’s almost entirely text-based, with 700,000 words and hundreds of choices, fueled by the vast power of your imagination.

It is the year 990 AC. Earth is dead, forever claimed by the Calamity. Stars are unreachable, forever denied to human ambition. Only in the vastness of the Solar System humanity still survives, spiting the sentient machines that once tried to destroy it. Artificial Intelligence, a tool once used to shape space itself to human liking, is now an object of fear and a target of ceaseless hunts on every moon of every planet. You are a dying breed, though you’re determined to survive all the same.

You’ve spent almost a thousand years on the run, an android among humans, a machine among creatures of flesh. You’ve recently found a safe haven, perhaps even a family, on a nigh-forgotten Saturnian station. During a heist launched on behalf of your group, you encounter a group of meta-humans who pose great danger to you and your friends…but also present a unique opportunity.

  • Play as male, female, or nonbinary—or abandon silly human notions of sex and gender.
  • Travel around Saturn and its various moons, in a setting where every location is based on an existing astronomical object.
  • Fight superhuman foes with your advanced weaponry, powerful fists, silver tongue, or the lightning dancing between your fingers.
  • Romance one of your robotic friends—or perhaps one of your quasi-human pursuers.
  • Determine your place, goals, and values in the bizarre world 1207 years into our future.
  • Reconcile with humanity and forgive past wrongs…or embrace your hatred as part of you.

Just what kind of android will you be?

Jon 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.

49 Likes
2

:musical_note: With malice eternal the Sun smiles at me….:musical_note:

6 Likes
3

Loved this. I have read this WIP since it was still in production. Can’t believe it’s finally here now.

4 Likes
4

Being Trans, and reading “You’re still a man”, really cut me deep..

1 Like
5 
Congratulations to publishing your book, dear author. I bought it now and I’m so happy about it, hoorray 🎊🎉
2 Likes
6

Congratulations, @Omeg :tada::tada:

2 Likes
7

Congrats! I bought this game immediately. Can’t wait to see the ending(s).

1 Like
8

The last time I felt this strongly about a HG author’s debut, it was Blood Moon, by Barbara Truelove, whose traditionally published novel, Of Monsters and Mainframes, was published in May to widespread acclaim and an unusual degree of mainstream success for a quirky indie title. I was only a few paragraphs into Blood Moon before I knew I was looking at something truly special.

I don’t know what Jon Matthieu’s literary ambitions look like, but I was only a couple pages into Saturnine before I started practicing saying, in the most blasé tone I could muster, “Matthieu? Feh, I was reading him before he was cool,” while sipping gluten-free craft beer out of a mason jar.

There are some authors who just seem to understand on a cellular level what interactive fiction is, what it can do, what kind of story it’s suited for better than any other medium. Saturnine would have been an excellent novel, but as IF, it is nothing short of a masterpiece. Saturnine is a story about choices, about responsibility, about consequences, about what it means to have the kind of free will that makes all of those things meaningfully possible. It has uncomfortable things to say about abuse, the insidious kind where gaslight flickers over shades of gray and maybe it really isn’t all that bad. It’s the kind of story where people discuss big ideas like politics and religion, and you’re forced to really think about what they’re saying because there is no obvious authorial mouthpiece who is always on the side of the angels. And it’s also a richly entertaining work of science fiction, a triumph of research and imagination working in harmony. There’s a little of everything here: exciting action sequences, mysteries, quests, humor, dastardly villains, redemption arcs, noble sacrifice, sex, romance, friendship, a chance to save the world, a chance to destroy it. Matthieu’s mastery of tone is flawless. Comic relief is hard to do well, but Matthieu managed to make me laugh out loud in genuine delight in the middle of a truly painful scene, without taking away at all from the scene’s oppressive weight. He paints his canvas in broad strokes of bleak, then fills in just enough redemptive detail of joy and love and beauty and hope that you find you don’t want to look away.

I was up this morning checking the Hosted Games app and Steam on repeat every few minutes because I was so eager to buy this game. I’m probably not even going to play it right away - it’s been only a few months since I last read it. I was just that eager to be first in line to show my support for this brilliant author and add his game to my collection.

I urge you to do the same. Buy Saturnine this week, while it’s on sale, and for only $6 USD you’ll get an amazing work of science fiction with exhaustive replay value, and you’ll get to brag about how you were a fan before it was cool.

34 Likes
9

I knew I wasn’t seeing things. :laughing:

The game also includes instances of random chance determining some outcome or background element that is beyond your character’s control. Though rare, these elements will make every playthrough slightly different, even should the exact same choices be made.

One earliest example would be the gender selection scene at the start of the game. Not really a spoiler, but thought I’d mention it since some people may be taken aback by being referred to as female in the past when trying to create a male character (or vice versa). You’re an android!

Also, the amount of choices in this game is just chefs kiss.

5 Likes
10

I enjoyed your game, but most importantly, but I just want to say I appreciated your kind words about Eiwynn in the credits at the end.

8 Likes
12

Congratulations @Omeg!

2 Likes
13

There are nine of those. Or maybe eight. Depends on how you count.

Probably the right call. I expect we’ll do a bug-fix update this month, so while there’s no reason not to buy the game right away, you might get a better experience if you hold off playing it.

I was going to ask what scene was that, but then I remembered a certain line I gave Hadaly, so I think I know what you’re referring to.

Had to do it. It wouldn’t have been right otherwise.

It’s hardly hard sci-fi. Most of the technologies in my world are pure bollocks with no basis in actual science, I’m just vaguely aware that distance and time are things that exist.

11 Likes
14

I had to google “integer overflow,” if that answers your question.

6 Likes
15

Reading that was pretty unexpected while doing her romance to say the least lol.

(If we flirt when we first meet her (chronologically) does that part change/disappear? Do the organics join the team before or after us? (I can’t remember.))

16

bit of a nsfw question. When the MC goes to “sleep”, the choice for changing your character’s body makes it pretty explicit what is (or, importantly, what isn’t) in the MC’s pants. Which makes me think that detail might be relevant later. So I’m wondering firstly if that is the case, and second, if it is, is there any opportunity to, mix and match so to speak.
Cause like, I’m not super comfortable with the idea of having to have a fully male body to get the associated bits. Like if its limited to that moment, that’s still not great, but its somewhat ignorable vs if there are like, explicit moments down the road, thats definitely an issue.

17

If you do a romance then there’s optional horniness for all of them AFAIK.
EDIT: Also the androgynous body removes all sexual characteristics and organs so there’s no mix and match option.

18

I guess that answers the first half of my question

19

@shadowfire101 I’ve answered all of that question on my tumblr already. I’m guessing you didn’t see that reply.

20

Oh I havent looked at your Tumblr sorry, I just came across the game from the release announcement

21

When I played this during the beta I got rejected by two women, failed my main objective, and got one of my teammates [REDACTED]. 10/10 highly recommended.

7 Likes