Shadow of the Curse-Eater Developer Diary

Choice of Games games CoG Works In Progress
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Curse-eaters are drawn to dark magic like sphinxes to secrets—but the moment you arrive on Ushinega Island, something tells you that you may have bitten off more than you can chew. Once a verdant island paradise, you find the island wilting and rotten, its people suffocating in the grip of a poignant and pervasive malediction the likes of which you’ve never before encountered.

Will you unravel the island’s secrets and break the curse? Risk your life in an attempt to consume the curse whole? Or find a way to escape the quarantined island and save yourself?

  • Play as a male, female, or nonbinary curse-eater
  • Explore a magical and mysterious island full of strange creatures and dark secrets
  • Use your unique powers as a curse-eater for healing or destruction
  • Get to know a diverse cast of human and nonhuman characters, seven of which are romanceable—including a fairy, faun, fox spirit, and more
  • Discover the source of the curse and determine the fate of Ushinega and its people

ACCESS THE PRE-BETA DEMO HERE:

http://www.choiceofgames.com/beta/shadow-of-the-curse-eater/

Login: beta
Password: curseinprogress

Note: We are not at the beta stage yet, and these credentials will not provide access to the official beta once we do get there. The CoG staff have kindly agreed to host the game for me in the meantime, as opposed to me uploading it to dashingdon, hence the need to log in. This is an option only available for official CoG games, which SotCE just so happens to be.

Any and all constructive feedback will be very much appreciated! Anything you have to say that will help improve the quality of the game is welcome. I’m particularly interested in:

  • Moments that feel unintentionally confusing/frustrating
  • Tests that feel unclear or unfair
  • Character moments that feel out of character or rushed
  • Any questions you have along the way
  • Your favorite parts and characters!

Please note that the current in-game stats page is a rough first draft; I plan to give it a makeover in the future, but suggestions for what to change/include are welcome in the meantime.

Release Date: TBD

About the Author: Hi! I’m Kim Berkley, and (you guessed it) I’m a writer. Shadow of the Curse-Eater is my first official CoG game, though I’ve written other IF novels before, including The Harbinger’s Head (a Hosted Game) and chiaroscuro (a Twine novella). I love books and video games in equal measure; I’m a big fan of The Lord of the Rings, Neil Gaiman, Alice Hoffman, BioWare romances, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the Silent Hill series. I’m also quite fond of felines.

You can find out more about me and my other works on my website, or follow me on Instagram for lots of pictures of books, nature, and video game screenshots. And yes, sometimes cats.

UPDATES:

6/6/24: Still working on revisions! Going forward I’m planning to attempt to update this thread monthly for as long as I’m actively working on this project. More minor updates and lengthier explanations will be posted in the comments below; only major milestones will be added to this list, to keep it from running too long.

4/4/24: Been working on revising earlier chapters and rebuilding my lorebook for the game. Note to self (and anyone else who, like me, is a hardcore planner): never ever skimp on the research/outlining phase if you know for a fact that this is a vital step in your writing process! Lesson 1000% learned.

1/9/24: SotCE is now available to wishlist on Steam!

8/7/23: Hello, world! Chapters 1-3 are now live.

FAQ

Is this a standalone story?

Currently, yes. Shadow of the Curse-Eater is not connected to any of my previous works, though it’s possible that I will return to the world of SotCE in the future. That being said, I may have snuck an easter egg or two in for those who read my other stuff. :wink:

How long is Shadow of the Curse-Eater?

The word count is sitting at a little over 100,000 for the first 6 of 10 total planned chapters.

What is a curse-eater?

You’ll find out more about this in the game, but a curse-eater is a human who can consume the dark magic of a curse as a way to free someone from a malediction. However, the curse-eater can only safely store a certain amount of dark magic in their body at any given time; they must purge their magic occasionally to avoid the permanent, potentially fatal consequences of taking on too much malediction for too long.

Which characters are romanceable?

Most of the main characters are potentially woo-able, to various degrees. If you really want to know, here’s the full roster of romances: Governor Tokara (female silen), Cary Eisport (male human), Ari Wiest (nonbinary fox spirit), Captain Aghany (nonbinary fairy), Malecail Knowe (male werecat), Yarrow Gida (male faun), and Alba Minevra (female harpy).

Can I romance multiple characters?

While you can initiate and pursue multiple romances throughout the course of the game, towards the end you will have to choose one (or none) of your partners to end your story with—provided, of course, you are both still alive at that point.

You can pursue any of the romanceable characters regardless of your chosen sex/gender/physical attributes. Not pursuing a romance right away will not lock you out of initiating it at a later opportunity. You are also free to break off romantic engagements at certain points if you so choose.

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Ooh, how exciting! I look forward to diving in - it’s been a while since I played The Harbinger’s Head but I enjoyed it back then!

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Sounds like the mechanics of a certain Maverick Virus to me… good thing someone is doing a fantasy approach to this! This sounds interesting!

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Just my observations so far, so you don’t have to take these to heart.

It’d be nice to be able to show concern for both the island wilting and the effect the curse is having on the residents. Whether or not some of the people are guilty of whatever it was, not all of them will have played a part, and I feel that should be acknowledged rather than left at the rather black and white “people are involved.”

Governor Tokara seems to both underestimate and overestimate how much is known about the curse on first meeting. She assumes it is known about on the mainland and that’s what drew you to the island, but at the same time speaks as if you can’t possibly know anything. It’s a bit confusing tonally, does she expect you to know, or to not know?

When Tokara and Aghany start to argue, it would be nice to have a more conciliatory response option. Steely seems to only fit with certain personality options, and isn’t necessarily the only middle option that should be there. Adding a bit of an insult to the end of the request for the facts sets my teeth wrong.

I think it would be a good idea to have a more thoughtful option when it comes to Cary’s daughter. Two choices perhaps, along the lines of “I don’t know enough about the curse yet, I decline” and “I don’t know enough about the curse yet to even consider fully curing someone, but I can ease the girl’s pain.” And perhaps a third of “I don’t know enough about the curse yet, but she might die. I fully consume the curse.”

When camping out and considering the curse, you only consider the ship or the village, but when you cure the little girl (if you do) you mention that the curse feels old. Maybe it should also be considered that the curse was pre-existing and something triggered it, rather than just starting recently. It doesn’t matter if that supposition turns out to be right or wrong, but it feels like it should be there.

The morning after camping out, you mention a “sensitivity to malediction.” Could this maybe be used before, as part of your reasoning for camping outside of the village in the first place?

At the greenhouse it would be nice to be able to ask Ari more than one question. Also, the greenhouse is referred to as the infirmary when you leave. Later on that same page, you go into the infirmary.

If playing a more canny or cautious character, I would like the opportunity to ask about the temple, if Ari knows anything about it. Similarly, when it comes to the choice to pray, I think it may be a good idea to have an option to look around and try to determine which/what kind of god was once worshipped there before attempting to pray to it.

At the incident after the publican’s son dies, it would probably be better to note that you were at the infirmary rather than to make “a heartfelt speech.” People that angry don’t want to hear about your views, they want to know that you are actually doing something to help them. (If the kid was that bad off, why wasn’t he at the infirmary anyway?)

At the tree…are there two curses? It’s unclear if the tree being cursed has anything to do with the island being cursed. And if the curse on the tree is years old, why didn’t it affect the ship’s crew while it was in transport? It doesn’t add up (if that’s on purpose for later in the story, please ignore this complaint.)

There’s a missing word when you commune with the tree. You have “A quiet murmur your attention back to the crowd.”

When talking to Ari their reaction assumes the only proposed solution to the tree problem is that you attacked it. I did not chose to attack the tree. It was a little jarring to see “when you tell Ari about destroying the tree” when the tree was destroyed in spite of the choice I made, which was to leave it alone (until I could learn more about it.)

The choice after asking for Ari’s thoughts continues to assume that you decided to destroy the tree, even when you didn’t.

I understand that there’s only so much story to be told, but the choice between romance (with Mal), only friendship or only acquaintanceship seems to be rather harsh. You’ve spoken to this person twice, so while I agree it’s too early for romance or any sort of real friendship, acknowledging him as an acquaintance seems to shut down both paths pretty hard. It’s too hard, I think. A softer text than “best to not get attached” might play better.

The next morning, the text is still assuming that you destroyed the tree.

Nowhere in the game as written is the option or even a whiff of the possibility of investigating the history of the island or the temple, nor is there any mention of being able to investigate where that tree is from or why the governor imported it and if she knows anything about it. It feels as if the character is doing a really shallow job of investigating the curse. Many questions that should be asked are not being asked or even addressed in passing, and many opportunities to speak to the townspeople about the island are not even being acknowledged. Particularly when you are in the infirmary, you could speak to the elderly patients about any stories of the island they have and you don’t. This feels like a missed narrative opportunity. The same goes for the children, asking them for their boogeyman stories, particularly the ones they’ve come up with for themselves (i.e. not been told by adults but possibly by older siblings) could be another good narrative opportunity. How far back the island had been settled and how far back the temple had been abandoned could have bearing on the curse. I don’t know where you’re going with this story next, but right now it looks like we’re kind of bad at our job.

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This is excellent feedback. Thank you for sharing so much detail about what felt off to you and why; it’s going to help a ton when I dig into the next round of revisions on these chapters. Thanks especially for catching that issue with the game thinking you’ve attacked the tree even when you didn’t—that will absolutely be on my list of top-priority fixes to address!

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Oh, lovely! I’m so glad you enjoyed my first game. I hope you have an even better time with this one. :smiley:

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I had to look this one up, but from what I read, I can see why you think so. XD I hope you enjoy my take on the concept.

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I love a good story, and write for fun myself. I know that the earlier your get constructive criticism, the better your chances of ending up with something you’re happy with!

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Updated the main post with a few updates (some a bit retroactive :sweat_smile: ) just to reassure you all that neither I nor this project are dead in the water. Been working quietly behind the scenes while recovering from the severe burnout that hit me towards the end of last year. Progress is slow but steady; I look forward to sharing more substantial updates as soon as I can!

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Lovely to hear, thank you for sharing! I hope the burnout recovery goes well - I know how hard it can be to go through. Best of luck with this!

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Thanks so much! It’s going about as well as I think it can, considering how severe I let it get before I realized what was happening. Lessons definitely learned!

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UPDATE 6/6/24

New update added to the main post; I’d like to share a bit more here.

I’m still working through burnout recovery, but I’m (slowly) getting better. It’s true what they say; it’s much easier to prevent it than heal from it, but I’m doing the work and doing my best to be patient. It’s hard to feel so disconnected from myself and my writing (and even harder due to some life circumstances I’ve been dealing with lately), but I’m building my writing muscles back up little by little. That being said, recovery continues, and I’m open to any resource recommendations (books, movies, podcasts, etc.) anyone here would be willing to share! :sparkles:

This week might be my first full week back at writing; it would be nice to get a real streak going. (Fingers crossed!) As mentioned above, I’m still working through revisions—recreating the lorebook from scratch took a lot of time and effort, but I’m so much happier now that I have a solid foundation in place for this world and these characters. Fellow planners, learn from my mistakes: never skimp on the outlining/research stage.

Revisions lately have focused mostly on adding more dialogue and fleshing the world out more with a lot of lovely little details, courtesy of that brand-spanking-new lorebook I mentioned. For a story that’s so thoroughly entwined with my love of nature, it’s been especially rewarding to organize (and constantly add to) this world’s bestiary and botanical compendium. :herb:

I’m also keeping in mind the feedback I’ve received so far; thank you again to everyone who has helped in that regard, both here and in private communication.

Finally, as I mentioned above, my current plan is to try doing monthly updates here in the comments, both to keep you all in the loop and to help me get better at recognizing the progress I’m making, instead of only focusing on what I haven’t done yet (something I’m realizing was probably a major contributor to my burning out in the first place). Wish me luck; it would be so nice to finally, properly, get back into a regular rhythm of writing.

As always, thanks for reading! :green_heart:

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:palm_tree: UPDATE 7/10/24 :palm_tree:

Revisions continue, but at an improved pace (at last!). It feels really good to no longer feel like I’m turning inside out every time I sit down to try and write. Progress! :+1:

A lot of the revisions I’ve been focusing on deal with either worldbuilding (adding lots of delicious details, especially regarding the island’s flora/fauna) or additional dialogue to further flesh out characters and certain plot points. Ari and Mal have especially benefited from this treatment so far, as have a few minor characters—some of whom weren’t named or didn’t even exist until this round of edits.

One thing that’s proved particularly helpful for getting back to my old writing self is keeping a writing diary. This is separate from the personal diaries I’ve kept off an on throughout my life. Something about jotting down a few notes about what I wrote and how it felt seems to be helping my brain recognize that yes, we do still love this weird practice of making stuff up for a living, and yes, I do feel better after—even when I feel resistance when I first sit down in the chair.

I’m hoping to have a demo update for y’all sometime this quarter; fingers crossed! :crossed_fingers:

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:palm_tree: UPDATE 7/29/24 :palm_tree:

Still working on early-chapter revisions; still making fairly steady progress, for the most part. I will, however, take this opportunity to remind myself and others that recovery is never a straight or simple road. There will be good days (and weeks) and bad ones. I had a bad week not long after my last post, but following that, I had some pretty good ones. The scales are finally tipping back in the positive direction, and I am so grateful for it.

One thing I’m still working on that will help me keep up a steady pace is actually taking a moment to celebrate milestones, and not just plowing ahead (or using them as excuses to take breaks that devolve into pure procrastination). The act of writing will (hopefully) never be done for me, so it’s vital that I take time to acknowledge progress along the way—enjoy the journey, so to speak, rather than focus solely on the destination.

I’m also getting better at pushing through writing resistance—and wearing it down over time.

See y’all in the next update; cheers!

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That’s very heartening to hear and I am impressed about your recovery so far. It is always hard to get back into writing after any kind of health obstacle and I’m genuinely happy to hear you’re getting better.
Even if it’s a process; after all, writing is a continuous process too! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
Thanks for sharing your progress. It’s such an uplifting and positive thing to read.
Best of luck with your writing!

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Thank you so much! I’m glad you’ve been finding these updates helpful; they’ve certainly been helping me. You’re absolutely right; writing itself is the ultimate WIP. :writing_hand:

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:palm_tree: UPDATE 8/30/24 :palm_tree:

Just realized that my last two update posts had the wrong year on them, so, uh… that’s fixed now. :sweat_smile:

Other than that, not much news to report. Demo chapter revisions are getting there, but not quite finished—progress was slower again this month due to a combination of getting sick (thankfully not covid, but it still sucked) and some very long (paid) workdays… followed by necessary recovery days, because I can only handle so much computer time at once. :dizzy_face:

One major thing I’ve tweaked recently relates to the romances—I’ve had a bad habit, throughout this project, of comparing myself and this game to far bigger projects (with far more people working on them), a la Mass Effect and Dragon Age (who else here is counting down to Veilguard???). But these comparisons aren’t just depressing; they’re completely unrealistic.

I am one person, and despite being my most complex project to date, SotCE is still a much smaller game than some giant, AAA RPG. Crucially, the plot timeline is also much smaller, taking place over the course of only a handful of days, versus months or even years. And of course, this isn’t a Heart’s Choice title—so while I do consider character relationships, romantic or not, to be a vital part of any story, they are certainly not the main focus of this one.

So I’m working hard to let go of my delusions and ensure that the romances not only feel right for the characters, but also for the larger context of the plot and player experience. So far, this has mostly meant softening the language on certain choices (simply choosing not to pursue romantic involvement right away, for example, versus immediately shutting down any possibility of it). This will also mean that you won’t really be locked out of one relationship versus another, as you won’t really be explicitly committing to any relationships until pretty late (possibly the end) of the story—and even then, whatever happens afterward will, as always, be left up to your imagination, dear readers.

Here’s hoping for more to share in the next update. Until then, thanks—as always—for reading!

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Another friendly reminder, to myself and to anyone else who may need to hear it, that healing takes time and the road of recovery (recovery is a journey, not a destination) is often a strange and winding one, sometimes with lots of unexpected detours or backtracks.

I’ve been working on SotCE pretty consistently until quite recently. Today was a special day in that I’d planned to spend the entire day gently working though more revisions and just spending some quality time with my story. I don’t often get the luxury, between work obligations and needing to limit screen time to manage my migraines and other health issues.

Instead, I had an anxiety attack (something that hasn’t happened to me in quite some time) and have spent most of these precious hours slowly crawling back into my own heart and mind. I feel ashamed and guilty about it, and I grieve these and so many other hours that I feel I’ve lost along the way. I’m keenly aware of my limited time on this earth, and I am terrified of wasting it.

But here’s the thing. Worrying about what happened, beating myself up about it, hating myself and my anxieties and my burnout most of all—these things are even bigger time sucks. They don’t make me a better writer or a better person. They just sap more of my time and energy and make it that much harder to find my way back to my words and my muse.

So instead, I am going to let today go. I am going to let myself rest and do whatever I need to do to recover. And I’ll “leave tomorrow till it comes,” as a favorite song of mine goes.

Wishing you all the best, as always. May today be kind to you—and if it’s not, I hope you are extra kind to yourselves. :green_heart:

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:palm_tree: UPDATE 9/30/24 :palm_tree:

Not much to report this update, unfortunately. Progress has slowed to a crawl again; I’m clawing my way back, slowly, to equilibrium, but if there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that such things take time. I recently starting therapy again in the hopes that it will help me work through some of the things that have been distancing me so painfully from my creativity and my self.

Thank you all for your patience; I hope fall is treating you kindly. Here’s hoping I’ll have more to share in the next update. Until then, take care. :four_leaf_clover:

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Take care of yourself. I’ve been through burnout, both relating to general life and creativity, and it’s a rough road that isn’t a straight line. It can be so hard to be kind to ourselves when the brain just isn’t cooperating.

So, just to say that you’re not alone, and it’ll be lovely to see the fruits of your labour in time but that that isn’t the only worthwhile thing - recovery has to be the priority.

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