"Social Services of the Doomed" — They have magic and fangs. You have red tape!

We’re proud to announce that Social Services of the Doomed, the latest in our popular “Choice of Games” line of multiple-choice interactive-fiction games, is now available for Steam, Android, and on iOS in the “Choice of Games” app. It’s 25% off until June 30th!

They have magic and fangs. You have red tape! In this epic conflict between fantasy and bureaucracy, will you save your city, or sell your soul?

Social Services of the Doomed is a 400,000-word interactive urban fantasy novel by Fade Manley. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

As an employee of the Department of Supernatural Social Services, it’s your job to mediate when a dispute breaks out between vampires and werewolves. Which is pretty often, these days. Tensions are rising in your city: not all supernatural citizens think that they have to abide by the law. Flocks of harpies are crowing prophecies of doom; wizards are slinging fireballs; trolls aren’t just having peaceful chats about tunneling technology anymore; there are demons in the werewolf dive bar; and something is up with the ley lines. Sometimes it feels like you’re the only one standing between the supernatural factions and a city in flames.

On the other hand, some factions are willing to cut a deal on the side, so if you really want the city to be in flames - and if you feel like that civil-servant paycheck isn’t stretching as far as you’d like - you could make that happen. Every faction knows that you could be useful to them.

How will you handle it? Will you sneak, fight, negotiate, confuse, or just whip out some obscure county regulations? There’s always more paperwork to be done, and if you fall too far behind, your boss might call you in for a chat about your monthly metrics. (Also, your boss might be a constellation. Don’t ask.)

• Make your way through the city as a demon, troll, wizard, or completely mundane human.
• Play as male, female, or non-binary; gay, straight, bi, or asexual.
• Advance your career, sink your rival’s career, or try to play nice with all your coworkers at once.
• Romance a troll, a demon, a werewolf, a vampire, or your office rival. (Who’s a snake person.)
• Chase demons out of the cubicle farm before everyone gets back from lunch.
• Thwart the dastardly plans of Hell’s minions, or sell your soul to them…or just flirt with a cute demon.

Demons and trolls, vampires and werewolves, wizards and harpies…and you’re standing in the middle with the most fearsome thing of all: paperwork.

We hope you enjoy playing Social Services of the Doomed. We encourage you to tell your friends about it, and recommend the game on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other sites. Don’t forget: our initial download rate determines our ranking on the App Store. The more times you download in the first week, the better our games will rank.

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Yesss… Got it.

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I’m so excited for everyone to get to play this game. It’s just so much fun. It’s grounded in quirky worldbuilding, brimming with colorful wit, and populated by characters who feel like familiar tropes until their hidden depths begin to shine through.

Replay value is excellent. Several chapters include considerable branching, and although you’ll get a complete and enjoyable story the first time you play, there are more pieces of the puzzle to uncover in future playthroughs.

If you’re a fan of Choice of the Deathless, you’ll definitely want to try this - you’re a civil servant instead of a lawyer and the tone is hilarious instead of broodingly mystical, but the uncanny delight of a mundane world run through with richly imagined fantasy (or is it an incursion of the mundane into a fantasy world?) is very much the same.

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I agree. Playing through I brushed up against so many plotlines I simply didn’t have the time to investigate! I’ll definitely be playing through again to try to get to the bottom of it all.

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I love any game that lets me play a bureaucrat demon

Also one of the name options for my pet fish is Bruce? I love the jaws reference

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I bought the game but I’m stressing over what to name my character. I forgot what I called him in my beta play through.

Screw it. I’m making a whole new character: Palak Cross

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I am having so much fun. I love bureaucracy and little nifty laws and regulations and questions like “should the safety zone of wind generators be measured from the highest point of the rotor or top of the tower” and “do contracts regarding the selling of one’s soul include an NDA portion”. This fulfils all of my fantasies. On top of that, there are so many plot lines to follow! I’ve probably done like at least four complete runs and I definitely haven’t found all of the secrets yet!

Basically, heartily recommended for both those who love bureaucracy and also for those who love solving bureaucracy by bashing skulls.

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Wait I feel so confused, I think my playthrough ended with no resolution on the ley lines and just ended after choosing a romance, but I don’t think there was a follow up on the romance?

Can someone explain if that’s meant to happen? I don’t really get if it’s a bug or intended.

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Can you go into a little more detail?

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Any achievement guide yet?

That’s going to take a while

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Yeah same here. I wonder if there are plans for a 2nd book.

Are there any particular Achievements you’re trying to get? I might be able to help with some of them.

I’ve done two playthrough of this and i’ve only unlocked 12/73 with 39 hidden ones left, this naturally induced despair within me so it would be really nice to know what missed and hidden achievements there are and how to get it

I enjoyed it! I specced heavily into bureaucrat and cited tons of regulations, got promoted, left the city basically in ruins, and ended up dating the equally stodgy vampire. So basically I did nothing of worth, got rewarded personally and professionally for my lack of effectiveness, and rode off into sunset with no repercussions.

10/10 reflects my experiences with city government exactly.

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Two playthroughs? You’ve barely scratched the surface of this game. At this point, my recommendation to you is to keep exploring as much of the story as you can. Play as every different species. There are five characters you can romance or befriend, and a couple more you can befriend (but not romance). There’s considerable branching in many chapters, with at least two and as many as five distinct versions of some major scenes. Play as a stuffy bureaucrat. Play as the kind of person who excels at solving problems with words. Play as the kind of person who would rather solve problems with fists. Be a workaholic. Be a slacker. Be a person with good work/life balance. Play favorites. Be scrupulosly fair.

You can see the names of all the Achievements on Steam, and you can find (somewhat enigmatic) descriptions of the hidden achievements by bringing up the code and looking at the startup page.

In hindsight i should probably try playing more then huh, ah well thanks for the help though i do want to ask about how do you get the achievements related to angels? Do you need to die for it?

Nope! Just explore the DSSS archives for information about ley lines in Chapter 5, and don’t accept the invitation to Hell in Chapter 10.

Ah see i would never think of that of my own, thanks fam

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This game has one of the best character creation processes I’ve seen. The set up is short and to the point: a turf war between vampires and werewolves and you, as a neutral party are sent to mediate it. Just enough info for me to understand what’s going on but not so much lore that the story is weighed down.

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