Explore the planet of nightmares with your small team of warriors. Retrieve a powerful artifact from the claws of adversaries or die trying. Meet an enigmatic race of insectoid beings and befriend their hybrid queen, helping her bring peace to a captured hatchery. Get assisted by a powerful Pleiadian woman who mingles with the structure of time itself. Claim the artifact and embrace the options it gives you to forge a future of your desire.
“Spacing Out” is a 50,000 word interactive fantasy novel by Ivailo Daskalov, 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.
• Enjoy a personal tale of exploration, intense battles and reestablishing yourself in a world of your choice.
• Lead a small team of futuristic warriors.
• Evolve your expertise at sniping, close-range combat, melee combat, healing and forcefield generation.
• Get saved by a beautiful Pleiadian woman.
• Meet the enigmatic race of the insectoids and befriend their queen.
• Claim a powerful artifact and decide what to do with it.
• Play as male or female, gay or straight.
• Choose between 3 optional romances.
"You wake up and extend your muscles. They still hurt after the extensive training. Your bed is ergonomic and you really appreciate being able to have an afternoon nap after almost dying from over-training earlier today.
You get up and try to ignore the pain here and there, confident that your coach knows what he is doing and you will be alright after you have a few rehab drinks and mineral pills.
The clock reminds you that it is late afternoon. Or kind of. You are on a space ship, so everything related to time is conditional. It is just that the psychologist insists that you keep as close to the schedule you are used to as possible to avoid unnecessary stress.
Several objects attract your attention. Where do you look?
You wake up and extend your muscles. They still hurt after the extensive training. Your bed is ergonomic and you really appreciate being able to have an afternoon nap after almost dying from over-training earlier today.
You get up and try to ignore the pain here and there, confident that your coach knows what he is doing and you will be alright after you have a few rehab drinks and mineral pills.
The clock reminds you that it is late afternoon. Or kind of. You are on a space ship, so everything related to time is conditional. It is just that the psychologist insists that you keep as close to the schedule you are used to as possible to avoid unnecessary stress.
Several objects attract your attention. Where do you look?"
When I first read the title I thought that we were gonna be stranded on an abandoned planet by ourselves (damn The Martian for being such a good movie) but Im glad I was wrong, this seems awesome.
"You wake up and extend your muscles. " would probably be better as "You wake up and stretch. " and then start with “You still” instead of “They still”
I realize “extend your muscles” sounds clumsy. I am not a native English speaker and there are places where this shows. But, I’d like to stress on the muscle strain (not an injury, for example). And, there will be too many “you”/“your” in little space and I was trying to avoid that.
Anyway, I will consider it and thank you for your comment.
So far, I quite enjoy it. The battle suits and the roles they play give a mixture of the Spartans from Halo and a classic RPG party. I hope as you go along you can choose your own speciality, I get you’re the captain but it adds to our character and the way we like to play. Valk is the healer, Meat is the tank, Invo is sort of a long range rogue, so there’s many we can take on such as a buffer, Saboteur or critical hitter.
One thing I have an issue is that Invo, Valk and Astra are made to be perfectly beautiful. Of course if they’re romantic interests they need to be attractive but impossibly so. Attractive but no so much like a goddess, make them feel more human and I’m getting the feeling Astra is extraterrestrial so could we have some indication she is so? I got confused about what she was when she started mentioning her abilities. Also I’m guessing Meat is a romantic interest too? If so make him seem appealing also, right now I’m getting the impression he’s just an oversized, temperamental grunt, a big flaw with many choice games is they put all the effort into making female RIs beautiful but forget to give male RIs the same treatment.
Some errors I’ve spotted:
When talking to your commander one of the choice options is ‘I’m all years, Colonel’ this should be ears instead of years.
This sentence:
‘You believe that it is best for he meeting is ready so that everyone is able to prepare on their own.’
I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, it’s like two sentences got mashed together.
Your first choice at the beginning so duplicated.
Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing this develop, I’m very interested in the story so far and the alien like nature of the planet and technologies. If you need anyone to do multiple re-runs to spot errors and polish up typos and grammar, I’m all for it!
"You wake up and stretch, muscles still aching after the extensive training. Your bed is ergonomic and you really appreciate being able to have an afternoon nap after almost dying from over-training earlier today. "
@LordOfLA: I like that and I actually made the change (it will appear when I update next).
@Nathan_Faxon: I never played Halo, but I’ve played the World of Warcraft a lot and I am trying to build on that experience. The MC chooses their role via the equipment they install in their battle gear.
About the teammates being impossibly beautiful, I do believe that an extensive physical training is bound to do that to your body.
When I started writing, I made an Internet research on ET contacts (because, you know, this is the scientific method even when writing science fiction) and I came upon an ET race of humans and I really wanted to base a character on what I found on the net. If you Google Pleiadians, or Tall White Aliens you may find info about them. Actually, they are not supposed to be all tall or even white.
Actually, this reminds me that I may have to change the skin colour of either Valkyrie or Astra to avoid racist issues.
I think I should make it clear that I really don’t know if they exist, but I am working over a piece of fiction, so it doesn’t really matter.
Writing about male RIs is a bit of a challenge for me because of my heterosexuality, so it is something I need to put more effort into. As a tank, Meatwall will have plenty of opportunities to make a better impression, once he recovers.
I plan Valkyrie and Meatwall to be your RIs but things may change. I certainly believe more than two romantic options are too much because they can hardly develop as real bonds and not just one-night adventures.
Halo you play as a super soldier clad in power armour, similar to your characters. I get it that you don’t know how to Meat seem more attractive, but there will be somebody who might throw out suggestions on how to achieve it hopefully.
Do not worry about race issues, I’ve played many choice games with an all white cast and never felt like it was racist, I actually thought Meat was a different culture due to his dark skin.
Fair enough on the pleiadians, I just mistakenly her for human at first. And that’s the beauty on not knowing if they exist or not, you can shape them into what you want, for all we know their species may all be linked to a hive mind due to their telepathy abilities, that might be a good idea to add towards it if you like.
If I may suggest, replacing the laser knife into a sword and if you combine that with the force field generator you can make your captain resemble a knight, I think that would be pretty badass
Meatwall was inspired by the great fighters from Samoa: Mark Hunt; the Rock; Rikishi.
The hive mind idea is definitely one that needs exploration, but it is reserved for an insectoid race which also lives on the planet.
The idea of actual human beings from another planet was a bit hard to comprehend at first. For some reason, the media is full of information about greys and reptilians.
Replacing the knife with a sword is an idea worth considering, but I still see it as something attached to the battle armour.
Innovation. She is named after probably the most accomplished Starcraft 2 player recently :).
I really don’t know, guys. There is so much to happen. One of the reasons to post here is to hear what you like, so thanks for all the support and suggestions
I can think of something that might help: a retractable plasma cutter that has the resemblance to a sword attached to the forearm. Primary functions for combat and parrying, and secondary be used as a tool, to cut through steel and other materials
I like this whole second earth idea . I mean i love the plot in general . So im guessing the suits laser gun or laser knife for decoration and will end up using later. Now will we run out of ammo/energy for the gun/knife?
@Nathan_Faxon, I don’t think there will be too much other equipment. I expect the whole game to be more centered on moral choices than technological means. You have the basics: a mid-range weapon; perks for sniping and short range burst damage; knife/sword for melee; force field for defense. I think that should be enough for the aims of the game.
@Kaleolii, I hope you’ll like it as much when there is more of the story available. I don’t want to use ammo count for the sake of simplicity. There will be situations in which you will be able to use all of the equipment mentioned above.
