The Lawless Ones (Previously "Villains") Completed! (Remake in the Works)

Hi guys! The Lawless Ones is a game I entered into the CoG comp, and came out as one of the three runner ups. Since I no longer intend to publish The Lawless Ones under the Hosted Games label, I’m putting it up here for everyone to play for free. Have fun and let me know what you think! Here’s the link. :grin:

While the game is complete, I am working on an updated version on Chooseyourstory.com. I have lots of ideas for a tonne of new scenes, characters, plots, quests and just tonnes more stuff in general. I’m estimating that the updated version could end up being anywhere between 500,000 words and 1,000,000 words, so it’s a massive undertaking. If anyone is interested in becoming a beta tester for the new game, please let me know. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Synopsis:
The age of magic is dying. The age of science has only begun. In Brass Haven, airships fly overhead, cybernetic body enhancements are becoming a fashion trend, and cogs, gears and sprockets make the world go round. But what was meant to be the land of opportunity turns out to be the most dangerous, corrupt and poverty-stricken slum in all the kingdom. Your only chance for survival… To join forces with the most notorious criminal guild in the city.

The Lawless Ones is a 250,000 word interactive steampunk adventure novel by Avery Moore, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based, without graphics or sound effects, and fuelled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Fight beside thieves and villains in the ultimate struggle for survival. Pick pockets, rob houses, negotiate trades with rival guilds and even steal valuable new technology from the Monarch’s guard itself. Will you become the greatest criminal mastermind the kingdom has ever seen, or can you turn a guild of infamous outlaws into a force for good?

• Play as male, female, transgender or non-binary. Gay, straight, bi or asexual.
• Grow from a naive child, to a savvy and streetwise adult.
• Find friendship, rivalry or love with a thief, a con man, a fighter, a courtesan, an inventor and an assassin.
• Solve the mystery of a deadly creature that has been slaughtering the children of your organisation.
• Outwit, outrun, outmanoeuvre, outfight and outlive anyone who gets in your way.
• Choose from six different origin stories and discover six possible epilogues throughout the game.
• Terrorise the streets of Brass Haven, or use your influence to make the city a better place.

Updates:

Summary

31/3/19: Released the game as free to play for all, and I’ve started work on the update over at CYS.

31/1/18: Completed and submitted! Yey! Massive, massive thanks to everyone who helped and supported me throughout the past eight months. You’ve really motivated me to push through my crippling writer’s block and get the game finished in time. Love you all! :heart:

29/1/18: Cutting it really, REALLY close, I know, but chapter 15 is complete! … And that’s it! All done! (Got a few minor changes to make and still need to write a synopsis, but other than that… Yey!) Also I’ve settled on a new name for the game, and decided to go with The Lawless Ones, since that suggestion seemed to be the most popular.

20/1/18: Chapter 14 is complete, a decent 12,000 words long and neatly tying up all the loose ends and bringing the game to a (more or less) conclusion, leaving only the epilogues left to go. :blush:

12/1/18: … Well that was draining. Took several days of non-stop writing, but I finally finished Chapter 13 (which is now the second longest chapter in the game at over 22,000 words.) :confounded: I’m sure many of you will be happy to know though, that in this chapter you finally get to pursue a romantic relationship with the 6 main NPCs… You’re very welcome. :grin:

1/1/18: Chapter 12 is finally finished. Another really long one, with a lot of important stuff going on, so I hope you guys enjoy it. I’ve also made a lot of edits to the game, mostly fixing bugs and doing a lot of work on the stats page.

3/12/17: Chapter 11 is finished. A nice short chapter this time, to take a break from all the long ones. I’ve also done quite a bit of editing and updates to the rest of the game. Chapter 10 now has some achievements, the second save point has been coded and I’ve edited the game so that, from now on, you can load a previous save at the end of each chapter, and not just when you die. Hopefully that’ll come in useful for all you awesome beta-testers. :blush:

29/11/17: Chapter 10 is all done, and it’s another long one, at over 15,000 words. Not sure I’m happy with it, since it’s a really important chapter and I want it to be perfect, but I’m really having to rush myself now, since I still have 5 more chapters and the epilogues to write, and the deadline for the competition is only 2 months away! :persevere:

16/11/17: Chapter 9 is now finished, and available for all my beta-testers to play. It ended up being a grand total of over 17,000 words, making it one of the longest chapters in the game. This chapter gives the player a lot of opportunities for bonding with other characters, as well as introducing six new ROs, (though these are all only minor characters, who will not appear in the game again.)

5/11/17: A poll has just been added to try and help me decide the title for this WIP. Here’s the link if you want to vote: Poll

5/11/17: Two for the price of one today! I’ve completed chapter 7 of the game, and also finished editing chapter 8, which I already completed awhile ago. A few minor changes have been made to previous chapters and I’ve fixed quite a few bugs that’ve been pointed out to me.

20/10/17: Just finished chapter 6, adding two more characters (both of which are romantic interests) to the game. I also edited the money system so that silver sprockets are now worth about $1 instead of $10, and gold gears are worth about $100 instead of $1000

19/9/17: Chapter 5 is now finished, bringing the total word count to over 100,000. Hurray! :blush:

7/9/17: Just completed chapter 4 of the game. It’s not included in the demo, but if anybody wants to beta-test the entire game as it is so far, let me know and I’ll send you the link.

Polls:
Which origin story did you prefer?

  • Aristocrat
  • Peasant
  • Criminal
  • Slave
  • Monk
  • Wolf

0 voters

Who is your favourite member of the guild so far?

  • Hotshot
  • Swift
  • Viper
  • Wildcard
  • Honey
  • Gadget
  • The Boss
  • Celeste

0 voters

You can keep up to date with Villains and my other games on social media at:

https://twitter.com/Avery__Moore

410 Likes

@Avery_Moore i must say i enjoyed the demo so much :grin: I loved the Wolf and Aristocrat backgrounds! I must confess i wept a bit at all the backgrounds but the most at the slave one. :pensive:…But aka i must also confess that i am freaking pissed!!! Plz, is there any way to get revenge on freaking Charlotte and that ignorant dad? I would love to get some pretty good baking revenge on them, freaking monsters! :cry:

6 Likes

It seems call I love being called joker

4 Likes

can’t wait for updates!

1 Like

I love the game and can’t wait for more! Hopefully we’ll get a save feature next update?

6 Likes

The story is very well written. I love the variety when it comes to backgrounds, and I’m excited for future updates!

There was a possible coding error at the beginning of chapter 3 (the set Idiotane section). There are no * marks in front of the set commands, so they just read as normal text.

12 Likes

“Food, clothes, shelter, anything a $[Child} like you could need.”
The code is showing

“Your alpha then barks loudly at the stranger in an attempt to scare him off, but he stands his ground. He isn’t leaving without a fight.[/I]”
And here

"set Idiotane “idiotana” set Fije “fija” set Kiddo “missy”

Chapter 3: First day on the job"
That’s all I got

2 Likes

Looks fun so far! I like it!

1 Like

A game where I can play as a ruthless guild member? I feel blessed.

3 Likes

I really enjoyed it. I love how you wrote a great amount of origin stories. I hope we can clean up some loose ends in each past. Like the stepmother, etc.
I’m really looking forward to more!

7 Likes

This thing definitely has promise. Hopefully my ex-slave mc will get to really deal with his half-brother and the rest of his family near the end in a way that won’t be very pretty.

6 Likes

I’d love to go back and pay the step mother back. With interest! Perhaps poison her child as she was poisoning the MC?

1 Like

God yes, though I rather take the power and leave them with nothing. Makes sense why this is called “Villians” :joy:

6 Likes

That would be what my mc wants to do to his slavocrat half-brother and any other extended slave-owning “family” he may have. The problem seems to be that as a former slave he can never leave the cesspit of a city he’s now stuck in ever again and revenge by proxy doesn’t bring any satisfaction at all. :disappointed:

1 Like

Why not do both? Kill the half sibling and take everything?

5 Likes

Letting them live in poverty is much exciting since they’re used to getting everything on a silver platter all their lives. If my mc is right they’d be dead soon after anyway and it would be a waste to kill them. Again the main drawback of the slave origin would seem to be that he cannot leave the cesspit of a city to observe anything for himself.

4 Likes

jealous that your father was so fond of you… Wouldn’t be his father…

Over all, really enjoyed all of the back story… Do not know which will be my favorite though. So hard to choose.

1 Like

@Avery_Moore
What I found:

  • Perhaps he was jealous that your father was so fond of you. Whatever the reason,

I thought mc still don’t know at early part of slave origin?


  • Now you understand why Viper referred to this man as ‘the boss’. He is not just her boos, he is The Boss.

Is this supposed to be boss?


  • “Now, what kind of parents would let a sweet child like this wonder the streets in the middle of the night?”

wander


Is this supposed to be here?


2 Likes

@GloriaRose @tooweiss @lokidemon007 @idonotlikeusernames
I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I have already incorporated an achievement into the game called “A Dish Best Served Cold” … You’ll have to use your imagination for the rest. :blush:

10 Likes

@daydreamsincolor @SheaMcD @Vattena @Dpwjeremy

Well spotted. Thanks for pointing them out, I’ll fix them ASAP. :blush:

2 Likes