The Magician's Task (WIP) [Chapters 1-3, 74k words] (CLOSED FOR NEW THREAD)

Thanks!

Good question. I actually like Choice of the Star Captain a lot and Lloyd happens to be one of my favorite characters in interactive fiction. That’s an interesting idea that I had been toying with myself, but I don’t think Zaleth would go so far as to try to kill you or possess you.

He wouldn’t kill you because then he would no longer have a place to stay and would be forced to go back to the Netherworld, where he would be tortured and tormented by more powerful demons. (He’s just a Peon, the lowest rank.)

He wouldn’t possess you for a similar reason: even though he would have control over you, which would be great for him, it would be much more likely that a demon hunter or wizard would find him out and banish him back to the Netherworld. When he’s hijacking you, he can talk to you, hear your most obvious and unhidden thoughts, and occasionally grant you demonic magic in exchange for control over you for a very short amount of time, but he isn’t so blatantly attached to your soul like when demons possess someone, so he can “hide” from demon hunters and wizards and it’s almost impossible to kick him out. I hope that makes sense.

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Ah that’s pretty cool! (And yup that’s the name of the game haha, Lloyd is one of my favourite characters too)
Sorry to keep pestering you with questions but will there be a stat/ ability to make your “connection” with Zaleth stronger (I mean so he can help you more and give you more powers)
And will Zaleth get stronger as the character does? Or will the powers he can give us in the beginning the same as the ones towards the end?

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Questions are fine! Ask away.

Generally, there will be one option a day for you to ask Zaleth to lend you his magic. It will make you much more powerful for that short amount of time, but the more you use his help, the worse the consequences will get. I’ll be making a variable to track that.

Zaleth is basically a “strong” Peon, so capable of easily defeating about 4 regular humans. That’s pretty strong at the beginning of the story, but he won’t be advancing in strength as the story progresses, whereas you will become much stronger as the story goes along.

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Just wondering, in your original post you stressed that Zaleth only “hijacked” the MC. Will there be a point in the game where someone finds out of the demon attached to the MC and assume the MC is possessed? Or were you simply clarifying that there was no actual possession involved?

@saetero
Zaleth is so sneaky that he can hide from just about anyone, so most people won’t be able to tell that anything is up, even Violet, who is a demon huntress. I will say that, later on, the demon will be caught by Melithar the wizard.

Sounds interesting going to try demo soon and let you know

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This seems really cool hope to hear more about future beta tests

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I’m having tons of fun writing Zaleth’s character. Here’s a snippet of dialogue between the demon and the MC:

The woods are quite a distance away on foot, so you embark on a brisk pace, eager to get there as quickly as possible. “Where are you going, to paint your pretty fingernails?” Zaleth mocks.

Rolling your eyes, you respond, “You’re the funniest person I ever met. No, I’m going to the woods.”

“Awww, isn’t that sweet?” the demon says in a disgustingly sanquine voice. “Remember to plant some flowers for me,” he adds, making vomiting noises.

“How charming,” you grunt in irritation.

AND ANOTHER SNIPPET:

Fortunately, the chess club is rather close. Even so, you embark on a brisk pace, eager to get there soon. “Where are you going, to play bingo with your grandma?” Zaleth mocks.

Frowning, you respond, “My grandma’s dead.”

The demon cackles and says, “Oh, how delicious! I was being cruel without even knowing it.”

“Shut up,” you grumble. “Besides, I’m not playing bingo, I’m going to play chess.”

He just shrugs and says, “Same thing. They’re both just meaningless mortal games designed to distract the player from their pathetic life.”

“Thanks for your useless assessment, Zaleth,” you say, rolling your eyes.

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Nice I love seeing other autistic content creators on here working on new games :slight_smile: makes me feel less goofy about uploading a wip of my own in the next few weeks.

Anyway, I’m really excited to see where you go with this! I love having such a wide range of choices that actively effect the player character right off the bat. You also managed to make me really hate the bully characters in just a few pages of interaction…I already can’t wait to come back and kick their butts after some magic training.

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@yams

Excellent! Good luck.

Aww yeah. That’s not too far off. :slight_smile:

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Short demo, but I like what I see. (I love humorous dialog and you deliver plenty of that already) Consider me interested.

But two things:

“Come on, Verim, get him!” he demands.

Not that I have a problem with playing a MC that looks very boyish (Sweet Polly Oliver is one of my favorite tropes actually), but others may differ, so you probably should avoid refering to the MC until players got the chance to decide their gender.

Your face flushing in humiliation and anger, you turn to face Killian, who has that big dumb grin on his face, just like he does every time he pushes you.

That’s many faces for just one sentence.

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Thanks! This is my first time ever using this writing style, so it’s great to see that it’s a success.

Oh yeah, that pronoun was an error that slipped in there. You choose your gender on the very next choice. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll fix those errors tonight.

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Hi there,

I just happened to come across this work in progress, and was very impressed by the initial demo. It made me smile to make the hulking bully cry. I look forward to watching this game unfold. It sounds like it will be an epic masterpiece! :smiley:

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@Tjkim1121

Thanks so much! Evoking emotion in readers is one of the most satisfying things an author can do.

Just think how good it’ll feel to kick his ass later. ;p

I hope it will be a masterpiece! Apparently I’m doing something right because this 3k word demo has garnered more attention and positive feedback than any of my previous and complete betas, haha.

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This was really short, but I like it and am looking forward to the next update.

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Thanks! Yeah, the current demo is super short because I was so excited to get this WIP out, but in the future all the major updates (like adding chapters) will be add about 15k to the word count. I’m a couple days from being done with chapter one, for example, which will be ~ 15k.

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So were your other stories good, @Samuel_H_Young?

They’re decent, but not as good as this one will be! I rushed to get them out so they were fairly short, too.

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Is there a link I can use?

@violethikari
Here’s a link to Trial of the Demon Hunter: https://www.choiceofgames.com/user-contributed/trial-of-the-demon-hunter/

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