The Samhain Invasion - WIP - UPDATED 06/21/21

Choice of Games games CoG Works In Progress
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Every Samhain, the lords of Ireland gather at the royal mountain of Tara. Drinkers drink, lovers meet, and the Druids do… Druid things. But this year, at the height of the festival, the Romans invade, shattering both the kingdom and the fabric of reality.

For you, a poor chieftain, war contains not only risks, but also opportunities. Scheme against your fellow lords to receive the most fame, land, and fortune. Grow wealthy beyond measure or take a pretender’s crown. Make unwise deals with creatures out of legend. When the last sword is sheathed, who (or what) will you have become?

Based (very) loosely on an actual Roman landing near Dublin in 81 CE.

Features include:

  • Chariot fighting
  • Mythological creatures and figures
  • Intrigue
  • Attempts to assert power against systems of oppression and violence that have haunted humanity since the dawn of civilization
  • Pansexual pagans

This is the short and early demo for a new Choice of Games game by a new Choice of Games writer: me! The current version is here: Chapters 1 through 4, about 65,000 words . Check it out!

For players who already played chapters 1,2 and 3, I also have a build of chapter 4 only, with a quick character generator, located here: Chapter 4.

Let me know what’s working, what’s not, which characters interest you, which don’t. Or make posts about Celtic civilization, Roman warfare, or the issues around representing historical cultures in fiction. Or just say hi!

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Welcome to the community @leewardvessel –

I’m excited about your game. A lot of things you are doing within its scope are things that I have passion for/about … I also have a lot of knowledge on many things you are writing about.

So, if you feel you can use specific feedback, want to bounce ideas off someone or just plain talk about something that we share a passion about, feel free to PM/DM me or open a discussion here in the public thread.

I’ll do a session later tonight for your posted demo.

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I am from Galicia a Celtic minority in Spain that in Iron ages share culture mythos and commercial relationship with the other Celtic nations. Our legends include Xamain that is similar to the old Ireland traditions so I will love this game

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Did you say Chariot Fighting?! Oh, man. I’m going to enjoy this!

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I’ll admit I got the feeling that this is basically a mash up of God of War and Assassin Creed Vikings but I don’t mind that at all. It’s a rather refreshing plot to be reading through and I’m looking forward to reading more in the future updates.

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There are pronouns missing and my character is referred to as “him”, despite being female.

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There seems to be a question missing here.

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@justme

Whoops, I made a last-minute change to the gender select code and it borked the pronouns.It should he fixed now.

For the Fergus conversation, I’ve been writing some dialogue options in a more “traditional video game” way, with dialogue options just appearing when there’s a lapse in the conversation. Do you find that more confusing than natural?

Thanks!

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The conversation in general seemed quite natural, but these options (the first in particular), sound like the answers to a question, such as “What do you want?”.

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Yeah, you’re right. Thanks again! I really appreciate the help.

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Hi all! I had a discussion with @Eiwynn about the binary Soul stats and agree that they can be a little confusing. I’d like your opinion on a possible fix!

  • Change to non-metaphorical but still poetic options; for example, Forest/Fire would become Shelter/Danger
  • Keep the metaphorical names, but show the stat description directly under the stats in the stat chart

0 voters

Also, feel free to respond with any other ideas for handling this. Thanks!

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Okay, great, I’ll be adding the descriptions to the stat chart. Thanks everyone!

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I’m playing this right now, your prose is really nice and I like the hook at the beginning the first screen really made me want to continue reading and the initial choices drew me in. Nice work

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Really, really enjoyed this. The writing is strong and the pacing is great, and I love the subject matter (in real life, I’m a historian of the Roman Empire so this was always going to suck me in!) Only error I spotted was that you wrote that Eoghan the druid was “unphased” by my twitchy reaction : I think the word is “unfazed”.

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bugreport

Sometimes you are refered to as ${pcname} ${pcappellation} (with space), and sometimes as ${pcname}${pcappellation} (without space).

${pcname}${pcappellation} makes it impossible to input a custom appellation without the first word being appended to the end of you name

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Thanks both! I’m not near my computer now, but I’ll make sure to fix and republish when I can.

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WoW… I did NOT expected this… Even with few mistakes and errors, it’s good…

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I loved this. In historical fiction, I find it’s always tricky to get the balance right between accessibility and authenticity but the writing here just nails it. Can’t wait to read more.

“The muscles in his face contract, one eye closes, and the other eye bulges.” Like Cuchulain! When I first read the stories as a kid, this was the detail that always stuck in my mind…

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Can we choose to join the Romans in the ensuing war?

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You can! However, the Romans ask you to work from the inside for most of the war. That way, players have a chance to change back and forth (and also, it let’s me get away with not writing two different second acts).

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Thanks! Yeah, the Tain is a big influence. I’m even trying for a subversion of the Evil Queen trope with Rionach of Munster.

I’m also really excited to try Bitten!

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