Trails Lead Home [Updated: 12/20/19]

|| SUMMARY

  • Trails Lead Home is an (overly ambitious) fantasy game with a focus on relationships and finding one’s home. The aim is to make most of the player’s choices matter in some way and to affect the characters (and potentially the world) around them. There are plans to have quests and mysteries for the player to unravel and to encourage the player to decide where home lies for their MC.

|| WARNINGS
  • For now, there is only a language warning and even that is minor (imo).
  • This game is fairly linear right now for set up purposes, the following chapter should allow for more freedom.
  • There are no doubt countless grammar mistakes, scenes with weak writing, and frequent mentions of ‘briefly’ (it must be my favorite word).

|| CONTENT

  • Plans for four romances + a ‘secret’ romance. This includes a polygamous couple for the player to join, two RO’s that can be potentially also poly-romanced, and one monogamist RO (see RO/PO names below).
  • Currently the demo only includes the remade ‘prologue’ that has a current total of 5,366 words.
  • Choices are still spread out but the available choices are used to set up chapter 1.
  • Character creation is small but includes height (small through tall) plus feminine, nonbinary, and masculine pronouns.
  • ROs are not yet introduced but the plan is you meet them all in the first portion of chapter 1

|| ROMANTIC AND PLATONIC OPTIONS

  • Galeon and Hollond are a pre-established couple that can (only) be romanced together.

  • Finlay is a knight of the realms and can be monogamously romanced.

  • Greta (previously Nanami) is a mischievous woman who is open to either monogamy or polygamy.

  • Lesilfae is a (self proclaimed) softhearted merchant who, like Greta, is open to monogamous and polygamous romances.

  • The secret RO is female but other details have yet to be shared…

|| UPDATES

Outdated Updates

[First started/same day fixes]
– Fixed a mention of Stockholm syndrome that wasn’t meant to be left in there.
– Fixed broken save plugin.
– Fixed a pronoun mistake where an instance mentions a non-binary character as a ‘he’ rather than they also a spelling error I had overlooked when referring to ‘the lady’.
– Added more to chapter 1 [Not spell checked]

[1 / 6 / 18]
– Finished chapter 1, slimmed-down everything [a lot of words got shaved off]
– Changed some things, moved things around
– no spell checks or plot hole checks

Current Updates

Remade prologue from scratch
Added minor character creation
Added more insight to the family dynamic
Added aesthetic choice regarding drinks
Minor Spell checking [more to come when I have time]

|| LINKS

  • Current Demo - Most recent demo available

  • Tumblr - Updates and asks will be answered here, feel free to check it out!

140 Likes

Hmmm… in one of the choice, selecting still fond of the uncle had been branded as "Stockholm Syndrom " , which i feel weird… :slight_smile:

I had thought the uncle had been harsh … but he did raise the MC and assuming taking care of the basic needs , although he may not be the best of person … but i am wondering why it was consider a Stockholm Syndrome when MC was perhaps grateful for his willingness of taking care of him/her :slight_smile:

omg did I leave that in there??

Well anyways, my point of view at the time was to explore more about the history that differs between the choices. This was going to be a dark path that I had changed [but apparently forgot to completely remove], I apologize for making you feel weird!

But that choice would have lead to a series of flashbacks that mostly centered around MC being mistreated by their uncle but at the time being blind to how he was treating them. They relied on him, he fed, clothed, and gave them a home so they relied on him and felt that by staying with him they were safe.

They would soon realize when they were older [present day] that what he was doing to them and their rather neutral/warm response to his actions were not okay. In my research [I’m doing more as we speak] Stockholm syndrome is typically cause when the victim is forced to rely on their captor for food and such which lures them into a false sense of friendship/affection/love – IE what was going to be shown in the MC’s flashback that was very much scraped.

I also wouldn’t call it willingness per say-- It’s kind of hard to explain without spoilers but the uncle took MC in because of their mother and her very specific ties to someone and some things during her lifetime. With her gone, it all falls to the MC [who is young and vulnerable] and the Uncle steps up to ‘take care’ of them. It wasn’t super thought out so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

But anyways, I’ll fix that! Sorry!

EDIT: All fixed! Thank you for catching that! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

You are welcome :slight_smile:

The setting of the story is interesting , especially a high fantasy background :-):grinning:

By the way, it was also mention by Jules that Ingrid was our only friend when small… hence i think there should be more flashback about our childhood friendship right ? And to think that MC shy away from her , but she still remember us warmly is sweet :-):blush:

Is Ingrid a major character? I suppose she could be our faithful friend ? :slight_smile:

Flashbacks will definitely feature Ingrid [are these spoilers? ah well] and as for a major character… You’ll have to wait and see!

buuuut~ if anyone asks… she’s a very major character! :stuck_out_tongue: but you didn’t hear that from me-- :wink:

1 Like

Oh… alright no problem :-):grin:

I am always fond of childhood friendship :-):stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

And when Ingrid pass me those candies and told me it will heal anything… i actually consider the possibility since this is high fantasy… perhaps she is a fairy or something ? :-):sweat_smile:

Anyway… definitely looking forward to read more of your first interactive fiction :slight_smile:

I remember reading the previous version of this story before the hiatus. Welcome back!

I have a question, how much of a personality is defined for the MC? For example, there are only two options in response to the siblings’ taunt about mother – punch both of them, or do nothing. I would like a middle ground, i.e. an option to make a (possibly sarcastic) verbal retort without resorting to outright violence or hostility; just enough to put them in their place.

Speaking of which, as interesting as the premise is, there are only very few choices to make compared to the amount of text. I’m hoping that is going to change as the story progresses and with further updates, otherwise it causes some people (including me) to kind of lose immersion, and feel detached from the world and the MC.

Good luck!

5 Likes

May I suggest page_breaks or line_breaks. It makes me feel tedious or perhaps that’s just me.

@soprano

Oh heavens, thank you for the welcome back!

And regarding responses by the mc, the player will define much of the MC’s personality [but this is just an outline for now]. I am going to go back and add a peaceful [but sarcastic] response for the player to choose. There will be more choices going forward [and more going back when I get around to it tomorrow].

Thank you for reading! I’ll try and add more options and peaceful but sassy options in the future! :slight_smile:

EDIT: I’ve added a peaceful sarcastic option [though still kinda verbally malicious if I have to be honest-- oops!] I’ll be re-writing it again as I don’t like how it turned out but it’s an option for now. I hope it better suits your MC’s situation? If not let me know and I’ll happily give it another go! :smiley:

@Bathala - I already have a lot of page breaks, but I’ll definitely add more! I suppose the paragraphs are a bit long and there are too many of them per ‘page’. :sweat_smile:

EDIT: I’ve quickly realized my page_breaks didn’t seem to work so everything ended up being WAY longer than it should have been! I apologize for that!

3 Likes

That’s actually perfect, thank you! Glad to hear you’ll be adding more choices from here onwards, can’t wait to see where it goes.

Oh, the save system doesn’t work now for some reason.

It shows this error:

Another (very) minor issue:

IMG_20181208_175314_156
I don’t think we should see the ‘sm_init mygame’ thing in the very first line.

ahh, I know why the saves won’t work. That sm_init is the save code but I forget that I have to re-code it when I change things. Lemme do that real quick for ya!

EDIT: all fixed! I’ll have to start writing reminders to myself to re-code it in the future so people’s saves don’t fail. Thank you for letting me know!

Very interesting, I will be definitely watching this and looking forward to more updates.

A lot of text with only a few choices

1:


2:

This is a common issue that I see with certain stories on here. If you’ve already chosen a gender for a character, that character should stick to that gender. There was no way to know that Holland was a guy until the pronoun ‘he’ came up. The entire introduction was ‘them/their’ which makes it entirely confusing. If a character is a male it should be ‘he turned his head left’ and vice versa for females. Only if a character is undefined then those ‘them/their’ pronouns would be appropriate, but not if the character already has a decided gender.

Yes, I am aware that one should stick with a singular gender. Please be aware that the he/him/his pronouns tend to slip in by accident via my spell check [which hates they/them being in certain places some times] and clumsy fingers and not because I’ve purposefully changed my character mid-way through a chapter.

Hollond has been determined as non-binary for quite a while [they are an old, personal and beloved character of mine] and is not male despite what a few mistakes call them. Like I’ve stated before it was not on purpose and I appreciate you catching those, but do remember in the future that I wasn’t trying to change their gender and that maybe it was a mistake rather than a conscious action especially if you’ve only found [what i assume is] one gender mistake in the story. However, if you find more of those do let me know! :slight_smile:

– And thank you for reading the story!

1 Like

I wasn’t trying to be rude :sweat_smile: other than the pronoun complication, I think your story’s really interesting.

Oh heavens! I hope I wasn’t being too rude either and I didn’t mean to kinda yell at you [my quick jump to defend was pretty autopilot and harsh], I apologize! I really do appreciate you catching those [or any more you may see] and for choosing to read my story! :smiley:

3 Likes

//Pardon my double post, I don’t remember if this is allowed or not on the forums. I apologize if not–

Story Updates
Chapter one has been updated but not completed. There are more choices for you to make in the newest sections of the chapter and you get to meet a new character!

warnings;
– Was not spellchecked, so there are probably errors galore [please let me know so I can fix them]

– There are food related questions in the newest update and one refers to tofu. Obviously it isn’t correct but it will probably change in the next update.

– I [personally] am not happy with the update so I may re-write it if I have time otherwise it’s kinda stuck as it is. So sorry in advance for the shoddy writing in this update.

– Rewrote the scene with At’Ora [also gave her a slight name change unless I’m mistaken] to reflect whatever personality you build up. There are four [?] aggressive responses and [4] passive responses. Based on your previous choices you will only get to choose either from the aggressive responses or passive responses but they, themselves, also have less aggressive or more aggressive responses within them.

– The ending is abrupt but that’s for a very good reason, so potential spoilers for the end; What questions would you like the MC to ask Hollond and the newest character? I have some basic questions I’ll add but is there anything that you’d be interested in hearing the MC ask them?

Tumblr Updates
Added a character page [still missing some characters, I’ve only got Hollond and Galeon on there but Nanami and Finlay are next], and have an ‘About Trails’ page that you can view.

Asks are also open if you’d like to send one in, otherwise there isn’t much else don to the tumblr. :slight_smile:

4 Likes

//insert apology about triple posting <33 Let me know what you all think, so I can [hopefully] make the story better and improve. Thanks for reading!

Story Updates
Chapter one has been updated and completed [or at least as completed as it’ll be for now].

warnings;
– Was not spellchecked, did not check for plot holes, some parts seem rushed [I’ll fix those later] but let me know if you find any plot holes – not that there IS a plot rn but i digress.

– Removed food related question and vendor scene because it didn’t have a purpose tbh

– Next chapter will probably have a few trigger warnings just letting everyone know ahead of time.

– Added crappy character creation but also a quick start with a named character/preset MC

Tumblr Updates

– Wrote a few cuddle prompts [can I call it that?] with the RO’s

–Nothing otherwise.

7 Likes

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