(WIP) Drink Your Villain Juice! (Superpowers, Horror | 295k) Update 17th October

Everyone knows that superpowers come about through three distinct methods.

One can be born to their abilities, see them emerge in a moment of great strife, or acquire them through extensive cybernetic augmentation.

Everyone is wrong.

You’d know. If only that knowledge—and your snazzy slash horrible powers—didn’t come with a host of strings attached. Too bad that was an offer you couldn’t refuse.

Did I mention one of the strings was supervillainy?

Thrown headlong into a life of crime, balance conflicted loyalties, personal scars, and navigating a web of secrecy and deception, all while maintaining your cover.

Above all, remember to drink your Juice. Your life depends on it.

Features
  • Select a trump card for your powers… and try to cope with the side effects.
  • Choose your combat speciality, and use it to take on the heroes!
  • Befriend your fellow miscreants, or try to keep them at arm’s length.
  • Will you follow the whims of your benefactor, or search for a way to slip free of their control?
Content Warnings

Body horror. Graphic violence. Themes of addiction. Manipulation. References to torture.

Romantic Options (spoilers)

Mallory, AKA Wyrd (Nonbinary, any gender) - An irreverent smartmouth with a smile for any situation and so laid back they’re nearly horizontal. Just don’t start counting up how many of Mal’s smiles reach their eyes, or they might shapeshift some new ones to keep you guessing.

Wil, AKA Ghoul (Selectable, any gender) - Calm, genial, and easy-going, Wil’s there with a supportive word or a friendly joke for anyone that needs them. Hey, just because they’ve got a creepy costume and an unsettling power doesn’t mean they have to be all doom and gloom.

Teddie, AKA Fracture (Male, men only) - The definition of prickly, Teddie is curt, antisocial, and rather bitter. Can you blame him, when his skeleton is constantly growing, breaking, and reforming? Still, a romantic soul is in there somewhere, buried deep within the brambles. Shares a close bond with Kay, and he’s fiercely protective of her.

Kay, AKA Rampage (Female, any gender) - A dented optimist, Kay wants to look on the bright side, but life hasn’t always made it easy for her. She’s a little shy and known to brood, but her determination is absolutely boundless. Exceptionally close to Teddie, and she often worries about him.

Alistair (Male, any gender) - A good samaritan with endless patience, Alistair volunteers in his spare time and always has one eye on helping others. There’s just a couple of tiny problems. One: his well-meaning support could compromise your security. Two: he’s a completely normal human. Ahh I’m sure it’ll be fine.

CG, AKA Control Group (Female, any gender) - Snarky, sly, and playful, the good news about CG is that you’re both on the same side. The bad news is that maybe you don’t want to share said side. Still, for now, CG is mission control, no pun intended, and fully in your corner. Just don’t forget where her loyalties lie.

It’s complicated, and spoilery:

Probably don't click this if you haven't played through to chapter 6

Beth, AKA Phalanx (Female, women/nonbinaries) - An old friend. Serious and often curt, her hard edges tend to mask her sincere care for the best interests of those she’s closest to. Well. That’s how you remember her. Five years can change a person. You’d know. Who’s to say she’s the same, after so long as a hero?

Hi, welcome to Villain Juice! I’m very excited to share this project with all of you! For Feedback, I’d appreciate hearing about any typos or bugs; I think I caught those but I’m sure some slipped through. However, mainly what I’m looking for is folks’ thoughts on the characters and the flow of the scenes. Do you feel as if your choices are reasonable and you have enough options? Are there any points where you’re not sure what’s going on? What do you make of the cast?

I look forward to hearing any and all commentary. :slight_smile:

Demo
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Anonymous Feedback Form!

570 Likes

another superpowers wip, less go!!!

15 Likes

Finally excited to see you release your WIP, been waiting ever since I’ve seen you mentioned it on the writers thread. Always love to see more superpower WIPs! :grin:

15 Likes

As far as I have gotten I am in love with this already but a got this quick thing i wanted to suggest

Summary

in this scene

if a character that has great mastery with their powers could they potentially sit on their tenatcles sort of like a chair?

just had to ask dont feel pressured to add it or anything as I said before i am loving it :heart_eyes:

:bug:BUGS

Summary

7 Likes

100% adore this!

1 Like

I’ve only played through the beginning (just past the flashback of your friends exploring/getting powers) but I’m enjoying it so far. I think the pacing and flow is good (just on the right side of feeling rushed), but there are a LOT of characters introduced right from the start. That can make it hard to keep track of/care about them. I’m guessing by your huge 87k word count that the pace settles down a bit and the characters get more individual time later on.

So, yeah, it’s well-written and easy to follow, and I want to see what happens next.

6 Likes

Amazed with this wip. Bookmarked :D.

3 Likes

Love turning into a Resident Evil boss by way of Venom :slight_smile:

On the total opposite side of things, not heard of datefriend before and that’s fucking adorable.

13 Likes

So what exactly are our powers? Are we basically Venom/Symbiote Spidey?

Cause I’m just imagining my guy like this for now

@E_RedMark I’m going with Venom/Symbiote Spidey because it matches more with the way it’s described in the story as a black membrane and tentacles.

33 Likes

More spiderPyjama? I mean the drawing is awesome…

But he is so lameeeeeeeee…

I pick these :smiley:

@izzily also, super powers, GIMMEGIMMEGIMMEGIMME! :grin:

Awww Man…I’m gonna die! I wanna romance Surpass! She is totally my type! :sob:

24 Likes

I really love this but I kinda want to see MC past mystery being resolve. I mean I wanna know what happen to the MC friends :thinking:

4 Likes

That probably gonna be worked on in future chapters. I mean, they just started. If you dump that infos out of the bat…then there goes your past. I rather it get stretched on and on and on…

Btw @izzily the part about your past friends being BF or GF? Its kinda weird. Because it doesn’t flow right. You are just jumping in the flashback to ‘Hi…who are these?’ to…‘Oh now one of them is my BFF or my GF’. Also, I would like an option of ‘This is my friend’. Believe it or not, when you are old…like me…with 3 numbers…you don’t do ‘best friends forever’…just friends. BFF, even when I was a teenager it wouldn’t have crossed my mind…the books were my friends and would have smacked me upside the head if I tried that back then lol

8 Likes

Very intrigued by this one, and the powers were super gross. I love them.

2 Likes

Got an error: new_origin line 297: invalid @{} at letter 1; ‘mc_height’ is equal to 6 but there are only 5 options

3 Likes

Fantastic so far! It’s giving me Worm vibes and I love it. Looking forward to more!

6 Likes

@izzily Hey, loving it so far!! There’s an error for muscular body type

Also, How do we unlock this?

As crazy as this is, I remain absolutely calm.

I’ve chosen mostly calm choices and my MC is Reserved but that choice is still blocked

2 Likes

Thanks for the typo! The idea is also very cute and fun :slight_smile:

Yeah larger casts are a vice of mine, gonna be honest :sweat_smile:

Things will narrow a little more onto the crew as it progresses (though a lot of the current word count is the Many branches of the flashback).

Villain Juice has two wolves: the cute one and the mutant one.

Not too far off! MC’s powers are probably more focal to the tendrils than the symbiote’s all-around strengths, though power wielder MC also demonstrates that there’s more to the ability than just that.

And then there’s the speciality you choose, which obviously diverges the powers quite significantly.

gives

There’s… no promises with Surpass. I’m trying to be wary of scope creep. But I’ve thought about it.

This is fair! Being able to pick a best friend is an attempt to contextualise who everyone is to the MC (and provides an alternative scene). Being able to pick a love interest is…

Okay I’ll be up front: I felt that it would be fun to write about the grief/pain by providing an option for a lost love. There’s a choice partway into chapter 3 which lets MC lean into that trauma.

Thanks to you and Red_Mark for finding this! I left out a | in a multireplace :sweat_smile:

RE the personaity, from your feedback and running a couple tests, I’ve realised that some of the math needs tweaking. I was very cautious on the personality increments but I made them get too small too quickly. Fairmath is difficult.

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented so far!

17 Likes

that error hasn’t gone away. Still got it: ew_origin line 297: invalid @{} at letter 1; ‘mc_height’ is equal to 6 but there are only 5 options

Here is another one: new_origin line 6357: Non-existent command ‘selectable_if’

2 Likes

Loving it so far! It was a really good read and I also enjoy the pacing so far. I really hope we got to meet our friends or that one of the RO is secretly our friends. Quick question, do you plan on making a development blog on tumblr or other oulet? It was so good that i kept hoping that i haven’t reached the end of the demo yet.

I especially LOVE how we get the option to be apprehensive and still processing our pains yet, tge part when we can think that Wil is cute and that makes you feel guilty how you can move on so fast?? that’s just sooo good. Love me some good angst.

One thing that i wished we could do is to have a hero as an RO? Though I understand if its not feasible since there’s already a respectable amount of ROs.

Anyway, Thanks for writing this demo and good luck !!

4 Likes

I had so much fun with this! I am super excited to see where it goes!

1 Like