A work-in-progress rural fantasy interactive novel.
You are the blacksmith’s apprentice in a remote small village threatened from all sides. An attempt to buy your village more time against these threats changes your world forever.
When everything changes how will you cope?
And more importantly: How will you feel about it?
Features:
- A focus on interpersonal relationships under pressure.
- A small, detailed world and cast.
- Decisions that can carry real consequences.
- Two Deep Romance Options. Neither of them what you expect from a classical romance route.
- There will be no Happily Ever After - at least not for everyone.
What it is not:
- No simple villains, no easy solutions.
- No quest to save a kingdom — there isn’t one.
- No princes, no princesses.
State as of 07-08-2026: Part 1 of 5 completed (53k words, 4 chapters)
Links: Demo, Tumblr
AI Disclosure:
No — This project does not contain the output of Generative AI
Yes — This project contains the output of Generative AI
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Finally, I have uploaded the first four chapters of my little story. I hope some people will enjoy it. Constructive feedback is always welcome!
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(Just a heads up, you have neither “yes” nor “no” checked for the ai disclosure agreement/both boxes are blank!)
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Sorry. Just too stupid to check a box…
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Huh? There’s a box? I usually just type [x] before the word.
I’ve been reading a little so far; the premise interests me. I do wish there was a bit more interactivity (by this, I mean I’m often clicking Next without making a choice).
I am very happy that there’s a lore section in the stats menu. I was starting to become overwhelmed with information. I can tell there is a depth to the world you’ve created.
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Thank you for the valuable feedback! It is much appreciated.The interactivity point is noted. I am still learning the ropes of the medium 
.
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I was just brainstorming how to improve the atmosphere in a current night scene of chapter 7. That in turn led me to rethink the role of the two moons in the world of Malagast.
End result:
On the plus side I now I have the outline for a complete cosmology for the moons but on the other hand I now need to check Kepler’s laws and add the new ideas into chapters 1 to 4.
Maybe I love world building a bit too much…
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Coming from an astronomy nerd, you don’t have to if want to! Adding in ambiguity when it comes to physics is okay. 
If you do, it’ll be a really nice treat to read.
So who’s attacking the village then? An ambitious noble, a Bandit or an evil merchant? If we don’t have a kingdom around this is probably a fragmented era with little fiefs and domains, wonder if there are at least merchant republics around, anyways interesting project and great to see you aren’t using that disgusting generative AI!
I will try to make it at least plausible but in the end it stands in the way of the story, the story will win. 
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Good questions! Thank you! During the story we will only see a tiny part of the larger world and in this part of the world there is no kingdom, no domains, just a very small village.
The village of Rannoch is very isolated and lies in the East across the mountains in the middle of an untamed forest. It hardly sees any visitors as it lies at the end of its road and has a somewhat bad reputation.
Regarding the attackers: You are quite near the mark. Since generations Rannoch has been plagued by a foul forest creature the villagers call the Curse. People are stubborn (or ingeneous), so they found ways to deal with it. Today they fear it, hate itm but essentially it is like bad weather or a particularly hard winter. But last harvest bandits came across the mountains. Their attacks originally triggered the crisis at the begin of the story. There is of course much more to all of this but it is too early to share this lore. 
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Always up for some bandit thrashing, a Bandit king with greater ambitions if do wouldn’t be that bad either, anyways waiting eagerly for the plot!
As it is that is some bandit thrashing is just something I am writing now
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Hey guys!
I could use a little feedback: I was thinking of implementing a ranking (e.g. “top”, “good”, etc.) in addition to the numerics of the main stats on the stats-page in order to give the players a sense of how competent they are at this point in the story.
My reason is the following: The last days I played a famous published IF I so far did not play because I was only mildly interested in the theme. While I warmed to the theme in time, the way the consequences of my choices were implemented gave me a headache. I tried to play a certain character, but the results of my choices seemed mostly either irrelevant, counterinductive or outright bad. In the end I felt most of the time punished for my choices and like the B-lister in an AAA movie. But what was even worse was the “tests”: they presented me with options, and I had previously “learned” that I was supposed to decide not based on what my character wanted to do instead of what I was best at. Tough luck: Obviously my stats were still not good enough, so I ended up more than once in “Game Over”-screens or with a flavor text along the line: “Now that you are a warty toad, you will never marry the prince. But have fun playing in the mud!” Okay. I get that this game is about min-maxing and getting your build “right” for what you want to play. There are people enjoying this sort of game. It is fine.
But I want MALAGAST to be different. There will be no Game-Over-Screens and also no punishing consequences where you are to endure a mediocre path (Btw: I will talk about the design philosophy of MALAGAST in my next design blog). But the tests I have written were until now also a bit intransparent. Therefore, my idea is to introduce the ranking. I will also get back to the “tests” and try to make sure that you have an idea of the difficulty and risk of the different choices. That is not perfect information but allows you an informed decision. And you still can play the MC you envision. Thoughts?
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Can you give an example?
Then, yes please. Thank you for the example.
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I will try: Many tests involve the attributes body and mind. They start with a certain level, but due to choices during the story, they will change. For the player/reader, it is not obvious what range of attributes is reasonably competent at that point of the story.
So let us say I have an attribute of body 53 in chapter 3 due to my choices. I may have a good feeling about it, but maybe I have missed a branching that could have given me a huge boost there.
Now I get into a conflict, and there are two options saying something like:
- You could punch the bandit. It is risky but possible for a competent brawler.
- You trick the bandit, but it will be difficult to convince him.
If you have a good feeling about your body score, you might go for the more risky road, maybe thinking that your score is in the competent range.
I would like to implement a ranking in the stat screen that evaluates in words if you are actually competent. So in our example, it might say body 53, ranking: average, mind 55, ranking: good. That might influence your decision in an informed way because the outcomes of these tests will be oriented towards those values (still the best mind result might be at 60, for example). In any case, you will not be as surprised that the outcome of your action was not ideal if you go for body regardless.
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Will do! Thank you for the question and the feedback!
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If anyone is wondering if the project is still alive: Yes it is. I just posted a project update on tumblr. The plan is to upload the next three chapters and a polished version of chapters 1 to 4 sometime in November.
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