[WIP] Red Herring (Working Title) (2/19: Chapter 3 Updated)

Right. Time for the leap of faith.

I’ve begun work on my new game Red Herring (Working Title. I will probably change that later). In it, you play an ordinary human in a world filled with superheroes and villains.

Currently it’s about (3/10 chapters, 20k words) done. It is a relatively short IF, because it is my first project and I don’t want to overwork myself. I am lazy, I know.

Summary

The first case of a super-powered human emerged in the least reputable district in the Nova City about thirty years ago. Predictably the place turned into a lawless hellhole after so many god-like beings running around wrecking havoc, so it was cordoned off shortly after your birth. Not that you care. After all, you are just an absolutely ordinary human being that prefers not to involve yourself in those violent conflicts between self-proclaimed heroes and villains. You thought being an unassuming employee of the largest company in the city centre pretty much guaranteed a life secure from super-humans, but after a surprise visit from the most notorious villain, Dr.Abyssus, who claimed that you are someone that their greatest rival cares about, you realise that how wrong you were.

First, you know no one in your life could have been that hero (or is it?). Second, and by which you mean the most important point, your rented apartment is destroyed in the process. Just how are you going to pay for the damage? Then to your absolute horror, the hero in question, Whirlwind, actually shows up and confirms the words of Dr.Abyssus, and you know in an instant that kidnappings and the destruction of your personal belongings will become a weekly occurrence.

Although you are just a normal human, it does not mean that you are absolutely powerless in such a situation. There must be something you can do to save your life!

In this game, you can:

• Unmask the hero and get them to stop the villain once and for all.

• Listen to the villain’s side of the story, and perhaps do something that gets your model citizen license revoked.

• Find the real culprit behind your misery and (hopefully) teach them a lesson.

• Face off powerful enemies in the final showdown - can a mere mortal defeat gods?

Warnings

This game contains bad english, bad attempts at humour, swearing (badly, because the author cannot swear, but I will try my best), gore and moral ambiguity. Your choice is ultimately your own, and certain developments of the story does not reflect author’s stance.

The game also starts with a somewhat defined MC, but you are able to change their stance throughout the game.

Notable Figures

They are all potential ROs and all three are gender selectable.

  1. Whirlwind:
    A golden-haired person with a pure white half-mask and a glittering cape that matches the colour of their hair. Whirlwind has garnered quite a fan base just with their chiselled chin, tanned skin and a body that rivals a Greek god/goddess. They are the irrefutable darling of the Nova City, and the number one nemesis of Dr. Abyssus.

  2. Dr. Abyssus
    True to their name, Dr. Abyssus wears a reflective helmet and a full stealth suit. As a slightly-built person, the Doctor is not formidable in hand-to-hand combat, but rather, they utilise their affinity with darkness and frightening intelligence to climb to the top of Underworld. With the ability to manipulate shadows and the brilliant inventions of portable energy weapons, Dr. Abyssus has become the shadow to Whirlwind’s light.

  3. Robert(a) Miller:
    Robert(a) Miller is a tall person with a widow’s peak and a pair of steely grey eyes. Their nose is too long and their chin is too sharp to be considered handsome, but there is something compelling about their seriousness.

Feedback

Grammars, spellings (I tend to miss words), strange sentence structures and expressions, unnatural scene transition, pace … Well, basically, everything.

Log

2/12: Updated character customisation.
2/19: Fully updated chapter 3.
2/22: Revised a bit of chapter 3 and chapter 1.

To play the demo, go here: Demo

198 Likes

And just for my own curiosity:

Who do you like best?

  • The Hero
  • The Villain
  • The Detective

0 voters

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Character creation menu doesn’t do much, as it turned out. I still have to select my name and sex, still have to choose the genders of LIs and it doesn’t transfer over to chapter one at all.

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Ah, that is only for MC not starting from chapter 1, like from chapter 2 and 3.

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If it’s for testing purposes, can it be marked as such? It jut is a tad confusing to realise character creation did nothing in my case.

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Sure, thanks for your feedback!

I’m only on chapter one but I really enjoy this story so far! Also can we customize the Mc?

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Phrase highlighted in pink looks a bit weird to me. I’m not a native speaker, but I’d write it more like “were you currently not his captive, you would have…”

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“must have been in his early twenties”, 'sneaked". Or “snuck”, if you are a Northern American. “Since then, Dr. Abyssus remains the champion of…” should probably be changed to “remained”.

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Phrase with “his first appearance is only six years ago” sounds somewhat clumsy and a bit weird. Also, I hope Whirlwild doesn’t have a singular shoulder.

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Should probably be “not foolish enough”.

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Tenses are weird here and “hand myself over” misses a “to”. Also, “cares”.

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My character is a woman, but people use a wrong pronoun when they refer to her. Also, phrase “feet touches” is weird, you usually should not add -s to verbs following items in multiple quantity. Lakeside Street is also not capitalised.

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“Well up” misses “up”, tense got a bit weird and heart should probably be in multiple.

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“Stay in” misses an “in”, presence is not a word in multiple quantity, so it should probably be “there is this constant presence”. Paparazzi is a murky matter, but I’d add an -s to them to show that there are multiple.

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Weird tenses strike again. It also seems to miss “for” in a construction " for a long time". Also sudden change to Past Simple after Past Continuous is a bit sudden.

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In a construction akin to the second pink highlight there is usually a continuous tense. Face staring back at you. Also, “your” instead of “you”. “Winces” should probably be “wince”


Outside of x’s. These buildings belong to Foxwell Institute, right? Also “reply” instead of “replies” and I’d rewrite the part about being smashed in. Epic duels should be “these”. And dreams have turned to dust, not “have turn”. Present Perfect has an -ed ending for regular verbs. Didn’t mark the last part, but proper construction is "chased out of [something]‘’. It doesn’t have off.

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Watches is the correct form.

I like the idea - it can be both hilarious and tragic and heaven knows superhero genre needs to treat itself less seriously, but typos and errors just make it incredibly hard to enjoy this work. I’d feed the entire work to Grammarly or to a proofreader, my route is one of many a player can take and already I see a lot of errors. It has great potential, it just needs to be proofread and not abandoned five months into the development cycle.

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So when I was playing in the wip i was using developer tools and found a status powered so I hope it’s not too spoiler but in future chapters does this mean the MC can get super powers and it will be interesting because I like to imagine my MC gunning after the villain and the superhero for ruining their lives and getting super powers at the same time making them more dangerous than the hero and the villain at the same time it’s just a simple yes or no answer by the way so you do not have to go on details if it’s spoiler

@Heart_Attack Thank you. I plan to add more in chapter 1 later down the road.

@vera Thanks a lot for the detailed feedbacks! Unfortunately I don’t have a proofreader and I can’t afford grammarly, so … there is only me now. I will try to correct as I go along, but I’ll probably miss a ton.

@Ronin_101 Yeah, it is one of the possible endings. But … there is a great cost.

I’m pretty sure Grammarly is free? There’s a premium version, but the standard works perfectly well

There are also add-ons that work in browser. I used one of them on Edge, another on Firefox and they both work well. You can write the text in first and then add the code. Grammarly can be an add-on for Edge, Edge also has Microsoft Editor.

@Anna_B @vera Thank you, I will take a look then!

I don’t have anything constructive to say, but that I absolutely loved the story, the characters and the humor. The whole idea is 11/10 to me. Thank you for making my day!

1 Like

Absolutely LOVING this so far. I simply adore the premise of being the citizen who suffers at the hands of supers, its not a topic that is explored that often and so far it’s coming along beautifully. I really hope we get the chance to just EXPLODE, call Whirlwind and Abyssus both idiots and just tear into them with a tangent on how they ruined our life. Like seriously, jobless and homeless thanks to them and neither offering to put me up?! Rude. Though I get why the villain wouldn’t at first, but still…come on stop being so self-centered, jeez.

10/10 will be keeping a close eye on this and waiting with bated breath for the next update. Oh, one last thing. We can romance Abyssus yes?

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One of the ROs, yeah. Although I know my poor lass whom I’ve named after myself will probably end up with the Detective because other options just look incredibly awful from her perspective.

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@Riktiktik I am glad that you think so! I was worried about the humour being weird.

@Kitty_Gaige well probably soon. According to the outline, you get to give them a tongue-lashing at around chapter 4. And the reason for Whirlwind not helping at first is … sort of related to their secret. You will find out soon :wink:

And yes! Dr. Abyssus is definitely romanceable. But they are probably the last one to realise it ( compared to the rest of the cast). And their romance achievement name is probably my personal favourite.

@vera Thanks again for the recommendation! I think grammarly works now and I’ve already ran the whole script with it once.

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i feel like a clown, i keep picking the RO that waits around the longest
(this is true after the exile and picking dr abyssus)

Really liked the premise so far of the story.

Can’t help thinking, if this continues then I am thinking to look for a support group. I am thinking their might be one or two out their.

@Clary_Fray Ah, sorry about that. But our Doctor can be rather dumb when it comes to certain things (well, basically anything NOT related to their beloved inventions). It will take them a while to realise what is going on!

@Dpwjeremy thank you! I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but I am curious what is a support group? I am rather new to the whole writing community and I’m not sure what is the standard procedure (if there is such a thing).

1 Like