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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsMasques and Murder! - Renaissance vengeance simulator!
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jamesP
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« on: May 09, 2015, 05:16:00 AM »

Masques and Murder!

Update: the game is finished! Get it here.

Your family is dead, slain by the prince and his three ungodly
sons. Greedy and manipulative, they plan to marry you off to seize your
family's fortunes. But you will not sit idly by: your mind is fixed upon
vengeance. When these brothers least suspect it, you will make them pay.




Set in the late 16th century, "Masques and Murder!" is a Renaissance vengeance simulator featuring music, debates, theological discussions, sex and murder. Lots and lots of murder.


Gameplay
The focus is on improving your skills. The more skilful you are, the more impressed the three brothers will be. Impress them enough and they will drop their guard.

This is the main screen:




Each day consists of three periods: morning, afternoon and evening. Choose what you want to do for each period. You'll also need to manage your mood and attend public events: dances, recitals, debates and so on.

When you visit another character, the game shows the conversation sort of like a visual novel:




Art and music
Pretty much all the art is from Renaissance or Baroque paintings. There's some really lovely stuff in here thanks to long-dead 16th-century painters.





Likewise, all the music is public domain stuff from the same period.


Progress so far

The game is pretty far along. Most assets are finished, and most systems are implemented. You can play the game start to finish.

These are the things I still have to work on:

- A bit more writing. Most skills have unique text for each level of training; most of these are done but there's a bit left.
- A "trigger-warning" system - I want people to be able to tick a box and play the game without being triggered by potential abuse/rape scenes.
- A final pass of all the text.
- I also want to change the mechanics for one sub-plot - at the moment it's very simple and I'd like to make it more complex.
- Debugging the savegame system
- General balancing

No idea when it'll be done but it's getting quite close now! I'll sporadically post here as the project continues.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2015, 05:23:21 AM by jamesP » Logged

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jamesP
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« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2015, 03:46:07 AM »

Each skill now has a different bit of flavour-text for each skill level. So training at a low level will yield something like this:


but training at a high level will give you something like this:


Next up, I plan to make a pass of the entire text for a second draft, and implement a content filter. Getting quite close now! :D
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Greipur
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« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2015, 06:38:26 AM »

Utilising older art is something I'd like to see in more games, I loved its irreverent usage in Rock of Ages for example.

Also, as a person who love usage of old language I'm happy that you've tried to use some olde English. Smiley
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jamesP
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« Reply #3 on: May 25, 2015, 06:51:28 AM »

Thanks! I got the inspiration from Avant-Garde, an artist RPG set in 19th century Paris which used art from the period.

I also love using older forms of English! It's great fun! :D The hardest part is deciding where to stop. I've decided to fully commit to "thee" and "thou" (with the correct verb endings, too), but leave out some of the harder vocabulary.

For example, "doubt" originally meant "fear", so "I doubt he will kill me" means "I think he will kill me" in Renaissance English... a bit confusing for most people!
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Greipur
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« Reply #4 on: May 25, 2015, 11:25:00 AM »

For example, "doubt" originally meant "fear", so "I doubt he will kill me" means "I think he will kill me" in Renaissance English... a bit confusing for most people!


Yeah, I doubt I would've understood that.  Wink
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jamesP
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« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2015, 05:22:44 AM »

And it's done! You can get it on itch.io by following this finely-crafted link. Smiley
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A Strange Bird
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« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2015, 02:40:29 PM »

Ohh, I will certainly play it soon! Beyond excited!
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jamesP
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« Reply #7 on: August 21, 2015, 01:14:11 AM »

Thank you! :D

Strangely, I completely forgot that people could give me money for this. So I was surprised when some people actually paid for it! XD
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« Reply #8 on: August 21, 2015, 04:35:07 AM »

Wait, so you can pay for it? ;o where?
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jamesP
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« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2015, 06:45:06 AM »

If you click the download link, you can then click the "Download Now" button and a box will pop up with a suggested price ($5). You can choose not to give any money, which is totally fine, but I wanted to at least hint that I'd appreciate a purchase given I've been working on this for over a year. Wink

But seriously, don't pay for it if you don't want to/can't afford it. I completely understand if you're not in a position to throw money at me - plus the game's a bit niche, so some people might feel ripped off if they paid for it and got something a bit weirder than they imagined.
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Christian
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« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2015, 10:33:44 AM »

Wrote about the game on my blog
http://indiegameenthusiast.blogspot.com/2015/08/no-money-no-problem-masques-murder.html

Really enjoyed it, the polish and time spent on the game shows
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jamesP
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« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2015, 02:07:11 PM »

Thanks for the writeup, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Smiley
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« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2015, 07:12:21 AM »

I played a bit of it, and I loved it! Definitely buying it tomorrow or at least asap Smiley also love how Justitia (without spoiling too much) gets stronger and better, something you usually don't see that often about things in this time period about women, it's great! 
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jamesP
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« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2015, 08:18:43 AM »

Thanks so much, I'm glad you like it! And I'm glad I was able to get that across. Smiley
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