next »

[Panurge]

This is a solo project with music by the talented Benjamin Belinska. The basic gameplay is all complete and it just needs polish and a ton of writing now.

If I had to describe it as 'x meets y' (and protocol demands that I do) then I would say it's 'Papers, Please!' meets 'Black and White'. Only it's a lot simpler than that sounds. And with a completely different theme. Also, I'd be embarrassed if people thought I was comparing it to either of those excellent games. Actually, forget I said anything.

SNOW!!!

]

BACKSTORY!!!

RANDOMLY GENERATED CURSES!!!

STUFF!!!

[McMutton]

Seems pretty interesting; I rather like the art style. I'm guessing the gameplay consists of deciding what requests to fulfill and which to deny, based on which flame you use?

[Panurge]

Thank you, and you're exactly right. The basic idea is that you collect and then choose to grant or deny prayers and curses and the village changes according to your decisions.

[Panurge]

Another randomly generated prayer. Don't push your luck, F!

[Panurge]

And another, for the sake of balance.

[Panurge]

Today I spent hours working on 'jostle' behaviour for the pages. I'm quite proud of it but probably the only people who'll notice it are people who've spent hours working on it...

[Panurge]

A humble crow:



The granting/denying of prayers and curses is working out very nicely but the 'action' sections need sexing up a bit so I've brought in crows to snatch away the pages and witching men to play various tricks on your cursor.

The witching men will also be able to get at you through 'poisoned' prayers if you don't read them carefully enough...

[Cakeypigdog]

Such a great name for game. Love it.

[collider]

"more spirit in the bedchamber"
Your writing cracks me up. I just want to open the plist and read the curses like a novel
I was sorry to see After the Comet (mostly) go away, but looking forward to this!

[Panurge]

Cakeypigdog - Thanks, the name actually came before anything else.

Collider - Glad you enjoyed them - the curses are a lot of fun to write. As for After the Comet, I'm actually still working quietly on it from time to time but I've let the devlog drop because it may be a while (if ever) before I have anything worth showing...

[collider]

Good to hear... I won't mention it again, I don't want to jinx it...

[Cathay]

Hello everyone,

I am the aforementioned Benjamin Belinska - just thought I'd share some of the music I'm writing for this game...

https://soundcloud.com/belinska/the-winter-child-titles

https://soundcloud.com/belinska/the-winter-child-ambient-1

There is a gentle side to being godly after all.

- b

[Panurge]

Some prayers are more urgent than others.

[Panurge]

The sprites are still very rough but I've now got the village expanding and shrinking according to your decisions.

[Panurge]

I've introduced some lighting to make the shrine seem a little cosier. If anyone knows a way to give it a flickering candle effect which isn't as annoying as a busted strip-light and has no chance of inducing an epileptic fit, I'd love to hear it... I guess shadows would help but I don't want to crowd the environment.

[Panurge]

I was pleased to put my maths hat on today and find that I had a few billion possible prayers and curses already, so I thought I'd write a quick post to explain how they'll work.

There are dictionaries set up for a heap of different variables - names, jobs, household objects, animals, complimentary and pejorative adjectives etc - and each prayer is generated by slotting a mix of these into one of about 60 different templates. In addition, each curse consists of two templates bolted together - one describing the 'crime' the victim has committed and one requesting a punishment.

Crimes and punishments are tagged with scores reflecting their severity and the relationship between these scores will affect how the player is perceived when granting or denying curses. Power is gained through granting requests but players can also choose to be merciful or ruthless and their decisions will affect how they are seen by the villagers and how the village itself develops.

It won't all be black and white, however. It may be that granting seemingly worthy requests will have negative effects and vice versa. For example, allowing a murderer to be struck down with a wasting disease might lead to the accidental infection of more villagers, something which will be reflected in their future prayers.

There is a system behind the scenes to keep track of all these things but I won't make the scores themselves explicit - I want it to feel as natural as possible.

[Panurge]

The world's worst Christmas tree.

(Not to be included in the game - just messing about testing out crow behaviour...)

[Panurge]

I've had a number of people (one is a number, right?) ask me why I goofed and let the mouse cursor roam around that last gif, so I thought I should mention that the cursor itself is quite important to the gameplay.

You'll see that the cursor gets separated from the hand when a crow snatches the hand away. This is basically the 'death mechanic' - you have to enter the game by clicking on and possessing the hand but you'll lose agency (and valuable time) when the hand gets hurt and will have to quickly re-possess it.

[Panurge]

The prayers occasionally turn up a nice surprise, as in this convoluted curse:



How many other god games allow you to upgrade your environment with lace tablecloths? I can't think of a single one.

[NinthPower]

this looks so fantastic and whimsical, keep it up!