Thanks for your continued support! Here's a look at an engine I've been working on for hybrid interactive fiction/RPG/adventure games. (the video is an attachment at the bottom of this post.) This is the result of a couple day's worth of work. I made it with Livecode, which is my new favorite development environment. I do have an idea in mind for a game I want to make and a story I want to tell, hopefully I'll be able to refine and polish the engine enough to make what I'm envisioning. Further development blogs and videos will be posted here.
As thanks for supporting me, here's a brief outline of what I want to make:
The working title for the game is "A Botched Invocation". You play a demon from the underworld who has been rudely yanked out of her home and summoned in an arcane ritual. But something went wrong. Whoever cast the spell didn't know what they were doing. They must have said the incantation wrong, or not inscribed the pentagram properly. You were supposed to have been summoned into Mundus, the land of the living, full of magic and monsters. But you ended up between the two realms. In the deadlands. The world of lost and tortured souls. And now you have to figure out how to get home.
You have a choice of three demonic sub-classes which will impact how you start the game, although you can develop your skills in any way you choose after that. The imp is a small, mischievous demon with bat-like wings who is not very strong, but can fly for short distances, more easily evade her foes, and is good at getting into places she's not supposed to be. The scholar is a wise solitary demon who knows a lot about magic and the lore of the dead. And the fiend is a vicious fighter with razor-sharp claws and a thick, tough hide to ward off the hostile denizens of the nether world.
The lost souls you find yourself surrounded by are there because they have unfinished business. Some of them are trying to atone for their past sins and get another chance to spin the karmic wheel, a shot at a new life. These people you meet are likely to be helpful, and teach you how to navigate this strange, hostile world.
Some of the ghosts and phantoms you'll meet are unrepentant, have no hopes of reincarnation, but have found a meager existence in this strange barren limbo. They're resentful of a demon intruding in the niche they carved for themselves, and will do everything in their power to banish you. After all, you work for the devil. You're a cog in the great infernal bureaucratic machine that will decide what happens to them once their ghostly existence comes to an end.
Everyone you meet, friend and foe alike, must find the zeal to hang onto their existence. Zeal crystals are small fragments of energy that contain the spark of life, and in the middle world, it's more valuable than any precious jewel or metal. It's what sustains existence. It's what keeps the souls from succumbing to the pull of oblivion. Your foes will try to take it from you, your friends will want to barter for it. But it's a very useful resource. As a demon, you're not supposed to be in this world. You're not susceptible to the pull of oblivion or the karmic cycle. You need to use your wits to figure out how to get home. Will you try to find a portal to the underworld? Will you seek out whoever summoned you and fulfill whatever minor geas they summoned you for, or will you seek revenge on the bumbling witch or warlock that trapped you in this miserable place?
A Botched Invocation, coming to personal computers in Q4 20XX.