I'm working on an entry for the Text Adventure Competition run by Matt Rock in DBPro, and this is what I have.
It's called 'Pulse'.
What is it?
It's a 'select the option' text adventure instead of something parser based, the system I've used is fairly basic and runs off of LUA scripts - this of course will be the first project I'll actually complete. (wooohoo!) I did have another more complex system, but I found it was too buggy and thought I'd revert to a more basic and stable version of the engine so that I could work on the more important aspects - the Text Adventure. So I'm not going to score for having a decent engine (but it does the job)
What's it about?
Disclaimer: This isn't anti-religious (I will explain later)
It's a dystopiate soft sci-fi - that's the best way I'd define it. Or in more detail it's a game set in a future world where technology has advanced (but not a lot in this case), the future of course not being so bright and the emphasis will not be on the technology.
The story itself, you - Byulf and your childhood friend Krem have grown up in one of the worst parts of town, but you have always stood for what is right and have not fallen victim to the life of pimps, gangsters and the sort. Society has fallen under a religious obsession - there was a crusade that many soldiers went on to their holy land and rid it of all 'heathens', these 'heathens' being similar to that of pagans. During the crusade, Kings and Emporers got obsessed with this new faith, allowing religious leaders and groups to become more powerful than themselves, Kings had to give in to the demand of their 'god' of course, with absolute power, comes absolute corruption - this is where it paralells the Catholic Church of the medieval times - they sought to use the word of god to control people, to convince them to do and believe what they say or be cast out as pagans.
With diplomats becoming a dying breed it has meant society has been difficult to maintain and places away from the main city centres have become lawless, they have become 'condemned' by the leaders and that is why there are dangerous pimps, gangster and prostitutes roaming the streets.
Byulf and Krem however stand out from some of these types, they're not weak - though earlier in life in order to survive they resorted to thievery and bounty hunting. Their moral instinct kicked in and they read books, various 'banned' books they could buy from the market, these were books of philosophers and even relgious people - this lead to a dislike for the preachers - not only because they're responsible for the decline of society, but also because they've indoctrinate so many into a life of wrong doing, to conformty, which is what religion and philosophy isn't about. Incidentally this leads them to act out against this 'church' and this becomes their business.
But who is behind the face of indoctrination? A fearsome man they call 'The Preacher', who manages to force his words onto those who disobey his will, he calls it "god's will", he refers to them as 'pagans' and is set on removing all 'paganistic' things in existence - killing off proud history and encapsulates these 'pagans' in his propagandic speech. But it's not that you should fear, facing death in the hands of the preacher is lucky, escaping his grasp is near impossible and the things he can do to you...well I won't spoil it for you.
That should give you enough detail on the story.
Media
The media I'm using isn't essential as the game shouldn't rely on media, but I'm using it for atmosphere, of course the media I'm creating on my own (backgrounds and music)
What does it look like?
Screenshots, what everybody likes to see - as a text adventure screenshots don't show a lot, but this should give you an idea:
[Edit] That screeny has just made me realise, all the other options are MISSING! Seems I forgot to change a variable, doh!
Demo?
No demo? Shame, well this is where you come in, I hope to have one released by the end of the week - do you know what that means? You get to nag me to death until I give you one - it's a good system I think.
How Much Have I done?
In the grand scheme of things? Not much compared to what I plan. I worked on Proloque and chapter 1 of my first idea before decided I didn't like it. Then found a lot of bugs in my engine and now am implementing chapter 1 into the engine.
And how much will I have? Who knows, I've already written a lot and I can write a lot more, it all depends how much I can have done by the due date for the entry. By the end of the week, they will be enough for you to explore and to discover to make a judgment on the game itself.
Cheers!
"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant
