Those Long Dead is a medieval fantasy interactive fiction story, with angelic imagery and themes worked in, and a focus on romance. It is rated 18+ for depictions of swearing, potential sexual themes, violence, and death. More warnings may be added as development goes on.
Three generations.
That's how long it's been since this kingdom was conquered. In a time of great upset, the First Queen led a rebellion against reviled rulers and oppressive laws. Waging war with unmatched cunning, she rallied many powerful soul mages, known as angels, to the cause. From that conflict, the kingdom of Calcherth was born, built on the bones of the old empire. The First Queen ruled with great compassion and wit, but not all sins are forgiven with time. For the deaths she had caused during the war, the First Queen was murdered by the very people she had endeavored to lead.
The loss of its ruler did not spell the end of Calcherth, however. The coup was quickly suppressed, and the First Queen's son took the throne in her place. Now, many years later, the scars on Calcherth's short history have faded, and advances in soul magic improve lives for many within its borders. However, those same advances are viewed as a threat by Calcherth's neighboring kingdom, and many fear war is on the horizon once more. To make matters even more dire, the Second King has suddenly passed away, leaving his youngest son to succeed the throne long before he is old enough.
The effects of these events are so far-reaching, that even you are beginning to feel them, far to the southwest in the remote town of Lest. You are the child of a retired knight of the kingdom, who traded in his sword for the deed to Lest's tavern. The Fool's March, your father has named it, and the humble, but beloved tavern has been the center point of your entire life. But now, with rumblings of war, your father plans to pick up a blade once again, heading to the capital to enlist and leaving you behind in your childhood home. With him no longer by your side, what will you do when a threat to the entire kingdom comes for you? What will you do when you find out you may be a soul mage, yourself?
Medieval Fantasy setting with angelic imagery and themes, and a focus on romance.
Adult characters, with the main cast being mid twenties to early thirties.
Customizable MC. Select your first name, last name, pronouns, appearance, orientation and manifestation of powers.
Five romance options of varying gender and personality, who you can interact with as you choose.
More to come as development continues!
Kaine Breckem (he/him) - The blacksmith's former apprentice, who your father took in and hired at the tavern a few years ago. A kind, but mischievous individual, Kaine cares about others a great deal, but that doesn't stop him from being full of snark. Kaine can be your closest childhood friend, or someone you unfortunately work with; the choice is yours to make. Regardless, he's rather protective of you... but who will protect him when he needs it?
Vermillion "Millie" Lousat (she/her) - A descendant of a noble family, Millie has extensive education and combat training... and is also quite the social butterfly. It doesn't matter if it's the docks or the Gilded District, if you want connections somewhere, Millie has them. She wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn't care about the consequences. Maybe you'll catch her eye, somewhere amidst the mass of other's trying for her affections?
Leon Calcherth (he/him) - Technically a prince, Leon is the standoffish older brother of the Young King, Caleb, but is no longer considered to be in line for the throne. He greatly regrets the situation this has put his younger brother in, as they're very close. Leon is not easy to get close to because of the way he acts, but maybe the prickly prince has a softer side underneath the thorns?
Milo Lance (they/them) - The commander of the Order of Light, and they absolutely live up to the position. Practically raised in Gilramore's guard barracks, Milo's personality tends to come across as stiff and business-like, but in actuality they simply enjoy being effective and to the point. A truly gentle soul in a warrior's suit of armor, if you can persuade them to let down their guard.
Clementene Fairwreight (she/her) - Celementene is a talented soul mage for the Order, but she is a researcher at her heart; field work isn't particularly for her. A slightly nervous disposition and bad eyesight really only add to her penchant to stay within Gilramore's white stone walls. Her surprisingly daring experiments with magic captivate most of her attention, but maybe she'll find something in you that can capture her focus as well?
Demo last updated 8/8/2024.
ITCH.IO PAGE | PATREON | DISCORD SERVER | PINTEREST
I have just gone back to re read the demo and choose the on friendly terms option with Kaine just to refresh my memory and I think the flow of it is good! It certainly doesn't have the same impact the bffs route has, which well, duh, they are not best friends and rather just friendly terms
While it is not as impactfull at the start, I think it is an important option to have! And also it is a route that gets better with time and later chapters where you can deepen the relationship in ways that years under the wing of the same man could not!
Oh my gosh, I had no idea I had gotten a response to the question I'd posted!! I am so, so sorry this response is so late!! Thank you so much for reading the demo again to check for me, I appreciate it so much. It's really good to hear perspectives on my writing that aren't just my own. 🙂↕️ I'm glad it still flows well even without the same impact as the other two paths, and you're right, it is an important option to include. Thank you for reassuring me. 🥺💕
Plan of Action and Complaint Template Regarding Adult Content Being Delisted from Itchio
Alright so as y’all may or may not know, credit card companies and other payment facilitators have put pressure on digital storefronts such as Steam and Itch.io to remove “adult content” recently largely due to lobbying by fringe radical organizations. It would be bad enough if it just affected actual porn, but you know to these people “porn” means “anything that even mentions a homosexual.” Several of my team’s projects including mini-expansions to Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy “The Fanservice Files” and “The XXX-Files,” as well as team artist @chaospyromancy’s personal side project “A Squad of Drow” have been delisted from itch.io as of last night though they are still available by direct link or from our main account page and you can still pay us for them for now but there is no telling how long they'll actually stay up. Many others have had their projects completely delisted or outright removed, and are having payments withheld from them. If you don't want to see us and other creators pushed under by this crap, you need to do something about it.
People affected by this far outnumber the people who lobbied to make it happen. These organizations are very vocal but also relatively small and very fringe, and since it is a policy decision that was created by complaints it may be able to be destroyed by complaints.
Here are the phone numbers of these companies and an email address I was able to find. We need to blow their phones off the wall and fill their inboxes with customer complaints.
Saying stuff like “sex work is real work” and “this affects black trans women,” while true, is not the kind of thing that is going to tug at the heartstrings of lib-conservative CEOs and board members and their PR teams. They’re mercenary. You need to tell them how this is going to hurt their wallets and make their customers very unhappy.
If feasible, you need to get your moms and dads on this too, and get them to get their friends on it, etc.
40-60-year old middle class white people high credit scores and stuff will have more sway with these corporations than any young adult trans person.
My team has put together a template for your phone calls and emails. Take the template and delete the [bracketed parts] that don’t apply to you.
“My name is [_____], and I’m contacting you about your recent decision to alter your user policies regarding adult content and thereby putting pressure on digital storefronts like itch.io and Steam to hide and remove adult content. By doing so, you're cutting off a significant revenue stream, [and as someone with financial investment in your company, this has me extremely concerned]
[I both buy and sell that blocked content, so this is directly interfering in my finances, and I will seek compensation.]
Products I paid for are no longer available to me, [and people are buying my products without the money going to me because of your interference with the payment processing.]
If you don’t want to lose customers and face potential legal trouble, these policies which pressure itch.io, Steam, and other digital storefronts need to be reversed.
You have changed these policies because of Collective Shout, a radical group from Australia that sent only a mere 1000 calls to destroy a significant revenue stream on your part and to interfere with my finances. This decision literally affects millions of people and millions of dollars, and so I expect a prompt response on reversing these policy changes and removing the pressure on itch.io and Steam to ban adult content on their sites. [As a cardholder, I worry that these new policies are responding to a vocal minority of customers, and I’m left doubting the reliability, versatility, and integrity of your services. I use these services to securely and conveniently make the transactions I see fit, and it’s disappointing to see legitimate, legal transactions be excluded.]
[I am furious that an American company would bend so easily to a lobbying group from a foreign country.]”
Hey guys. Sorry for the silence here... After I heard about all the stuff going on with Steam and Itch.io delisting and removing "adult" games, I've been very disheartened and worried about TLD's future, to the point that I've been scared to even check if it got removed from Itch.io or not. As of now it doesn't seem to have been delisted, but I don't know if that will change.
As you know, Those Long Dead, along with any other interactive fiction game I would make, is geared towards an adult, queer audience. The RO's in it are queer, and I have long planned to have various adult content, including completely optional sexual content in the romance routes, in the game. Because of this, payment processors pressuring Steam and Itch.io to delist or remove anything with the broad label of "adult" content is a huge deal to me and my work. I could remove much of the adult content of my games, despite the detriment to the story, but I will not remove the queer inclusion within it, and I have long seen queer media labelled as "adult" or "inappropriate" simply for being queer. I'm very scared the same will happen to Those Long Dead, because I've seen this kind of sweeping removal before, and I do not trust it. Even if it's just NSFW content today, what will it be tomorrow?
I really cannot overstate how terrified I am that this change in game hosting platforms will be permanent, because if it is, I'll have no idea where to host TLD as it develops, or where to publish it the day it's finished. I'm a mentally ill woman in her late twenties with regular physical pain, and because of this I don't currently have a job, or even a lot of hope to ever get one. I was really hoping to maybe be able to support myself a little through the few skills I have by making games, but if this restriction on game platforms is permanent, I genuinely don't know if I'll get to. I still want to finish TLD, no matter what, but I just don't know what's going to happen right now.
I don't know how many people are reading this, but please, do what you can to push back against this decision by payment processors, no matter how big or small. In the meantime, I'm going to do my best to keep working on the next update for Those Long Dead, and just hope the game is still listed on Itch.io when it's ready!! 😭💕
Does anyone who prefers the friendly dynamic with Kaine (not BFF or strained) have any feedback on chapter one's flow with that choice? I was rereading parts of that path while writing today, and I'm unsure if it has a good flow or enough impact. 🥺
Crawls out of a hole in the ground covered in blood. Along with very slowly working on chapter two, I've been refining the first chapter a bit more with edits and little additions, and one of the changes is that Kaine will nickname your MC something if on the BFF/Crush path. You can select the nickname from a list. It's really cute, I promise.
Hello again! My last update I was waiting for doctors appointment and tests to be done, and I am now being treated for something that I am hoping is the source of my physical health issues. It's been about a week on the new medication, and I can't be sure yet, but I think I'm starting to feel a bit better, so I'm a little hopeful!
On that note, I've returned to working on TLD as regularly as I'm able. My plan for the immediate future is to finish edits to the first chapter, and get at least a rough draft of the full second chapter finished, and then I would like to share that as an early-access alpha build through Patreon.
There are two reasons for the alpha build: First, last time I pushed an update straight to the public demo, there were several bugs, typos, etc, that I had missed, and I would like to have these tested and fixed through sharing an alpha build via Patreon as a testing period, before the update is made public. Second, and I hate to say it, but as someone who cannot currently work because of mental and physical health issues, any kind of financial support I could possibly receive from this project, I sorely need. So, I would like to use Patreon as a way for readers to support my work, while gaining access to different benefits or behind-the-scenes content, such as the alpha builds.
I know I soft-launched a Patreon previously that has been quietly available, but if my health improvement holds, I would like to get much more serious about it with the next TLD update.
Sorry for the long update, but I hope it's nice to hear some good news this time? 😅
Hey there! Don't worry, I'm still around, and work on TLD is still ongoing. Unfortunately, I will admit things have slowed down in the past months, because of some health issues I'm still trying to figure out the cause of... I have a theory, and a referral to a specialist, but I still need to wait a while until the appointment to see if said theory has merit.
What bothers me the most about my laundry list of health issues is that it's getting harder and harder for me to concentrate... on anything at all, really, way beyond what could be written off as my ADHD diagnosis. So writing has become a lot harder, even if it's all I want to do. Which to be honest, really sucks, because I want to share more of TLD's story so bad! 😭
But yeah, summary of this update is that I am waiting for doctors appointments, but in the meantime I am still trying desperately to do the tiny bits of writing I can manage. Hopefully, I can get my health issues sorted out soon, and get back to doing things that I enjoy, like writing TLD. 🥲💕
if sounds great but does it not work for ios/iphone?
Um, I genuinely wouldn't know, I'm afraid! I think any device that can view a webpage could theoretically play the itch.io build, but I don't have any ios devices to test that specifically. As I've said previously, I'm mainly developing this game for desktop/PC, and because of that mobile support is not a big priority of mine, though I have tried to fix things enough that the game is at least somewhat playable on mobile... hopefully... 🥲
hi hello! idk if youve heard but dashingdon is getting shut down soon! you might wanna get a back up of your files if you havent !
I have heard actually, but thank you for letting me know! Luckily I already moved TLD to Twine a while back, and it's now hosted on itch.io, so I'm not one of the developers that is affected by this. It's quite sad to see dashingdon go, though... 😭
Ok that was fast! I finished the demo and I am definetelly curious what you will cook up for it!
Also Martim please DON'T DIE, I HAVE BARELLY KNOWN YOU BUT YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD FATHER YOU DESERVE TO COME BACK HOME TO YOUR KID MAN
In any case! That was a good introduction to your IF! Good work dear author! Wishing you a good day!
I'm so pleased you came away from the first chapter excited for more!! That means everything to me... 😭💕
I've really enjoyed hearing the responses to Martin's character; it's such a relief that my writing did in fact get across what a lovable man he is, and that people are becoming attached to him even after just one chapter!
Thank you so much for your appreciation, and for letting me know your thoughts. Getting kind feedback is really what keeps me motivated to keep developing the story, so I appreciate it more than I can express. 🥺
Ok ok ok so, I just found your IF and I am giving it a chance as I type this
I have barelly started it but I HAD to come here and say, THE SOUND EFFECTS OF IT ARE SO SATISFYING TO HEAR
The page turn, the menu, the saving, really, even if after reading it it turns out to not be my type of IF (which I doubt btw, it has already grabbed my intrigue pretty hard from the get go, but we'll see!), I still have to commend you for having an incredible good taste in sound effects lol
Now I shall go back to reading it! Have a good day dear author!
This is so sweet... It makes me so happy that the sound effects I added are appreciated! 🥺💕 I chose to go with paper sounds to make the game feel even more like a book. Thank you for letting me know how much you like them, and thank you as well for giving my silly little game project a play!
This is just kind of an FYI, but it's possible you may see more than one IF WIP from me in the future. Not only just Those Long Dead, which is tentatively planned to have two main games and an in-universe spinoff game, but entirely new games... because I have a few living in my mind, developing on the backburner. TLD is, and would still be, my main focus, but yeah!
