The crowning of a jealous king one century ago spelled the doom of invokers, beings bestowed with the ability to control the essence of the world and manifest it in the surface. Out of envy that he was naught but a normal human, he ordered the capture and execution of invokers, reinforcing his power as a king. He made an enemy out of your people to secure his pride and throne.
A hundred of years passed and the slaughter only continues, a jealous ruler crowned one after another. The land of Zandria is stained with the blood of your ancestors, and it only continues to spill. You, who were once revered, admired, and loved, are now loathed, imprisoned, and executed simply for bearing the ability to manipulate aether, the essence of the land of Aeresia.
You are an invoker. Do you have what it takes to survive the wrath of a land that calls for your death? Or will you, like the ones before you, fall into the abyss?
Abyssal Depths is a dark fantasy set in the fictional world of Aeresia. It is the revamped version of my interactive fiction previously titled Invoker.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ Who are you? Only you have the answer to that question.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ Build bonds with the people you meet. Friendship, rivalry, romance — pick your poison.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ Disguise yourself as a human, working as a mercenary for the guild Sentinel. Try your best to hide the truth from your guildmates.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ Do your job. Who knows? Maybe along the way, you'll find what you're looking for.
˖⋆࿐໋₊ Survive. Perhaps you'll live long enough to see all the mysteries unravel.
Elfrid Basset [f] ✦ Your childhood friend and the daughter of the woman who saved you. Elfrid has always had a strong personality, always pushing you out of your comfort zone. Stubborn, impulsive, yet caring to those she cares about, there was never a time where trouble never followed her. She doesn't know your truth, but as people say, there is no secret that lasts forever.
Lucianus le Cordiér [m] ✦ An ex-noble you and Elfrid stumbled upon a year ago one night. Without the riches and reputation his family once had, Lucian brandished his skill as a swordsman and earned himself a spot as a mercenary in the same guild as you. He appears kind, gentle and open, but the air of mystery that surrounds him proves that no one truly knows who he was once.
Alcaeus Vanderbilt [m] ✦ A person from your past that you thought you will never see again. Meeting him may mean good things, but perhaps it also meant that the ghosts from your past are now catching up to you. Smart, skilled, but surrounded by walls he built to protect himself, Alcaeus won't let anyone take away anything from him again.
Amelia Vanderbilt [f] ✦ Someone from your past who lives with the guilt of surviving. Amelia has always been sickly, but despite everything she has outlived everyone else. She's still the timid and soft-spoken girl you barely saw back home, the only thing you can't believe is her unwavering trust that there is still good left in the world you're both living in.
Clair [m] ✦ A traveling bard who decided one day it will be fun to go adventuring with you and your group. He said he wants to turn your exploits into a great story, and no matter how hard you dissuade him, he never relents. Charming and cunning, that's how Clair is, and you never realized how dangerous those two qualities together were until you met him.
Salomé [f] ✦ An eccentric woman you met in the middle of your mission. Boisterous, fun, yet eccentric, it's hard not to notice her with all the rings that adorn her fingers and the scars that she flaunts like trophies. She tries to come off as someone who knows nothing, but you have the feeling that she hides something you need to know. You wonder what it could be.
Kazehara [f/m/nb] ✦ With clothes you've never seen around Zandria, Kazehara stood out like a sore thumb the first time you saw them. Framed for a murder they swear they never did, they join you in an attempt to clear their name. Sarcastic, cynical, and brash, there is never a shortage of insult from Kazehara. However, you know too well that it's merely an image they conjured to protect themselves in a land they know nothing about.
??? [f/m/nb] ✦ A figure in your dreams, blurred and ever changing. A memory of the past, a phantom of your grief, your desire for warmth — you do not know. However, the way they speak, the way they try to meet your eyes behind the fog that keeps them at bay, and the way they try to reach for you make them seem real. They feel familiar, and there exists a tug in your soul that pulls you closer to them.
OTHERS
✦ Ask box is open! Any question is okay but there is no guarantee that your ask will be answered. Anything that are spoilery, disrespectful, and extremely explicit will be deleted. ^^
✦ The demo for Invoker can still be accessed through google search. However, it hasn't been updated since 2021, and won't be updated anymore.
✦ This project is not my main focus as I'm a full time university student. My goal is to release the demo before 2024 ends, though.
✦ I haven't decided which platform to use for the demo yet, but rest assured that writing is as consistent as it can be despite my busy schedule. I haven't had the chance to learn how to use Twine yet, so I'm either planning to look for a collaborator who can code in Twine or stick with choicescript first until I get to learn how to use Twine.
✦ I will be posting character profiles for the ROs, though there are no set dates yet. This is to give way for a more detailed description for their personality and physical appearance.
Hi! Okay, I know I have been silent for weeks and it's almost the end of another week, but don't worry! I'm alive and writing—just really didn't have the energy to open my socials after the semester ended, hence the lack of updates. This one will be short, but yeah, if I were to estimate, I'm 70% done in regards to content, and after writing the last 30%, I'll be able to focus on implementing the stats (perhaps not all, but we'll see)!
Sometimes, though, I get insecure about my writing and progress that at days, I lose the motivation to work. I know I'm really slow, and knowing I could update every few months years ago when I was just starting really bums me out sometimes. But it's alright—the writing community in tumblr in general has such a good way of dismissing my worries, which is good, because it keeps me writing! Anyways, that's all for me for now. Below the cut are snippets of interactions you can possibly have with Lucian and Elfrid each! :>
hi, a very short and sweet devlog here :p it's currently 2:34 am on a wednesday here as of writing this and i just want to apologize first for not being able to post this on the recent weekend that has passed! been super busy (i fumbled my linguistics finals so bad and had to recover) since i had (still have, hence why i'm up so late) so many papers to cram finish. (˃̣̣̥ᯅ˂̣̣̥)
anyhow! just wanted to tell y'all that i added 3k worth of words last saturday and sunday. :> not much ik but i'm working on it despite may being such a busy month. i probably would have added more if i didn't get distracted with expanding the lore of the universe AD takes place in...
still, i'm so excited because i'm super duper close to it! i actually uploaded it on cogdemos, but i'm keeping it private because i use it to playtest it from time to time whenever i'm not in front of my laptop. and to the anon who's asking for teasing elfrid crumbs... sorry! but you need to wait a few more days for that. the second elfrid scene that takes place in the prologue isn't that lighthearted sooo... there's that. :D
that's all for tonight! have a great week ahead. ♡
Leonora is a UI template for use with the Sugarcube story format in Twine.
Inspired by an imaginary cathedral by the sea and the distorted, sacred devotions of a woman who was once a girl there.
Did this template need three stories for its demo? No, but here they are anyway: there's flash fiction, a petite novelette, and a branching interactive adventure to show off everything Leonora can do. All lovingly written, coded, and styled by hand.
Features:
Mannerism-inspired design
3 built-in themes (dark, light, sepia)
Customisable title screen
Matching settings & save menus
Optional built-in Character Profile
Annotated passage guide, CSS stylesheet, and Story Javascript for easy customisation
Customisation guide included with template
Responsive design for desktop, tablets, and mobile devices
Includes both portrait and landscape styling for small screens
Download + play the demo on itch:
a mannerist sugarcube (twine) template. A browser template made in HTML5
This one is just going to be a bit short—I just wanted to let you know how's it going. The past week didn't see any progress in writing because I fell sick, but today, I finally got to writing and added another chunk of 1.5k words to the current wordcount. Just two more scenes and I'll finally get back to the part where the chapter 1 of the previous version started, so it means we're getting closer to a playable demo because I won't have to write anything from scratch starting from that point! It's still the afternoon here by the time I post this so I might get some more writing done later tonight. :>
I'll also attach below the list of deadlines I have for uni so y'all will have a rough idea of when can I steal some time for writing, but aaa, I'm just so excited to get past the half of May already because after that, I'll have loads of free time again.
Anyway,that's all! Keep safe and have a great May, everyone. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
My deadlines below the cut:
The May 9 to 30 is my exam season, hence the long duration. Keep in mind that there might still be a few more things to do that may pop up any day, though.
Hiii! A bit of a comprehensive devlog for Abyssal Depths' current progress so far. I'll also be talking about some of the plans I have for the game mechanics to give a heads up about the upcoming demo.
Story
Made a significant progress this week! Elfrid's scene was long done, and Lucian's needs just one more portion finished before the prologue progresses further. I'm past the original wordcount of the old demo's prologue and chapter 1 combined too, so the current prologue is definitely longer. This is also considering that the old chapter 1 is merged with the prologue now, with additional scenes that wasn't in the old version of the story. Starting tomorrow (monday), however, progress is gonna be a bit slow again because I'll be returning to school (last week was a long-week break for us). I've set the weekends as my writing day, though, to at least ascertain that I'll have progress no matter how little. May is my finals, though, so I'll also be a bit busier. But! After that is vacation, finally, so lots of time to write again!
Game mechanics and plans
If you're one of the people who liked code diving and saw the files for the old demo, you probably saw how messy my coding was. I had lots of variables, which, in my defense, made writing easier for past me. That isn't the case now—I found myself having less patience with tracking tens of variables every time I have to add choices and stat checks. So! With that said, I decided to tweak the stats for easier tracking.
Instead of percentage, I made the numerical value into whole numbers instead. Meaning, instead of adding or subtracting %N (number) for a moderate increase/decrease in stats, it will be like +N instead. This is because it gets significantly difficult to accumulate points the higher your stat goes. There's no more visible opposed_pair stat bars as well, as I'll be turning every stat into text rather than making it numerical. There are still stats that go against each other, like the personality stats. For example, it still goes like sincere or cynical, you just won't see them in a stats bar anymore, just a text description of what kind of person your character is.
Your choices, then, have 6 instances: slight, moderate, and high increase or decrease. However! Don't be scared if, say, a stat decreases. There's no such thing as a bad ending for the story, just different outcomes. I, myself, don't like reading bad endings, so that's one thing I actively avoid in writing. I like angst, though, so you might find yourself in interesting situations with characters you have a low relationship stat with. A reminder too that you don't entirely have to be good to a character in order to romance them. You can play as a mean or stoic character and still be able to get romantically involved with characters. If you're not one for romance, that's alright too!
For easier gameplay, a heart symbol like this [♡] will be in a choice that indicates an increase in romance points. Additionally, you can play as a character who can be "in denial" of their feelings towards a character. Keep in mind that this automatically determines that your character is romantically interested in a person, but it doesn't stop you from gaining romance points with other character. Moreover, you don't have to actively show interest to gain romance points. Sometimes, even choices that may seem normal give romance points. Although, keep in mind that you still need to show interest sometimes to garner enough romance points and be able to choose a character as your RO.
Another thing, I pulled out the character profiles I posted for the meantime. I'm changing some info that doesn't fit them anymore, so I took them out.
I think that's all for now, since the rest of the game mechanics is pretty much something you'll directly notice once you get to play the demo. I just thought it might be a good thing to explain a bit here so that you'll have an idea as well about the type of character you want to play as. Have a good week ahead, everyone!
you know you're cooked when even you yourself get giddy because of romance scenes you're writing. also, what do you mean i wrote almost 2k worth of words in just 3 hours? and i haven't even had coffee yet. wews.
I made a discord server! Please join if you are an IF writer or a writer in general. I hope we can create a community that supports and welcomes each other.
A server for Interactive Fiction writers to gather together and share their passion for IFs. | 4 members
i would love a group like this! i remember when the interact-if discord server was still small years ago with writers in it helping each other figure out coding, LOL. so fun! i think we should bring such a group back. ( ≧∀≦)ノ
Not only your blog but many other IF authors I follow have their blogs censored and marked as having "adult content" (I even seen a BIRD BLOG be censored)
Maybe this is why your tumblr is laggy?
hm, that is weird! i tried checking some tumblr accounts of VNs i follow that have mature/sensitive content, and some are being "censored" but some are still viewable, albeit the entirety of the feed would stop working for a while.
i saw a rumor that tumblr might be shutting down (re: anathemafiction's tags on their own post)? but hopefully that is not the case and this is just some faulty bug in the app. (´；ω；`)
