#ch-foundations

[townofcrosshollow]

After a few months of work, the demo of Foundations is finally being released! This initial demo includes the first two chapters of the game and several lore entries, adding up to about 20k words in total.

In this initial demo you can...

Customize your name and appearance

Meet your tether, Tobias, and many other major characters

Remember your life before Earth

Enjoy the Rocky Mountains scenery

Spy on suspicious strangers

Go job hunting

Play a game of chess

Get a little bit too drunk

The first two chapters focus on introducing you to the world, your tether, and your powers. It features hand drawn artwork and a custom user interface created by yours truly.

Note: As of right now the game is not optimized for mobile. It should generally still be playable on most mobile devices, but I would highly recommend using a computer (or tablet) rather than playing on your phone. Options for font and font size are available in settings.

Go play the demo now!

[townofcrosshollow]

Foundations is a work-in-progress interactive fiction game coded in Twine about the founding of the small, fictional town of Crosshollow. The third full entry into my Crosshollow series and the first to be a long-form narrative, Foundations is a story that has been in the works for years, and I’m excited to tell this story in a way that will do it justice as a standalone work and form a solid backstory for my future projects.

Taking place around the turn of the century, you take on the role of an ancient, incorporeal being. Many centuries ago, following a series of bad decisions, you found yourself here on Earth. To maintain your link to the physical world you must maintain a “tether” to a human- a psychic bond that can only be broken by death. And death is always close at hand, as you are being pursued by another of your kind- somebody with a grudge and infinite patience to take out his revenge.

Alongside your most recent tether, Tobias, you have been traveling around North America and staying far away from your pursuer. Short on cash, the two of you find yourselves hiding out in the remote mining towns of the Colorado mountains. The people here are not quite as they seem, however- and as tensions rise in the community and your pursuer draws near, you find yourself at the center of a conflict of both rural and cosmic proportions.

Tobias Elmore (he/him) - a traveling artist, either a musician, painter, or writer depending on your choices. An idealistic man with a free spirit and a wandering soul, he was happy to welcome you as his companion, and the two of you have become close after a months on the road together.

Edwin Harris (he/him) - a young priest who is struggling to build a sizable congregation among the religiously apathetic local miners. An outwardly respectable man, you sense that there’s something off about him- something he doesn’t want people to know.

Ada Lovett (she/her) - a young mother afflicted with consumption, she came here alongside her husband and daughter in hopes of finding relief for her illness. Instead, she’s found life in the mountains unbearably dull. Her husband’s absence and daughter acting out definitely aren’t helping things.

James Lovett (he/him) - a mining engineer and husband of Ada, he started working with the local mining company to earn a good life for his family and relieve his wife’s illness. With the mine underperforming, however, he’s found himself overworked and unable to balance work and life.

Loretta Lovett (she/her) - the pre-teen daughter of James and Ada, she’s having some trouble adjusting to her new town. Between the lack of many kids her age and the stress of growing up, she’s been acting a bit off- but you can’t help but be fascinated by her affinity for the non-physical world.

Eugene Wilson (he/him) - a mountain man with a superstitious streak, he shows an interest in Tobias his ties to the supernatural.

You are an observer. Play from the perspective of your tether and overlook other characters to change how events unfold.

You influence the people around you. Your choices determine the outcomes of the story and the relationships between the major characters.

You have power over perception. Use your powers as an extra-dimensional being to change how those around you perceive reality, but choose carefully. Power draws you closer to the Abyss.

Your manifestation matters. The appearance you choose to project when you appear before humans determines whether you are seen as an otherworldly horror or a guiding light.

Your history is what led you here. Unlock memories to understand your distant past.

The demo will be releasing on June 12th at 1:30PM EST. For updates and to follow my progress, you can follow me here or over on my itch.io page. If you have any questions about my games, please don’t hesitate to send me an ask. I track the tag "Crosshollow Foundations."

If this story interests you, you might like my previous short game. 13 Laurel Road is a game about our relationships with places, following Noah Lovett as he explores an abandoned house and reconciles with his grief and trauma.

Also, if you’ve enjoyed my games or are looking forward to this project, I humbly ask you to share this post and help me get the word out! Your support means the world to me <3

[townofcrosshollow]

Hey y’all, I’m finally opening applications for beta readers! This has been a while in the works, and now that I’m relatively confident in the current demo, after initial edits, I’m hoping to get it in front of some critical eyes before releasing it out into the world.

So what does being a beta reader entail?

Essentially, you read the game early and let me know what you think of it. That might mean telling me what you thought of the characters, how scenes made you feel, whether anything seemed rushed or too drawn out, whether you liked the writing style, etc. It also means reporting any bugs you noticed while reading. You don’t have to worry about coming up with solutions or editing line by line- just read it like you would anything else and tell me what you thought!

Some additional things:

I will be using Discord to contact you.

I am only looking for beta readers who are 18+. There is no mature content, I would just prefer to work with adults here.

You don’t need to have played my previous games- there is a question on the quiz so I can ensure I have a mix of both!

The current version of the UI is playable on phones, but not optimized for it. I highly recommend using a computer or laptop.

The version you read will be be somewhat unpolished. There may be big problems and bugs that need to be solved.

Any content warnings (for future versions of the story) will be listed in the form. Apart from minor depictions of unreality, none of them are present in the current demo.

Obviously you will be expected to keep the details (and links) to yourself.

If I decide you’re a good fit (and you typed your discord ID right), I will contact you by June 1st!

Here is the form where you can apply.

If you’re not interested in beta reading but would still like to give me a hand, sharing this around would be a great help! Thank you regardless!

[townofcrosshollow]

A Reference Guide For Making Your MC

I assume (hope!) that now that the first few chapters have been released, people are going to be thinking about who their MCs are, and it might be helpful to put out a bit of info about divine culture so you have some things to think about when coming up with your characters! I intend to do full posts going into different aspects of the lore in detail the future, but this post will just go over the basic points to give you some ideas and inspiration.

Names

In their culture, names are a series of common words including professions, locations, imagery, and accomplishments that grow and change over time. People of higher status tend to have longer names. Of course, people don’t use the whole thing in everyday situations- depending on context they’ll use different shortened “nicknames” to refer to each other.

During your MC’s time on Earth, they may have taken to using shortened versions of their original name (such as “Watcher” or “Lightbringer”) or adopted new additions to match their new circumstances (such as “Wanderer”). They may have also adopted human names or the names of mythological figures or characters that resonated with them.

Bodies

The MC’s people are taller than humans with an elongated form, especially in the limbs and neck. Regardless of gender their bodies tend to be androgynous, and their body types can vary just like humans. Their skin tends to be gray and desaturated with an undertone randing from red to blue. Their eyes are humanlike and have similar tones in the red to blue range, thought more saturated. Their hair naturally ranges from black to white, though dyes are also available. Most wear their hair long and unstyled, but it may also be tied back or decorated with braids and ribbons.

Of course, your MC is no longer in their original body. They may choose to take on a different appearance- something more humanlike, or perhaps more mythical. Even in their original form, they may have used illusions to change up their appearance in various ways, so don't feel like you need to stick very closely to any of this!

Gender

In their culture, gender is assigned to young children based on their percieved traits. Originally this would have been marked by a large ritual ceremony, but over time that basically transitioned into a fancy birthday party.

There are three genders, none of which neatly translate to human genders. They are primarily associated with social roles, physical roles, and scholarly roles. I may post more about this in the future, but that's the gist of it!

By default, the MC is assumed to be part of the scholarly gender. However this is barely referenced outside of flavour text- your MC could be one of the other two and simply held a position that was uncommon for their gender.

Fashion

In the upper-class circles that The Watcher was in during their time as a court seer, fashion was often very out there and individualistic, with uniqueness being highly valued. It was common for people to have a signature kind of iconography, sort of like heraldry. In general, though, their fashion tends to be more flowy and less structured looking, featuring lots of insertion lace, transluscent fabrics, loose construction, and metallic materials.

For visual inspiration, check out my Pinterest board (which also has some notes about sillhoette and colour in the notes section!)

Of course, your MC might have taken inspiration from contemporary fashion, or from the fashion of a time period on Earth that they particularly liked living in. I'd definitely encourage you to do some research on fashion history and see what inspires you!

And.... I think that's it! Sorry it was a bit long, I can't condense my ideas for shit lol

If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an ask! And if you make any drawings, Picrews, edits, etc. of your MC, please tag me in them! I'd love to see what you come up with!

[townofcrosshollow]

I haven’t written 1k words yet but I do like some of what I have written quite a bit. Needs refining, but nice.

[townofcrosshollow]

06/04/2021

Welcome to June, folks! And happy pride month!

The last two weeks have been pretty busy! The first one for me, the second one primarily for people who aren’t me, haha. I spent last week getting everything polished up and ready for beta readers, and this week mostly just playing Minecraft and giving those beta readers some time to read. As feedback has been trickling in I’ve been doing some small bug fixes and a whole lot of typo cleanup.

Half of my beta readers have gotten me their finished feedback, and using that I’ve put together a to-do list with all of the tasks I need to complete before the beta is released. Obviously as the other half’s feedback comes in that list might expand a little bit, but so far I’m glad that there have been very few sweeping changes necessary!

Here are some of the things I’ll be working on before the game is released:

Fixing various bugs in the UI and story

Changing up elements of the UI according to their recommendations

Implementing a notification system

Expanding and editing some passages

Finalizing the artwork

Based on what I have finished so far, I’m setting a release date for this initial beta (the first two chapters) on Saturday June 12th at 1:30PM EST. I might end up having to push that back if big problems arise, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be smooth sailing!

I repeat, the public version will go live on June 12th at 1:30PM EST!

Get ready, y’all!

[townofcrosshollow]

Divine Customs - Names

This is going to be the first in a series of posts about the Watcher’s home culture. Because their past will mostly be seen in the form of short flashbacks, I want to share a bit more about their culture and what their life before Earth was like.

Like most things in divine culture, names are fluid. Your name is not just a way to clarify who is being addressed, or to establish bonds between family- it is a living document of an individual. You can tell more from a person’s name than from their clothing and abode combined.

A name is generally composed of a series of common words, including titles an individual holds, symbolism they are associated with, locations where they live or grew up, traits they posses, things they value, and things they have accomplished. This list can grow and change as they grow older, with new words being added and old ones getting left behind. For people in high society, or those with a lot of accomplishments and job titles, names can get pretty ridiculous in length (like 30+ words).

Of course, you can’t be expected to remember an acquaintance’s 15-word-long name, and calling your best friend a name that’s the length of an average sentence whenever you talk to them wouldn’t be very practical. Because of this, people use different shortened versions of their name in different contexts. Most people naturally know what “nickname” is appropriate for the situation, in a way that’s hard to qualify- similar to how the average English speaker can’t name proper adjective order off the top of their head, but can still tell that “the red tall three buildings” isn’t right. It isn’t taught or spoken about, just picked up through learning the language.

Using the wrong shortened form of someone’s name can be a serious faux-pas. Using too few words to address your superior or somebody of equal societal standing as you would be pretty embarrassing, probably a subject of gossip, and in some cases could result in reprimanding from a superior. Kind of like calling your boss “mom.”

In their new life, the Watcher probably would have initially used their old name translated into human languages. Like any other being in their culture, they would have picked up new names after this significant shift in their life, and would probably have dropped a lot as well. Nowadays, their name might be entirely divorced from what it used to be. Or they might have stuck with their old name, a vestige of the person they used to be. It’s really up to you.

[townofcrosshollow]

Announcing my next project...

The Game

Crosshollow: Foundations will be an interactive fiction game coded in the Twine engine. It will have a custom UI and artwork inspired by Victorian art and engravings, and will likely be ~4 chapters long.

Taking place in the late Victorian period, the story follows a divine entity and their companion on the run, hunted by a powerful being with a grudge. They find a temporary refuge in the remote mining towns of Colorado, but all is not well. A millennia-long game of cat and mouse draws closer to an end as turmoil grows in the small community, and the foundations of Crosshollow take root.

Planned Features

Note: some of these are subject to change as this project is still in the planning phase

You are merely an observer, but not an impartial one- play from the perspective of multiple characters to influence how events unfold.

You influence the people around you- your choices determine the personalities and relationships between the major characters.

You have power over perception- use your powers to change how those around you perceive reality, but choose carefully. Power draws you closer to the Abyss.

Your manifestation matters- the appearance you choose to project determines whether you are seen as an otherworldly horror or a guiding light.

Your history is what led you here- unlock memories of another world to understand why you’ve come this far.

My Release Plans

As this is a larger project than my previous ones, I am hoping to release alpha builds along the way and release the final game one chapter at a time. Although Twine games are able to run on mobile, I don’t intend to actively support or test for mobile compatibility- the formatting either works or it doesn’t, sorry.

If you want to know if you’ll enjoy my work, you can check out my published games over on itch.io. If you have any questions or suggestions, or just want to chat about angels (I also do, constantly), feel free to send me an ask. I will be releasing updates every week on Fridays, if you’re seeing this in the future and you want to check those out you can find them here.

Hope y’all are as excited for this as I am!