Big fan of characters who “kill” their younger selves. Characters who resent the past version of themselves for letting them get hurt, who look at that kid and feel revolted by the foreignness of it. Characters who feel they have to cut the child out of them like a tumor because it’s hurting them too much and if I don’t kill you you’ll kill me. Nearly nothing remaining of that past self but for the little connections and mannerisms they can’t kick, and when it shines through, it’s a terrible, tragic thing, because the child is still in there. It’s in there and it’s grotesque in its suffocation. But it’s there.
when lenore dove comes to me now, she’s not angry or dying (…). she’s grown older with me, her face etched with fine lines, her hair touched with gray. like she’s been living her life beside me as the years passed, instead of lying in her grave. still so rare and radiant.
prints + merch + commission info pinned to profile :)
"In Hollywood, the only thing more dangerous than a lie is the truth."
In an industry that feeds on attention and forgets even faster, you’ve learned that fame is never stable—it’s borrowed. To keep you in the spotlight, your manager has come up with her most ambitious scheme yet: a PR-mandated relationship. Can you fake it 'til you make it?
Navigate rivalries, fake romances, and the impossible search for something genuine in a world built on appearances.
Because in the end, all that glitters isn’t gold—but it might still be worth the shine.
Play the DEMO
THE STORY
All That Glitters is a drama/romance interactive novel set in the cutthroat world of Hollywood. You play as a celebrity fighting for relevance, navigating power dynamics, and deciding if the price of fame is worth paying.
CHOSE YOUR TALENT
Play as an Actor, Singer, Model or TV Host.
Each profession offers unique scenes, choices, and dialogues. Whether you’re commanding a movie set, recording your next hit single, strutting down the catwalk, or hosting your own prime-time show, your career is in your hands.
Define your appearance, personality, and gender (Male, Female, or Non-binary).
DEFINE YOUR PATH
Start your journey as a Scandal-ridden outcast, a Workaholic empire-builder, a Fading Legend, or a Rising Star.
The world reacts to your current level of fame; people will treat you differently if you’re the face of every gossip rag or if they can’t quite remember where they know you from.
FIVE ROMANCE OPTIONS
Survive the tabloids, dodge the paparazzi, and navigate complex friendships and bitter rivalries.
The PR Stunt: You have a new fake partner, but can a contract turn into real romance?
The It-Person: Explore your options with Hollywood’s newest darling.
The Paparazzo: What about the photographer who seems to be everywhere you are?
The Past: Reconnect with your complicated ex.
The Assistant: Get a little "unprofessional" with your manager's assistant.
Or simply enjoy the single life and have fun without commitment!
TAGS & INFO
Status: Work In Progress (Chapters 1-3 + Prologue out now!)
Word Count: 43,000+ words (without code)
Rating: Mature (18+) for strong language, alcohol use, and suggestive themes.
✨ Support the Game
If you're enjoying All That Glitters and would like to support its development, I've also opened a Patreon!
Patrons get access to behind-the-scenes development posts, early access to chapter drafts, exclusive lore, bonus content, and more.
There is a world hidden within your world.
A world of magic that exists only for the blessed ones.
You do not rank amongst them. You never will.
Serve, and their ways will be revealed to you.
Keep the secret of the Pact.
Obey our will in all things.
Serve, and a new life will be allotted to you.
Then you shall walk beside the chosen in their halls of learning.
Not as their equal, but as their better.
INTRODUCTION
Pactbinder is a WiP dark fantasy interactive fiction university novel set in an alt-history England, where you play as a once-ordinary person who has struck a bargain with an eldritch force in order to gain the gift of magic and walk in the hidden world of mages.
Word count is currently ~292k, which covers the game's prologue and first three chapters.
My inspirations are too numerous to do them all real justice, but Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and R.F Kuang’s Babel often find themselves on my mind as I write, as do many of the stories about students attending magical schools that I read growing up.
Outside of literature, I hope that anybody who has enjoyed DMing for or roleplaying a Warlock in a darker Dungeons & Dragons campaign will find something to enjoy in Pactbinder.
Please see below for a more detailed synopsis, a list of features planned to be in the final game and details on the main cast.
SYNOPSIS
Aspiring mages flock to the halls of Hightower to pursue the best arcane education in England, perhaps the world. For those blessed with the Gift of magic, there is no nobler dream than to study beneath the university’s elegant arches and develop skills and connections that will serve one for a lifetime.
However, the Gift is a rare privilege that is almost solely the birthright of the nobly born. This is the way things have been for as long as anybody at Hightower can remember. This year will be different, for rumours abound of a new student born Gifted but raised ignorant of the existence of magic; an oddity anywhere in this world, but particularly scandalous at elitist Hightower.
You are not that student. You’re just the person who stole their life.
As the Pactbinder, a once-ordinary person whose path to Hightower was paved by a bargain struck with an enigmatic entity of unspeakable power, you must fight and scheme to carve out a new life for yourself during your first year at Hightower whilst working to master your stolen magic, serve your patron and discover the university’s secrets without compromising your own.
Ultimately, it will fall on you to answer one question: What price would you pay for the life of your dreams?
CORE CAST
Note that with the exception of the Pactbinder (the MC) and the Entity (their eldritch patron), the core cast are the game’s primary ROs. RO genders are fixed, though all of them can be romanced by male, female and non-binary characters.
The Pactbinder (MC).
Gender: M/F/NB
Appearance: Player determined.
Description: A mysterious individual who stole the gift of magic from an unwary victim who was set to be the first mage born outside of magical society to attend Hightower in decades. Now impersonating that victim to take their place as a student, the Pactbinder must master their stolen magic whilst serving their Patron. How they feel about all this and what they plan to do about it is up to you, as is everything that they do next.
The Entity
Gender: N/A
Appearance: An empty space in misty skies, its outline barely suggestive of a humanoid form. Though its appearance is ever-shifting, it is always crowned by a halo of six red stars.
Mastery: Wields unknowable power over reality far in excess of the works of mortal mages, if indeed it can be compared to them at all.
Description: An enigmatic being who struck a bargain with the Pactbinder in their dreams, granting them power and access to the hidden world of magic in exchange for a lifetime of service. Its nature, true goals and desires are as yet wholly unknowable to the Pactbinder.
Alice Mortimer / Adelais De Mortemer: The Witch
Gender: F
Appearance: Tall, slender and very pale, with aristocratic features, silver-grey eyes and long white hair.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. An inscrutable first-year student with a troubled background and a fearsome reputation, Alice’s customary apathy isn’t quite enough to mask her fiercely intelligent mind, nor the quiet intensity that lurks beneath her listless demeanour. Seemingly the only first year to have already awakened her Gift before joining the university, something considered dangerous and foolhardy by most mages.
Eleanor Whitworth: The Scholar
Gender: F
Appearance: Very short, with braided dirty-blonde hair, a heart-shaped face and warm brown eyes behind round spectacles.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. An academic young woman from a well-respected family of mages recently struck by misfortune, Eleanor seems fixated on restarting the long-banned Hightower Expedition Society, a group dedicated to exploring the ruins beneath the university town. A hard worker and fierce friend who can nevertheless come across a little bossy at times.
Finlay Stuart: The Prince
Gender: M
Appearance: Very tall and thin, almost gangly. Freckled, with short reddish-brown hair and green eyes.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. The second son of the Queen of Scotland, a country which seems to be an entirely independent power in magical society. Finlay himself seems like an affable young man, if a little homesick and uncomfortable with the attention his presence inevitably attracts. However, the circumstances surrounding his arrival to Hightower, which is in England remain shrouded in mystery, particularly given the apparent longstanding enmity between the two countries.
Layla Farouk: The Traveler
Gender: F
Appearance: Average height, lean and fit. Olive skin, hazel eyes and long brown hair that’s often in a ponytail. Constantly on the move.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. The only international student in Hightower’s first-year class, Layla is indelibly marked as an outsider from her very first day. The enthusiastic young woman seems determined to meet this challenge with fierce pride and make her mark on Hightower all the same, whether the university likes it or not.
Marcus Elmgrove: The Rebel
Gender: M
Appearance: Tall, dark-skinned and broad-shouldered. Striking features marked by a scar on his lip. Dark hair and eyes.
Description: One of the Pactbinder’s collegemates. Brooding and cynical, Marcus is the mixed-race son of an influential noble father and a foreign-born mother. As such, he walks the uneasy line between barely-tolerated outsider and accepted member of high society. Though a fierce friend, Marcus struggles to manage the conflict between his resentment of magical society and his desire to fly under the radar.
FEATURES
Master your stolen power as you learn to call spirits, shape the elements, nurture life and / or meddle with minds.
Romance a secretive witch, a homesick prince, a timid would-be explorer, an excitable traveller, or a brooding rebel - or nobody at all - whilst navigating an increasingly complex social life burdened by a secret that you quite literally cannot share.
Embrace or rage against the university’s colonial legacy or work to turn it to your own ends.
Make a name for yourself in one of the university’s Societies, where you can demonstrate your prowess in activities including duelling, exploration and sky-sailing, or dedicate your free time to more secretive goals.
Begin your delve into the endless dungeons beneath the university in search of fortune, power and the answers to the mysteries that haunt you.
Fight, charm, scheme, steal and even kill as you strive to balance your obligations to your Patron with the demands of student life. Pray that the two never come into conflict.
As someone with a fear of pregnancy, I usually hate the "afraid of pregnancy but has a baby anyway for him!!!" trope. I think its misogynistic and reduces the pain and terror and high chance of death that pregnancy presents. Despite this, I love the Hunger Games and its ending, where Katniss ends up happy with her children and Peeta, whereas usually I'd roll my eyes. Heres why I think that is.
My fear of pregnancy is mostly centred around pain/uncomfortability, which is what most main characters think about when the pregnancy trope is involved. They dont want to go through the body and mind altering/often destroying process pregnancy is (and before someone jumps down my throat im not anti pregnancy i just think ppl should be informed its very dangerous). So when the author plops them with a baby at the end bc they just love their lover so much, it feels... ignorant. Like theyre ignoring all the pain that they feel as though love can override it and presenting the only way they can truly be happy is if they have a baby. Its gross and I hate it.
But Katniss' fears arent about that. Theyre about having children who are born into the games, not the inherent horror of childbirth. Its more about bringing children into a world she knows will eat them alive and spit them out broken or dead or both. So when they end the book and theyve taken down the Capitol and there are no more hunger games, that bruden is lifted. Existing, having her children isnt shown as an obligation for her to be happy or complete and it isnt shown as her pushing through the fears of pain bc she loved peeta so much, its more of a screw you to the capitol. She is allowed to have her children, her private and raise them in a world that she is no longer afraid to have them in. And yes, Peeta plays a part in it, because what more to counter your fear of children in an uncertain world than a man you can always be certain will love you and them?
Its not a strong woman being told "you need a family and a man to be complete after telling the narrative repeatedly how you dont want that" its a "we have broken down the barriers that were previously holding you back, and you can be free now to have your family and it will be so radically different than you were expecting and that will fulfil you." They arent just children, theyre a representative of her triumph over the capitol. She fought to have them.
I know this makes no sense, she just means a lot to me.
