#hk demo

[hadeskitchen]

DEMO (tba) | CHARACTER PROFILES | GUIDE | NAVIGATION | PINTEREST | AUTHOR

Welcome to the Underworld...

Play as a deceased chef given the opportunity of an (after)lifetime in Hades' Kitchen. The story follows a cooking competition set in the Underworld from Greek myth. Hades' Kitchen is a character-driven interactive fiction story about rivalry and redemption.

Hades' Guide, a codex containing the lore bible and character database for both Hades' Kitchen and Neo Olympus (a second series that will take place in the same universe), is available here.

The demo release is currently tbd. The first season will consist of eight chapters: seven episodes + a prologue.

Content Warning: Hades' Kitchen, this blog, and its discord server are rated 16+ and the game will eventually have optional 18+ content. The game will contain swearing, alcohol and drug use, sexually suggestive content, light violence, and discussions about trauma, grief, terminal illness, and death.

So you died - very sorry about that - but this doesn't have to be the end of your story. Since you're such a talented chef, we want to make you an offer. We can either send your soul to Asphodel now, or you can refuse to accept that dull fate and audition to become a chef for our royal family.

Now, this isn't a guaranteed position. You'll be competing against twelve others for one spot and it'll all be filmed for a TV show. I understand these shows are quite common in the Upperworld, so you're likely familiar with the concept. However, it'd be wise to expect the unexpected. We aren't limited by mortality, so we can afford to spice things up with magic and monsters and you'll probably be fine.

You could end up in Asphodel, but you might not. Each time someone's eliminated their fate is randomly reassigned. The longer you stick around, the higher your chances of getting sent somewhere better (...or worse).

If this sounds a bit overwhelming, remember you don't have to go through this alone! You'll have the crew, the judges, Adonis, and, of course, your fellow contestants. I've met them all and I can assure you, for the most part, they're lovely people. You may even recognize some from your mortal life.

So, what are you gonna do? Do you believe you can win? Will you risk your fate for a chance at something greater? What do you say?

Will you compete in Hades' Kitchen?

- Fully customize your protagonist

Name and nicknames

Gender and pronouns (custom options)

Physical appearance

Taste and culinary background

Personal history and key life events

- Define your protagonist's personality and watch the narrative voice evolve with them

- Use and improve various skills to unlock unique choices, scenes, and dialogue

- Build relationships (good and bad) with a compelling cast of characters including your fellow contestants, mentors, and a handful of Greek gods

Six love interests (five gender selectable)

Complete storylines for asexual, aromantic, aro/ace, or simply uninterested MCs

Two poly routes (either T + K or Hero + T/K/C/[redacted])

- Explore a world that blends Greek myth with science fiction

Shar Patil

The Artist. A culinary wizard with a stoic yet playful nature. They keep their distance and do their best to avoid getting close to people.

Shar is romanceable and gender selectable: Sharvari - cisgender female (she/her), Sharva - agender (xe/xem/xyr), Sharvin - cisgender male (he/him)

{Inspiration | Tag}

K Ishida

The Home Cook. An altruistic goof who claims they just want to help, but there's something hiding beneath that grin. There has to be. Right?

K is romanceable and gender selectable: Kenji - cisgender male (he/him), Kairi - transgender female (she/her), Kira - x-gender neutral (they/them)

{Inspiration | Tag}

T Sarpong

The Influencer. A free-spirited, chaotic troublemaker who uses their supernatural charm to mask their true intentions and intelligence.

T is romanceable and gender selectable: Thema - cisgender female (she/her), Tano - cisgender male (he/him), Tawiah - pangender (she/he/they/xe/ey)

{Inspiration | Tag}

Cecil Gray

The Celebrity. This arrogant genius has been your bitter rival for years. They behave as if insults and anger are all they've ever known.

Cecil is romanceable and gender selectable; Cecil has the same name whether transgender nonbinary (they/them), transgender male (he/him), or cisgender female (she/her)

{Inspiration | Tag}

Hero of Thebes

The Assistant. Even though they always look and feel panicked, this self-conscious satyr has far more talent and power than they realize.

Hero is romanceable and gender selectable; Hero has the same name whether genderfluid (they/she/he), genderqueer (they/them), cisgender female (she/her), or cisgender male (he/him)

{Inspiration | Tag}

Adonis

The Prince. Creative, clever, and compassionate, this god has a hard time convincing others to see him as a person, not just a pretty boy.

Adonis is romanceable but gender-locked. He identifies as a cisgender male and uses he/him pronouns.

{Inspiration | Tag}

Chef Alex

The Legend. A tempestuous visionary, she's remembered as a prolific inventor and one of the first chefs to explore cooking as a science.

Alex is not romanceable. Alex identifies as genderqueer (nonbinary butch) and uses she/they pronouns.

{Inspiration | Tag}

Chef Julio

The Icon. The first celeb chef and still the most famous, he's known for his kindness, enthusiasm, and humor as well as his many cookbooks.

Julio is not romanceable. Julio identifies as a cisgender male and uses he/him pronouns.

{Inspiration | Tag}

For more on any of these characters: head over to this post, check out their MyShade profiles in Hades' Guide, send me an ask, or join the discord server.

Thanks for reading, all reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Special thanks to the Hades' Kitchen beta readers:

ciels-tears, manonamora, momomilk, piscesaf, roguesgame, sistersolaris

Last Updated: Dec 18th, 2021

[hadeskitchen]

Hi, everyone! I've decided to recruit a few beta readers for Hades' Kitchen. I’ll be accepting applications for the next two weeks (until Nov 14) so if you’re interested please fill out the form linked below (and thank you!). I’ll be getting in touch with people by the 21st.

At this point in development I’m only looking for a couple more people, so, if you come to this post after the deadline or aren’t selected during this first round, don’t worry. I’ll be looking for more beta readers in the future and when I am, you’ll be able to find that information here on Tumblr or through updates in the Discord server (linked here).

Thank you for your interest and support of this project! ☺️

* You don’t need to be a native-English speaker to apply. I’m more interested in someone’s ability/willingness to provide insightful, constructive feedback than their knowledge of English grammar and spelling.

Click here to fill out an application

[hadeskitchen]

Happy New Year!!

Wishing you all the best as 2022 begins💜

As many other writers have done today, I decided to summarize a bit of what I've done this year and share some of my feelings/thoughts about moving forward.

TLDR: Thank you. You're all lovely. I've got big plans for the new year and feel like I've accomplished a solid amount. I also feel like I'm in a good headspace for the first time in a long time and that's mostly thanks to you all. So, thank you! Here's to a better year!

Full summary, plans, and thoughts under the cut!

So, I found the IF community in early October (see here and here) and since then:

I've written over 42,000 words of Hades' Kitchen material (about 75% is the demo, the rest is research and notes, etc.)

I've written and released Hades' Guide (currently just under 30,000 words), which was a truly terrifying experience since it was the first big writing project I've published

I've grown very comfortable with Twine and learned basic JavaScript and CSS (click here for some insight into how I did that; answer: weirdly)

I made progress on two of my other projects (The "Secret IF" and The Summit)

I've written 288 (now 289) Tumblr posts and recently went through and reorganized, reviewed, and revised all of them (here are some of my personal favorites)

I've written several short stories, many of which shall be released in January (find the released ones here, here, and here)

Made some pinterest boards, picrews, aesthetics, and a kinda weird combined Spotify playlist for the characters (don't worry, individual ones are coming)

Some other more personal accomplishments:

I realized I'm genderfluid (x)

I started therapy

I made some new friends

I finished my semester with high marks

Now here are some of my goals for 2022:

and for once, I'm gonna try to make them "realistic"

Publish the demo for Hades' Kitchen

Publish the demo for Zorlok (aka The Secret IF)

Finish Hades' Guide

Publish a tutorial template (and maybe a style template) for Sugarcube

Participate in Interact-if's game jam, though I'm undecided if I'll do the ranked or unranked jam (Or both? No, remember, Albie, realistic!)

UPDATE: I'm competing in the ranked jam, to learn more about the game or follow it's development, check out the Mousetrap blog!

Release the remaining short stories

Commission an artist to make cast portraits (I have low hopes that I'll do them well myself 😅)

Be kinder to myself and try not to despair and spiral quite so much

I don't think you need me to tell you that 2021 was a really shit year (if you do, wow, I have terrible news...). There were stretches of time that I really struggled to get through, where my depression, anxiety, and/or apathy felt overwhelming and all-consuming. But in spite of all that - and despite everything that was 2021 - for the first time in a long time I feel like I'm leaving this year in a better mental position than I was entering it, and I honestly owe a lot of that to you.

Discovering the IF community has drastically improved my mental health/quality of life and I genuinely don't know how to convey just how thankful I am for that. I feel so lucky. Everyone I've interacted with on here has been so lovely and kind and I never would have dreamed that there'd be so much support for my creative projects. Thank you (yes, I know I'm a broken record at this point, but my gratitude cannot and will not be stopped). I look forward to creating more content for and with you, seeing everyone's incredible work, and getting to know even more people.

So, here's to a new year!! (I think it's our turn to kick its ass 😁)

[hadeskitchen]

Sorry I've been real quiet on here. I discovered Scrivener so I've just been flipping between writing HK and my three lit papers for the past 48 hours.

[hadeskitchen]

Update 12.29.21

Yeah, it's the middle of the week but it's been too long since I did an update on this blog, so I'm doing one now. (I'm gonna start doing shorter updates every weekend starting with the new year.)

I want to start off by mentioning that I'm working on a Twine tutorial template

I ended up making a (sugarcube) Twine tutorial template for a friend a couple weeks ago. Since then I've been turning that template into a detailed tutorial on coding and Twine that will be released very soon. Hopefully, it'll be useful to people who are in the process of switching from cog to Twine, who've decided that they want to make an IF game as their New Year's resolution, or anyone else who may be interested. I may even produce a few video tutorials to accompany it if I have the time. But until it comes out, if you have any questions or requests for specific things you'd like to see in the template, please let me know! ☺️

As a note, I'll be trying to show a variety of writing/coding styles in addition to my own and, as a general rule, would never judge or look down on someone for not doing things like me.

Okay, onto Hades' Kitchen...

With Hades' Kitchen, the first episode is fully planned and I'm about halfway through writing what will be the first demo release. I'm currently polishing up this first half and will be sending it out to beta testers soon. I'm currently aiming for a realistic and comfortably vague spring 2022 release.

Hades' Guide has a small update coming tomorrow that will include:

In-depth profiles for the olympian and chthonic deities

New MyShade profiles for Alex and Julio as well as updated profiles for the ROs

Better navigation mechanics that should make moving through the app faster and easier

Some minor bug fixes, grammar and spelling corrections, and accessibility improvements

There's also gonna be a larger Hades' Guide update coming within the next few weeks that will include:

Full lists of mortal and monstrous beings with explanations of each

The story of Hades and Persephone

More information about Underworld society, politics, and urban legends

A map of Neo Olympus with more info on the cities/regions MC can be from

Miscellaneous entries on background lore like the Trojan War, ripper surgeons + cybernetic enhancements, ECHO, prophets, wanted criminals, CirceTV + The Odyssey, and more...

Inevitable bug fixes and corrections from the smaller update

Other HK stuff I've been doing:

Making artbreeder portraits for the characters

Drawing actual portraits for the characters (but who knows if I'll ever have the guts to share them)

Playing with/improving the game's UI

Updating all the existing posts on this blog with accurate info and better tags

Getting the other short stories ready for release

Drafting lore posts and individual character profiles for Tumblr

Working on the last few asks I've yet to answer (mainly just cause they're longer)

Writing a little "which character are you"-type quiz

Coordinating with the giveaway winners

My other projects are truly on the backburner right now. My attention is solely on getting the demo for HK completed and finishing up this tutorial. (But I'm debating revealing the name of the secret IF soon, idk, let me know if you're interested in that or learning about my other projects).

That's all for now! I hope you've all managed to survive the holiday season and truly wish you the very best for this upcoming year. Thank you so much for your support, it truly means the world to me. 💜

[hadeskitchen]

Latest Line

Thank you @anachron-if for this tag!

Rules: write the latest line from any of your WIPs and tag as many people as there are words in the line. Make a new post, don’t reblog.

"Excellent," she giggles, fangs piercing through her smile.

okay, um, tagging @roguesgame @offscriptif @manonamora-if @kal-writesif @leoneliterary @desiderium-if @kalorphic @arcadia-city-stories-if

[hadeskitchen]

hello world

I downloaded Twine a few days ago and shortly thereafter discovered what Interactive Fiction was. Since then I’ve been spending my time learning Javascript, CSS, and Sugarcube. 

Hades’ Kitchen is the first interactive fiction piece I intend to publish but it is itself a kind of one-shot within a universe I’ve been constructing for a couple of years. I’m very excited to show everyone what Hades’ Kitchen is all about and introduce you to the world of Neo Olympus.

Right now, I’m aiming to release a demo for the game before the end of October but we’ll see what happens since I’m a university student.

[hadeskitchen]

how old will we be?

I'm gonna assume you're asking about the protagonist and not testing my psychic abilities. 😅

You get to choose MC's age (at death) from a few options ranging from late 20s to late 40s.

During character creation, someone named Macaria will ask you questions about various aspects of your life to "confirm your identity" - kinda like a Captcha test for the dead. She states that MC started culinary school and met Cecil twelve years before your death. She then asks for you to specify how old you were at this time (which determines how old you were when you died).

And don't worry, this is a math-free zone. It'll look something like this in-game (just nicer, hopefully):

How old were you when you began culinary school?

I was 16-years-old. (lived to be 28)

I was 18-years-old. (lived to be 30)

I was 22-years-old. (lived to be 34)

etc...

However, you don't have to look like you did when you died. As Macaria explains, your shade form appears as the version of yourself which you liked best, which best personifies who you are. This means your character can choose to look their actual age or appear younger. (A character who died in their late 20s can only look like they're in their 20s. A character who died in their late 40s can look any age from their late 40s to their early 20s.)

Hope that answers your question, if not, deepest apologies.