To the Whistling Winds

Dev blog for "To the Whistling Winds," a magical realism/fae mystery interactive fiction set in an amusement park. Use the link below to play the demo! Use the search bar to search for a specific character tag. I track #to the whistling winds and #ttww.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Exceedingly normal; that’s how you’d describe yourself. You’re an average twenty-something living in the 21st century, saddled with student loan debt and the ever-present sense that you’re not quite where you want to be in life. After all, it wasn’t exactly your childhood dream to be a tour guide at the widely beloved Chester Theme Park. Every day is a monotonous blur of plastered-on smiles and the endless Californian sun.

But then, the unexplainable starts. People go missing, you start seeing things no one else seems to notice, and you find yourself at the center of a mystery that started decades before you were born. 

The park’s history isn’t as wholesome as it presents itself to be, and the Fair Folk don’t play fair. Can you navigate through half-truths and othernatural forces and still stay yourself?

And the greater question: do you even want to?

To the Whistling Winds is an interactive fiction game with elements of mystery, fantasy, and a modern fairytale in everyday life. This game is heavily character driven, with choices that range from your concept of morality to what you’d like to wear for a night out.

Features:

|✧| Main character customization; gender, pronouns, sexuality, appearance, style, hobbies, and personality

|✧| Befriend or romance any of the six members of the Covey and develop lasting relationships - or antagonize those around you.

|✧| Ordinary struggles such as the pain of being ghosted over text, overworking at your just-above-minimum-wage job, and being kidnapped by Faeries. 

Content Warnings: 

Fantasy horror elements, optional SFW sensuality, minor blood, gore, and violence. Discussions of past experiences with homophobia, sexism, and racism. Think PG-13 movie, and please message me if you have any concerns.

DEMO || CHARACTERS || KO-FI || DISCORD

[tothewhistlingwinds]

link updated! should work for all browsers now~

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Hiiiii besties

Okay, so I got a lot of messages telling me that dashingdon is going to go offline(?) at the end of this month. (You guys are so sweet!! Thank you for thinking of me!!) Is there a place I can port my demo to? Should I do that?

Realistically, I don't think I'll have the time to code any time soon, nor do I foresee myself continuing the demo any time soon, but I've always liked this story and the characters, and I'd be happy to upload it somewhere else if there's interest!

Pls let me know. All of the coding ability has fallen out of my head since 2021. Also, thank you for everyone for checking in on me! A lot has happened in my life since I last updated, including moving twice, a really bad breakup, finding a new job, etc etc. I'm all good - just a lot of busy busy young adult stuff that made it hard to juggle a lot of things at once.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

yayyy i did it!!

lowkey idk if i'll ever update the game as a game...but i love these characters and like tbh if you have drabble requests....i'll write them for my covey <3

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Hiiiii besties

Okay, so I got a lot of messages telling me that dashingdon is going to go offline(?) at the end of this month. (You guys are so sweet!! Thank you for thinking of me!!) Is there a place I can port my demo to? Should I do that?

Realistically, I don't think I'll have the time to code any time soon, nor do I foresee myself continuing the demo any time soon, but I've always liked this story and the characters, and I'd be happy to upload it somewhere else if there's interest!

Pls let me know. All of the coding ability has fallen out of my head since 2021. Also, thank you for everyone for checking in on me! A lot has happened in my life since I last updated, including moving twice, a really bad breakup, finding a new job, etc etc. I'm all good - just a lot of busy busy young adult stuff that made it hard to juggle a lot of things at once.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Are you ok?

Thank you for checking in! I've been going through a lot of changes in my personal and professional life. I still have a lot of fondness for TTWW and for everyone who plays it, and hopefully I'll be able to revisit it some day soon. :)

[tothewhistlingwinds]

All these ask about Lawrence made me laugh because I’m now imagining how that would even work with him being the MC’s boss.

It makes me wonder how’d it actually happen tho cause that seems way out of character for the man. Maybe some people will write fics for it?

OH MAN if someone wrote a Lawrence x MC fic I would be...honored? Frightened? Both? I respect the readers' interpretations of events haha, fan content is always appreciated. Boss/Worker stories are pretty popular in romance stories, I'd imagine, but they're not really my thing.

While it's not going to happen in canon, don't let me stop your fun!

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Please tell us about the ROs siblings, Author! I want to know about my sisters and brother in laws mwahaha.

I looked back on the blog, and I swore I'd written something about them before, but no such post exists, apparently. 😅 Here's a comprehensive post.

Alejandro has two older bio sisters and two older step-siblings, from his mom's second marriage. (His father passed away when he was young.)

Evangeline Marilag Ocampo Flores: late 20s, engaged, chatty and insensitive but undeniably cool.

Isobella Marikit Ocampo Flores: early 30s, married, sweet but scatterbrained, Alejandro's favorite.

Peter-Benedict Bautista: late 30s, married with three children. Overworked pilot, "I'm not a regular dad I'm a cool dad."

Ofelia-Rose Bautista Suarez: late 30s, homemaker, kind but closed-minded.

Bridget has a much younger half-brother from her mother.

Augustus "Gus" Donahue: 6 years old, spoiled and coddled but sweet, has only met Bridget a handful of times, but he likes her.

Clémence is an only child.

Ernest is the oldest of four children.

Gloria Brand: Feminist, outspoken, risktaker - the polar opposite of Ernest, but looks up to him a lot.

Marianne Brand: Extremely well-put together and very shy, hopeless romantic.

Arthur Brand: Rambunctious, honestly kind of annoying but well-meaning.

Mars has a younger sister.

Paloma Gabriel-Campana: early 20s, probably MC's age or slightly younger, goal-oriented and doing the best she can.

Teddy is the middle child.

Ellison York: late 20s, artist and educator, a little pretentious and haughty.

Abigail York: late teens, college student, the kind of popular girl that's too nice to hate, addicted to social media.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Hello, dear author!~ So I'm just fresh off of playing the demo for your IF and, GOODNESS. I cannot wait for more!! As a lover of reading stories, I love the patience you put in your writing, the bits of humor you put in, and the way you carefully build upon that reveal of the true heart and motivation of the story. It's storytelling that I truly adore. I really am so eager for more updates 😭😭.

Also I'm Filipino and living in the Philippines and so far, your incorporation of Alejandro is super refreshing!! I squealed so hard when I found out he's Filipino!! Can I ask how you came upon creating his full name? Because it's so impressive to me? The four-name structure is so reminiscent of so many Filipino people I know (including myself) lol. Also "Makisig" means dashing or handsome in Tagalog and I don't know if you did that intentionally or not but it made me chuckle SO much. It made my day by the millions. 😆😆

Sincerely hoping that you had/are having a good day today. And if not, I hope this ask brought some form of joy to you, to give back the joy your IF brought to me today :].

Hi! First of all, thank you so much for your kind words! I'll admit I kept this in my inbox for a while, just because it was so sweet and it brought me a lot of joy to reread. I'm glad you enjoyed my writing and my incorporation of Alejandro!

Two Filipino friends of mine gave me advice on his full name, so I'm glad you found it accurate. "Makisig" is definitely intentional on our part, haha, one of them suggested it after I described him.

In-universe, Alejandro's mom was into theme naming (Vowel name + matchy-matchy Tagalog name), so his older bio sisters are Evangeline Marilag and Isobella Marikit. You might meet one of them later in the demo! His stepfamily is Spanish-Filipino, so their names differ.

And yes, Alejandro thinks their matching names are super cringe even though his parents thinks they're sweet.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

How would an introverted RO react to an extraverted MC? And vice-versa? Thank you!

Extroverted: Alejandro, Mars

Alejandro absolutely cannot relate to an introverted MC, but I think he'd be really impressed by their ability to sustain themselves. Mars would try following MC's lead for a bit, and I can see her staying at home more to accomodate them.

Introverted: Ernest, Bridget, Cleménce

Someone, for the love of god, drag Ernest out into a social activity and make him have fun. Cleménce would be surprisingly fine with an extroverted partner, but she might get irritable fast if they expect her to accompany them constantly. Bridget's ability comes and goes in short bursts, so as long as her partner is able to understand when she needs to retreat, she's good.

Ambivert: Teddy

Teddy gets the best/worst of both worlds. He gets tired when he's in a busy social environment for too long, but he also becomes lonely if he hasn't seen his friends or loved ones in a while. I think an MC of any personality type could balance him out well, as long as they're reliable.

[crimsiswrites-deactivated202207]

Bundle for Ukraine

The people of Ukraine are under attack. As game developers we want to create new worlds, not to destroy the one we have. That’s why we’ve banded together to present this charity bundle to help Ukrainians survive this ordeal and thrive after the war ends. This cause has resonated with creators around the globe, to the extent that our bundle contains almost 1,000 games, tabletop RPGs, books, etc.

There’s a charity bundle up on itch.io for Ukraine that contains nearly a 1,000 games, with all proceeds being split evenly between International Medical Corps and Voices of Children.

Please consider donating if you can, or by spreading the word! The bundle is up until the 18th of March.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Do you mind telling what MBTI are the RO/S?

It took me a while to take the tests for all of them, haha.

Alejandro - ESTP-A. Attention-seeking but confident, with a surprising amount of influence over any situation. He's more self-aware than you would think. Maybe overconfident.

Bridget - INFP-T. Creative and imaginative, with a vibrant inner life and a tendency to hyperfixate! Also easily overwhelmed, which sounds correct for Bridget.

Clémence - ISTP-A. Apparently this personality type often becomes engineers, which is funny since Clémence's degree is in chemical engineering. It's also an uncommon personality type for women?

Ernest - INTJ-T. I wonder how his results were impacted by his shyness - he's more shy than aloof - but yeah, an introverted pessimist! No surprises here.

Mars - ENTJ-T. Somewhere between her desire to be pragmatic versus her tendency to react instinctively and with emotion. Mars is definitely a force of nature.

Teddy - ESFJ-T or ISFJ-T. His test ended up right in the middle of Extroverted and Introverted, so I'd say ISFJ is just as accurate, if not more so? He matches up with being calm, but still social.

I think there are sections on the MBTI test I used that talk about each personality type and romance, so if you know your MC's personality type, you can check that out!

[tothewhistlingwinds]

Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day! I hope everyone is having a good February. 

As a gift for the holiday, I wrote a short drabble for each RO. No content warnings, although there is smooching and flirting, and everything is ambiguously canon. Gender neutral MC. Click through to read!

Alejandro

Bridget

Clémence

Ernest

Mars

Teddy

Each drabble also contains a “Romance Jam,” which is just a love song I felt suited each character well. They don’t necessarily go with the drabble.

I hope you guys enjoy! :D 

[tothewhistlingwinds]

From last year - Happy Valentines Day!

[tothewhistlingwinds]

it's a shame Lawrence isn't a RO

Haha, I think Lawrence is the most requested RO after Julia, but I don't have romance-related plans for either of them! They have other roles to fill.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

hey!! First off all I wanted to say that your story is so good!! I am super invested and I am excited for new chapters! 😃

Second of all, I hope this doesn't sound rude or anything along those lines, but I was wondering, is the story going to be for free or would you have to pay for it after an amount of chapters?

Idk if this question has been asked before so I am sorry if its being repetitive! 🙇🏽‍♂️ I'm new to the IF world so I don't fully know how it works

Thx you so much! Have a great day/night! ✨

Hi! I'm so glad you're liking the story so far.

Right now, since I'm still working slowly on the demo, it's free to play. When it's finished, it'll probably cost some money to play through the whole game, which I believe is pretty standard for IF games. I'm not sure where that cut off would be yet, and I don't have a price point, but I want it to be affordable!

It's a good question, thank you for asking! I don't think anyone has actually asked me that before.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

hiiiii I LOVE this game! i was wondering if mc could own any pets! it's okay if there isn't 🐩

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the demo. MC won't be able to have a pet during the course of the game, unfortunately. 😿

[tothewhistlingwinds]

just played through the demo and wanted to congratulate you on nailing the Exact vibe/atmosphere of an amusement park! with love, a former ride attendant.

Thank you! That means a lot to me, and I'm glad you enjoyed the demo.

[tothewhistlingwinds]

which RO would you date, bubs?

Hm, well technically I have to date all of them at least once since I have to test all of the routes. 😫 I suppose since they're figments of my imagination, they all have qualities I find attractive one way or another. But if you mean in real life, probably Teddy or maybe Bridget since they're both straightforward but kind.

I think if Alejandro were real, I'd find him kind of irritating.