The development blog for VILLAIN INTERN, an under-construction interactive fiction game. Slip feedback, questions, and comments into my inbox here, or find me on the choicescript forum page! 🕱
... is an upcoming Choicescript interactive fiction game! You can follow development updates on the dev blog here, view the forum page here, and play the demo here.
Villain Intern is currently about 1/4 of the way into Chapter Two: Inhuman Resources as of 2/8/26, sitting at just over 72,000 words.
[FAQ Here and character introductions here, for newer readers]
Play as an aspiring supervillain interning at UnderHand, a legacy criminal corporation. Start from the bottom and navigate a world where everyone has it out for you, leveraging your strange superhuman abilities and your knack for manipulation. Make a name for yourself as an executive villain (with your own swanky corner office!), or turn against your higher-ups and usurp the company,…or throw away your promising career for the greater good, I guess...
Powers and Customization:
Choose from two different ability trees. Play as either a homemade cyborg with (painful looking) mechanical augmentations of your own design, or a genetically mutated freak with mysterious, bizarre abilities derived from animal genes. Choose 3 of the 9 unique abilities available for each power type, which update (or mutate) to scale as you get stronger. Climb walls, perfectly mimic any voice, rotate your head 360 degrees, talk to the AI assistant in your brain, etc etc!
As a rule, you start out villainous, but whether you’re charming or sinister, sniveling or demanding, and backstabbing or frontstabbing is up to you.
Relationship progression tracks two major stats- your connection with a character, and your rivalry, which are not mutually exclusive. So you can romance your greatest nemesis, backstab your closest friend, that kind of thing. Or both at once, with the same person, even.
Fellow Interns:
👾 Peter Hyde is your cubicle neighbor, a geeky slackoff who’s fond of novelty ties. Unlike you, Peter doesn’t really want to be here, but he seems for some reason unable to quit. Laid-back, conflict avoidant, and generally easy to manipulate, he’s easy minion material for the MC- but his attitude belies a volatile, monstrous secret. Which can be a great asset or a major risk, depending on if you can maintain your control over him.
🤖 T9-670 is a seven-foot tall ex-war machine. Once a military member conscripted to UnderHand’s private security decal, its contract didn’t end when it died- the soldier’s brain was transplanted into a humanoid steel frame with a dark glass plate for a face. T9 is doing some soul searching- it’s not totally sure if it even has one left, but it would like to have a purpose beyond fixing printers and mowing down UnderHand’s enemies with its plasma gun.
🔬 Dr. Dr. Elaine Foster is an up-and-coming mad scientist, assistant to the esteemed Dr. Shrink. Don’t bring up the fact that she has two doctorates and is still an intern. She’s a genius prodigy, but otherwise has no superhuman abilities, which causes her to be overlooked by your superiors. Passionate and inscrutable, she’s obsessed with making it to the top her own way, and will remain one step ahead of you if you aren’t careful.
🧪 Reid/Reney Sullivan (gender selectable, nb included) is your nemesis, or at least they think so. They’re employed by OverSight, the subsidized hero-corporation that works in tandem with the government. An interning hero with impressive telekinetic powers, they are nonetheless as much of an amateur as you, and so you find yourself on even footing with one of the most promising superheroes in the business. Earnest and witty, they genuinely just want to help people. Eventually, they become fixated on “figuring you out”, which can lead to them getting sucked into your schemes. That, or their meddling could be your downfall. Worst of all, they might even succeed in reforming you.
There’s also 👁️ Blink, a rogue superhuman- some say vigilante, others say independent villain. Completely anonymous, they wear a unique suit of tactical gear that allows them to turn completely invisible, the first of its kind. Quippy, chipper, and sauntering, they tend to use their powers for ridiculous, showy things like popping up behind newscasters on TV. An invisible superhuman that loves the spotlight, Blink is full of contradictions. And secrets, big ones, that pertain to you.
… plus a cast of older, more established villains and heroes- including The Man, UnderHand’s enigmatic CEO. A faceless, hollow man in an empty suit. Actually, nobody’s ever seen anything but the suit, so he might just be the suit.
FURTHER READING:
🌃THE PINTEREST BOARD
🎧THE PLAYLIST
TAG ORGANIZATION:
VI Updates - The big stuff, new demo content
VI Info - The info posts, development news
VI Asks - Anything coming through the inbox
VI Characters - Character related info/bonus content
VI Sketches - Doodles and concept art
Lore - What it says on the tin. Anything worldbuildy
The Fridge - The place of honor for fan art! Pinned to my imaginary fridge with a digital magnet
I think I'm gonna keep a little proof of life post at the top of the blog tracking how often I work and how quickly things are coming along. I'll just edit it on writing days with the date and the daily word count. If I'm away for work I'll hang up a "gone fishin" sign or something.
That way if anyone's curious they can find out what I'm up to without me having to intermittently spam the blog with personal posts. You guys can just observe me naturally in my terrarium. My author aquarium.
More @villainintern doodles! You should still go read it if you haven't.
SO I did eventually manage to draw Sullivan (His first name is Reid in my playthrough) in a way that I am satisfied with.
(It's less pink on my laptop trust 😞) I definitely think I could still do better though. We'll get there eventually
There's also a post somewhere (could not find it again) about Cyborg!MC being motivated to mutilate themselves out of sheer determination so I also have this little doodle
Really love the idea of my MC (Scara) installing a heavier metal spine on her already existing spine just to "Catch Up" and after all that suffering, still only being an angry and spiteful low-tier cyborg.
I’ve only played as a genoid once, so I don’t know what sections there are, but for lyrebirds it could be fun to mimick Reid/Reney’s voice when you first answer the call. Just to freak them out a bit haha.
If you’re taking suggestions in general I’d also say it’d be fun for knife hand cyborgs to use said knife for an eating utensil when you have lunch with Hyde.
It’s fine if you don’t use these. Either way, love the IF!! It’s super fun and very unique!! Have a good day!
And here I thought it would be another 5 months but here you are on the week of my birthday
Happy Birthdayweek 🎂🎂🎂!!!!!!!!!! I feel bad actually it would have been cool if I had an update ready but I came empty handed... bad manners. I will quickly rectify this
It just occurred to me that none of you have any clue at all about my weird ass day-to-day postgrad life... How do I hint at this without doxxing myself.... okay basically I work on and off, meaning there are periods for 2-4 weeks where I'm insanely busy and deadass laboring from 6am to 10pm every day with like one day off a week, sometimes no day off. And then there are months where work dies out and I get to kick back and and do various side hustles/quests and "unemployed friend" type activities.
The latter is when I get all my writing done, and during the former I barely even have time to cook and shower 😊🕺💥💥💥🤮!!!! 😝😝!!! Which is why this demo is active so sporadically and unpredictably.
Is it all worth it? More or less. Do I love my job? Basically. Is it really fun? Admittedly. Does this absurd schedule inspire the fictional evil workplace depicted in the game? Definitely. I hope this is clarifying.
To put it into perspective: one of the following weirdass jobs is my actual real job. Just to give you a ballpark idea of my ridiculous life. I won't confirm or deny which one but I'd like to see what you guys think I get up to.
It just occurred to me that none of you have any clue at all about my weird ass day-to-day postgrad life... How do I hint at this without doxxing myself.... okay basically I work on and off, meaning there are periods for 2-4 weeks where I'm insanely busy and deadass laboring from 6am to 10pm every day with like one day off a week, sometimes no day off. And then there are months where work dies out and I get to kick back and and do various side hustles/quests and "unemployed friend" type activities.
The latter is when I get all my writing done, and during the former I like barely even have time to cook and shower 😊🕺💥💥💥🤮!!!! 😝😝!!! Which is why this demo is active so sporadically and unpredictably.
Is it all worth it? More or less. Do I love my job? Basically. Is it fun? Admittedly. Does this absurd schedule inspire the fictional evil workplace depicted in the game? Definitely. I hope this is clarifying.
Papa i left you alone for like 4 months since my last check in AND YOUR BACK??? WITH AN UPDATE???? HOLY MOLY RILLEY GET UP YOU HAVE TO SEE WET CAT PETER AGAIN!!!!
Will it always be possible to defeat opponent by choosing correctly? I know Caroline says R group now makes it their goal in life to publicly defeat MC, but I want my MC to remain undefeated and not give opponents the satisfaction ever
Basically yes! You'll be able to win most fights with the right choices. I have one planned that goes badly for everyone no matter what for plot reasons, but your enemies also have a bad time, so I would consider it a tie👍
It’s still early in the story, and I want to draw some interactions between the characters, but I’m worried about portraying them out of character. What traits should be considered when drawing these darlings?
I would say don't worry too much! Interactive fiction is as much about what you bring to it as what the author portrays, so I encourage everyone to play with their own interpretations of the characters.
As the author I have some general notes and outlines of how I imagine them acting, but then I'll get to a scene and it's like the character takes control to do something else entirely. So really, your guess is as good as mine
i'm just obsessed with how much fun weird creepiness is in this game. i love how it rewards weirdness and odd unnerving behavior and appearances. let us never be Normal again. we are now free !!!
Thank you!! Part of my motivation for writing this game is that I always like to choose the weird/impulsive/snarky options in other IFs. Like, sometimes you just want to see what happens when you make a strange choice or say mean dialogue. Usually you get punished for this because it's not what you're "supposed" to do. So I end up playing really cautious, upstanding characters because I'm scared of "messing up" the playthrough. But I would rather be free and abnormal!!!! Let's all be abnormal together
It's specific to genoid MCs: do the ROs have specific genoid traits that they find attractive or repulsive "by default", from the ones the MC can have?
Obviously I'm assuming no matter which animal traits the genoid MC has, the chosen RO will end up liking them because that's just part of what the MC is, but I'm talking about their first thought when seeing the MC for the first time, basically (so when the possible affinity for MC as a person isn't there yet).
People canonically find the bat ears kind of cute. Choosing them gives you a teeny charisma bump.
Other traits characters might react to are the claws & stinger hands (your touch can hurt, people might flinch away) and the sharp teeth (kissing ouch). But ultimately none of these are super off putting to anyone in the main cast. You all work in the superhuman industry, weirdos are everywhere.
‼️EDIT: The MC art mentioned above is AWESOME and can be found on the form page here. Can confirm bat ears r super cute
Hello hello I have just found this and I’m having a lovely time, my current obsession is trying to make the ugliest weirdest looking geniod possible. Really dig into the awful potential of “what if this is the only place I can be the same as everyone else because none of us are people here anyways” y’know. Would happily take suggestions to make one look weirder but so far majority fish stuff is winning
what if this is the only place I can be the same as everyone else because none of us are people here anyways
yesssssssss exactly
Okay I think you're on the right track with the fish stuff. You might go with the dog nose for your last pick, it's probably the most visibly off-putting of the last set of ability options!
I shouldn't have laughed at mc choosing to drop down from the elevator directly onto the floor for so long but I did. And I didn't intended to romance Peter but I'm so endeared to their banter. I really like how effortlessly funny the dialogue is combined with the grimm company abuse. Really intregued by all the characters so far and very excited to read more!
Ty ty!! It's great to hear that I've apparently struck a decent balance between dark/funny. Things will get darker so I guess I'll have to get funnier.
Enough people have fallen into the Peter trap now that you guys can probably make a human chain and free yourselves.
