The Painter of Devil's Fangs
Down on your luck as a mercenary, you return to your grandpa's house for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, your hometown is more boring than you remembered; there's just nothing here. Oh, except for the vampire who apparently lived right up the hill this whole time, and the paladins who want to kill him. Figure out what to do with your life, and try not to die in the process. (There are 13 endings, and several of those are death, so watch yourself.)
This game has a sequel with a somewhat darker tone here!
UPDATE: I've been working on a bunch of writing based on this story, which can be found here!
All writing, art, and programming by me. (I stubbornly refuse help even when it would probably be a good idea.)
Development log
- v1.2 quick fixNov 05, 2021
- v1.1 quick fixOct 25, 2021
Comments
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Also, in your game I can't go on to find all of the endings, I feel bad for getting the painters death ending, I can't go on with being on the paladins side, I have to keep playing as his friend.
Hey! Big, huge fan of the game! I love the aspects of (Anyone checking comments before playing, don't read this, major spoiler.)
you being able to befriend and join the vampire, and the seeming to be villain isn't truly that bad. I find the game fascinating, and I got about half of the endings so far. I have found many games that I have liked, but this one was so amazing that I actually made an account to comment just for this game. Might I ask, where did your inspiration come from? Do you have any other games out or ones that you are working on? I would love to play more like this, maybe even a sequel? Or just something else that you have made.
Hey there! I'm so glad you liked the game! I actually made this for a class project in Twine over the course of a month, and I had no idea I would enjoy making it so much.
Now, to answer your questions:
Where did your inspiration come from?
My inspiration came from a conversation between a friend and me about immortality. She was saying her "ideal" immortality was like this order of monks from the old Star Wars extended universe: essentially, they are brains in jars, so that they can ponder the mysteries of the universe for all eternity. I disagreed, stating that I would much rather have a human body and develop my skills, and art in particular; after all, life is short and art is long. And because I like vampires so much, this got me thinking about an artist vampire, removed from the rest of the world, obsessively focused on their craft.
Do you have any other games out or ones that you are working on?
I'm currently making a game in RPG Maker that's a sequel to one of the bad endings of this game (however, I don't have a "canon" ending, so I might go back and revisit some other paths). It's quite a bit different as it's puzzle-based rather than strictly text-based, but there are still multiple endings depending on the player's choices. And, of course, it features a different protagonist, but the vampire is still central to the plot. It's slow going because I have a full time job now, but I have got most of the mechanics ironed out - now I'm working on level design. It'll take a while, but I'll get there eventually!
Great to hear that a sequel is coming out! I love the inspiration, and overall the whole game is good, and as for the bad endings, I am not sure there really are any bad endings not ending in death. My favorite ending in particular is when you become a vampire as well. Overall I hope to see the addition to see the series, and experience what you come up with next.
On a different note, I don't know much about coding, I am currently in 8th grade,and a friend of mine and I were just making some simple designs on pixel-art as models for the game ideas we have (We each make a game, and they both tie into each others story lines.) What is the process for making games like this? What is Twine?
Well, to answer the easy question, Twine is an online tool for making text-adventure games with branching paths. The stuff I had to do to make my game work is a little complex (like the inventory, day and night cycle, etc) but other than that it's really easy to use. Twine might be a good fit for your game if it's heavily narrative-based. Here's a link if you want to check it out: https://twinery.org/
As far as the game-making process goes, it really depends on what you're trying to do and how you're making it. For my game, I first started by writing - a lot. Anything that came to mind, anything that might be pertinent, any snippets of dialogue or description, I wrote down and saved in a Google Doc. Then, I started incorporating that writing into Twine itself, starting from the beginning and moving outward. It helped immensely to have access to a guide and the documentation; no matter what game engine you use, always find the documentation so you know what can be done easily and what requires more complex programming. The art was pretty simple; I used Piskel, which is also free and online, and also handles pixel animations as well. I did have an advantage because I already had knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and understood what they could do. That being said, it's easy enough to find simple tutorials online for those things. Twine itself is fairly simple, so you don't really need anything too complicated.
For a more complex game (e.g. in Unity or Unreal), there's always the process we used for development in my classes: prototype, vertical slice, alpha, and final. Prototype is just what it sounds like: get the basic mechanics working. It doesn't even have to be a proper level, you just have to get it playable. The vertical slice is where you get a single level completed, both in terms of art and level design; this way, you can see what works and what doesn't, and change things accordingly. The alpha is where you have all the levels done and can play through the whole thing, and can start play testing. Then you fix anything that needs fixed for the final product. Dunno if that all will help, but that's what we had to do!
That's very helpful, thanks so much! I'll keep that in mind, especially because mine is essentially a walking simulator, a second person game where you are the ghost ancestor of the boy who discovers necromancy, and uses it to destroy the entire colony on the mountain he discovered it in, but only because he needed to to save the world from a secret the clan elders were keeping from everyone else. General rough draft, combining a few ideas I had had.
Sounds very cool! Let me know if there's anything else I can help with!