Pleasures of the Knight (Updated 6/29/16)

[Melphy]

I'd imagine most of you don't remember me, or my rather abortive last attempt at working on a game. In that one, I made the terrible mistake of giving the player far too many route options at the start, and as such instantly creating so much writing work that it became rapidly untenable.

I like to think I'm smarter now.

Pleasures of the Knight is my current project (check it out on my weblog: http://melphiessvice.blogspot.com). You play a knight of the crown, hunting down a wicked demoness, and though your journey proves successful in finding her, defeating her proves more complicated than expected (well, usually, if the story is going to last more than like 5 pages). Though you drive her off, you are cursed and must track her across country with nothing but your sword, your wits, and a magical pendant that you're pretty sure indicates her location.

A few things to note:

1) This is a transformation and mind control featuring game, you will almost certainly be transformed in some way or another (or one particular way if you make it past the prologue), and managing your character's mental state is a significant portion of the long term challenge of the game.

2) The game is currently in alpha, so at present there's the prologue, one optional encounter, a number of random events as you had to the 2nd area, as well as the introduction to the next area.

3) The game is entirely text based (er, sorry), I'm a better writer than just about anything else, so, I write. (I know that's a dealbreaker for some people, but it's what I got).

4) For people who prefer to avoid transformation games because they don't like unavoidably being turned into a woman early on in the game (since I've seen the complaint around), I have good news! This is not that sort of game. (... Sort of. Only very technically. Promise you aren't forced to be turned into a woman though).

5) If you read this far I guess you can download the game without actually having to go to my weblog (though I'd prefer you did, makes it easier to track how many people are actually looking at/interested in the game) HERE.

So, give it a shot, tell me what you think, gimmie money, and if you find any grammar errors or bugs, please tell me, I try to stay on top of fixing them as fast as possible. Alpha may be alpha, but it doesn't HAVE to stay that way.

[Souleon]

Do you have any pictures at all of the game?

[powuivnpeb]

There you go

[Melphy]

Yeah, sorry, the game is all text on background, with links to various pages. While the mechanics are deeper than that (it tracks quite a few stats and stuff which will change your later options), I'll admit there's not a lot to look at image wise.

Anyways, update today, mostly a bug fix, but it does come with some new content for people who run all the way to the end. Nothing fully sexual, per se, but a pretty decent teaser of what might be happening in the next update.

[musical74]

Having played through with Zork and Zork 2, I don't mind all text! So long as the story is good (or funny), images are a bonus! Heck one of my all time favorite games - Earthbound - has so so graphics... but is fun beyond belief, so who cares that the graphics are meh?

Will be interesting to see how this pans out!

[Melphy]

Well, good news everybody (who cares), update today, game fully in Sugar Cube, hopefully with minimal lingering bugs from the switch over, and a bit more of a teaser lead in for the second major zone. More details can be found on my weblog, as usual, it's largely technical stuff, but, you know, 800 bonus words to be read for people of interest.

[Melphy]

WARNING WARNING WARNING. An impossible anomaly has occurred! A new update has dropped. Details on my weblog, and download link, er, also there. Or in the first post of this thread. Enjoy, if you're of a mind for it.

[Melphy]

Sorry for the now, er, triple post, buuut 2.4 had some minor bugs that, in the fixing of, created much more major bugs, and so I've had to update to 2.4.1: Now actually functional edition. Isn't alpha fun?

[Melphy]

Speaking of fixing bugs, 2.4.5 is out, slamming one last bug, and implementing a status page for your enjoyment.

[Melphy]

2.5.0 is up, got some more random encounter scenes, few scenes with Frigg, and the entire game has been beaten with the NO BUGS hammer. REPEATEDLY. Think I've got all the significant/glaring ones gone. See my weblog for more info, etc. etc. you know the drill.

[Borkenone]

Played it just a little pass the prologue, generally speaking it's nice.
But I like this kind of story about female protagonist instead of a former formerly-female protagonist.
So I would be more looking forward to see your Ghost Princess gets update.

[Melphy]

Ahh, good 'ole Ghost Princess, the first work that will forever, ironically, haunt me =P

Nah, I do intend to get back to Ghost Princess in time, but because it's a substantially more intricate work at its very base premise, I mostly want to make sure I can see a story through as a largely narrative work (for all that Pleasures of the Knight has gotten a bit complex under the hood itself), and then take what I've learned, both in story writing and in programming, back to Ghost Princess. Only real potential issue is that real life may force me to really cut back on my writing time, and if that happens PotK is going to take a loooot longer to finish and so even getting to Ghost Princess is going to be a rather Herculean task. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though. (Also if, somehow, my Patreon gets flooded with ridiculous quantities of cash [Ha!], I suspect I'll be obliged to work at least part time on Ghost Princess because it seems to be a rather favored project. Though at that point I'll be, somehow, making a living wage off of this so 30-40 hours a week isn't unreasonable. Not like I expect that to happen, pipe dream sort of thing.)

[Melphy]

Speaking of Ghost Princess, I'm having a little discussion related to that project starting now-ish on my weblog/anywhere my nonsense is being discussed, so pipe in if you like.

[Deva]

Speaking of Ghost Princess, I'm having a little discussion related to that project starting now-ish on my weblog/anywhere my nonsense is being discussed, so pipe in if you like.

So, as a totally unrelated fan, I think you should definitly do some more ghost princess stuff.

[Melphy]

Oh how naive was I in those days long past to think I could manage working on both of them. When, in fact, life was about to kick my teeth in and prevent me from working on either.

On the up side, I'm back in action, and like anyone back in action, I come carrying an update for PotK! It's only like 12 passages, just 2, I suppose, for every month I've been missing, but hell, I'm STILL mostly living out of boxes and stuff, so I don't think it's that bad of a start when it comes to getting back in the game.

Enjoy/leave feedback/w/e, you know the things people do around here.