Hello! It’s been a while. It’s already December, which is wild to me. Seems like it was 2021 just yesterday etc etc etc.

Last time I posted an update like this was January this year and was a similar year-in-review type post, which feels like an easy habit to keep up except this time I’m actually doing it before I go off on holiday or something.

Anyway let’s just cut to the chase, and get into the meat (🥩?) of this post…

• I’ve got a new game out through Domino Club, The Devil’s Imago.
• I’m working on a ~longer~ game called Dawn Chorus.
• I made a little list of nice games on itch you should check out.

Let’s start from the top…

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THE DEVIL’S IMAGO

Winner of Domino Club’s M.R. James Award — ‘for a tale of primeval forces, unknown, uncaring, and unearthed’

THE DEVIL’S IMAGO is a game about, well, primeval forces, unknown, uncaring, and unearthed (still can’t get over how good this line is, thanks candle). It’s a period piece (!), it’s about strange things that start happening in a small village in 17th century France. Bronze statues get dug up, a body is found, a strange yet alluring man shows up…

I set out to write this story of subconscious/forbidden desire, temptation, and devilry… and it ended up being that and more! It’s really a tale that explores class struggle, state violence, and the ways the past always seems to find a way to repeat itself.

I’ve made this game with my (previously on GUTLESS) co-conspirator isyourguy, he made the sounds AND the wonderful engine inkrunner for it (which should be available for public use… soon).

I wrote the whole game and even dusted off my good ol’ illustration skills to draw the character portraits in the game!

✤ PLAY NOW ✤

☞ Be aware that the game comes with a list of content warnings available on the game’s page, and is not suitable for minors and people who do NOT want to read sexually explicit content.

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DAWN CHORUS

If you follow(ed) me on Twitter, you would have seen me talk about this. To reiterate what I wrote on there: I’m a recipient of VicScreen’s Originate Games funding program. I pitched the concept for DAWN CHORUS to them early this year and now I… have to make it. Hurray!

DAWN CHORUS is an interactive fiction game set in a future Melbourne. It’s about mundane tenderness in an era of cosmic dread. The game will be presented in a patchwork of browser-based multi-media storytelling.

It’s my first large(ish) scale project… everything I’ve made so far is work I’ve completed in a month or two at most (probably the project with the longest dev time I’ve spearheaded is HYPER//ECHO), so it’s interesting to be given a much longer timeline to work on something entirely self-driven.

To be perfectly honest it’s taken a while for me to really get a good grasp on what exactly I want this story to be. I dealt with a pretty big case of writers’ block this year but I think I’m mostly past that now (I did write The Devil’s Imago), and I’m excited to really get tinkering with it in the new year.

Inspirations for this game include 17776 by Jon Bois, The City & The City by China Miéville, Pajeú by Pedro Dioegenes, Disco Elysium by ZA/UM… It’s also kind of a thematic/stylistic extension of my previous Domino Club offering ( C Y C L E ) which is also set in Melbourne.

Recently I’ve been thinking about it in a much more focused way, and I think this game is sort of a spiritual sequel or revisit of my bitsy game UNDER A STAR CALLED SUN. It’s been a while since I made a game that really has that permeating sense of wistful grief. I wanna write something sad yet hopeful again and this feels right… I think?

I need to make up some characters though… with GUTLESS and The Devil’s Imago I’ve been having a lot of fun writing characters, which is something I never thought I’d be capable of somehow. It’s cool to see my abilities as a writer get stronger as I make more things.

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Other little updates:

• I’ve added the bitsy version, and a list of bitsy hacks and tools used for every bitsy game I’ve made! Been meaning to do that for a while: I occasionally get questions on how I did one thing or another, so I’m hoping having that laid out transparently might be good and helpful… The only thing is I haven’t really used bitsy since version 7.2 (I think) so I have no idea how up to date any of those hacks/tools are. LOL.
• I updated my good ol’ PIY (Print It Yourself…) calendar for 2024! I already wrote a post about this last week. It’s PWYW but I still get occasional donations for it which is super nice, thank you.

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So yeah I’ve been making things! I think pretty much all of my newest games I’ve published through Domino Club so if you don’t really follow me on socials it may seem like I’ve been mostly dormant for the past 2 years or so… I think that will change soon as I’ve got a few side project ideas I’m idly tinkering on as I work on DAWN CHORUS.

I’m hoping I’ll write little blog posts more regularly next year as I begin work on DAWN CHORUS in earnest, and even if I have nothing new to show I reckon I can still talk about stuff like game/book/movie/etc recommendations if that’s anything people would be interested in (would be a good excuse for me to write review-like paragraphs about things.)

OK I think that’s enough self-promo and other self-talk from me, so I’ll just end this post on a list of recommendations.

Cool stuff on itch I’ve played recently:

• Seethe and Scab, a smart, thoughtful and genuinely tense examination of not only our relationship to the land we live on and the disposal and storage of hazardous waste (especially on stolen land), but also found footage and its distillation into indie horror games as a genre itself.
• eurydice exhumed, a gloriously sad AND horrific retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Great stuff.
• Trail of the Wretched, a western-inspired visual novel about a pathetic guy (affectionate) having the worst time of his life in a hostile, unfamiliar, and beautiful world. Excellent writing and presentation in one of my favourite games of the year.
• Childhood Homes (and why we hate them), a very nice Twine game following in the great tradition of haunted house stories.
• Moving On, this one is different from all the other games in here lol… a heartfelt vignette about moving homes as a child punctuated with narration about moving as an adult. A beautiful and joyful experience!
• South Scrimshaw, Part One, a wonderful visual novel told in the style of a nature documentary about an alien whale specimen. Like nothing I’ve ever played. Banger game.
• All of the games from the latest Domino Jam! My stand-out favourites are:
  • Haustor’s Abbey, a tale of longing and the desire for connection and recognition, and fungal networks as a living archive of love and life.
  • Adverse Possession, a murder mystery staring the most pathetic guy (affectionate), his angelic sidekick, and three insufferable (affectionate) women (who may actually be… demons…?).
  • World Pole Gaiden RISE! Mark of the Deck 2: Sanguine & Melancholia. Great representation for girl himbos (you’ll see what I’m talking about) who also speak in the most unhinged Australian accent for some reason. Also genuinely an enjoyable card battle game. I’m quaking in my ex-Hearthstone player boots.
  • tear ripple, absolute banger of a game. Feels like a distant memory AND a vivid fever dream all at once. Nothing prepares you for this story and what it has to offer to you.
  • six inches deep in mud, a remarkable exploration of crumbling group dynamics in a post-apocalyptic world, sprinkled with excellent characterful moments from the game’s ensemble cast.

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That’s it! Happy holidays, take care.

Cecile