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The Murderous Apprentice 

Mentions of murder and possession.

All pronouns are optional and completely changeable. 

You play the child of a wizard, warlock, sorcerer or witch.

Your parent is recently dead.

One of your father's apprentices has custody of you until you turn eighteen in a few months/next year.

He doesn't know you saw him kill your father.

Once you've reached majority you can put him to trial.

But do you want to?

He was always friendly and kind towards you and you know he respected your parent a great deal.

So why would he do it?

What you don't know is that your parent was possessed.

Try to figure out what happened and especially why.

Possibly gain clues to unlock flashback or bonus POV scenes.

--

Alternative idea: your parent had several apprentices. 

Pick one as your guardian.

Hope that's not the murderer.

Each apprentice would have a different reason for killing their teacher.

The friendly one is secretly a spy, sent by rival mages or your enemies of your parent's potential patron.

The taciturn, reserved one did it because parent was possessed by something evil/a demon.

Because this one's ambitious and often unfriendly, he is the first suspect.

The easygoing one did it because they were too lazy in their, and w

ere going to get kicked out by your parent.

You're a cult member.

From an old god cult.

You were supposed to babysit your younger sibling.

Something happened and now your sibling is possessed or had their mind eaten or something similarly unfortunate by the old god you are all worshipping.

You could probably tell your parents and they'd see it as an honor.

But. Then you would have to admit you botched your first babysitter job.

Cue attempts to hide the fact that your baby sibling (age optional but preferably between toddle age and puberty) is no longer your baby sibling but an eldritch entity possessing their body.

Can go the horror way and be kind of sad and philosophical or take a more lighthearted and comedic turn with ever sillier and more ridiculous attempts to hide the facts.

The protagonist can be of various age, like in their teens, which would serve as a good explanation for their refusal to come clean, or older than that and just very determined to keep this whole mess a secret.

As in, really determined.

The world can perish but that secret they'll take to the 

grave determined.

You're a farmer and you just have made a new friend.

There's something going on, some kind of struggle you think, so that explains why the elf you found in your barn doesn't look so well.

They're clearly frightened and injured because why else would they growl and bare their teeth at you?

You're intent to help even if they might need a bit of time to trust you.

Spoiler: the elf isn't an elf. The hapless farmer met their first orc, saw the ears, and made assumptions.

Just the wrong ones.

The rest of the game can consist of gaining the friendship of the injured orc and patching them up.

Maybe they return the favor when the farm is in peril from orcs or someone/something else? 

Memory Issues 

You wake up in another place.

And a completely different body.

Your significant other or significant other the person whose body you are inhabitating now, is doting, caring, and attentive, and assures you the amnesia is not a problem for them.

The doctors told them it might wear off soon! And everything will be ok again!

Something feels slightly off but that is just the new body and strange circumstances, right?

Can be that the original owner of the body was kidnapped and is now in the hands of their worst enemy.

Like the nemesis of a superhero trying to turn them to their side now that they have the opportunity.

Or the original got kidnapped by a stalker.

Can be an obviously socially awkward staller.

Or someone very dangerous, think of the yandere archetype.

Or a sociopath who has adapted enough to appear charming by going through the motions but can't always hide the slipups in such close quarters.

Or they got into an accident and their emergency contact was still set to their ex.

Should make for a lot of awkward moments and leftover feelings spilling over from the ex.

Whatever those feelings are.

Or, in a completely different plot twist, the amnesia is the real thing and what is making everything feel off.

The significant other is really just a caring partner and no dimension travel or similar took place. 

It could all be interesting, turning more into psychological horror or very wholesome, depen

ding on which way it goes.

Unsuitable Suitor

You're a parent and your child just brought their new partner to dinner.

That's not a problem usually. But this time.

This time, they have picked someone completely unsuitable.

Cue the player having to decide whether to let the relationship be or subtly, or not so subtly, try to sabotage it.

Reasons for why this partner is unsuitable can be anything.

Are they a royal household and the child brought home an enemy royal or a commoner the family can never be seen to endorse?

(This could lead to political arguments, maybe in the form of trying to find the right argument to counter or win the debate, mechanic-wise shown as a parry or counterattack. Or defuse a bomb.)

The suitor could also be a rebellion on the part of the child and meant to cause the parent the greatest amount of offense.

This would mean it's not as serious but still makes it a struggle for the parent to get through the dinner.

Might have a kind of struggle meter at the of which the player character snaps in some way, without input by the player, or make it more difficult to control the character.

The dinner might also include the need to navigate the conversation with the child and their partner trying to find the least offensive topic possible while expressing as little opinion as is conversationally feasible.

So bland a topic it can't be argued about.

Possibly devolving into a stating of facts, if going the silly way.

(It can be used for a humorous purpose game, though, with more and more absurd conversation until the dinner is over or one side "wins" the non argument.)

Or it can end with the characters genuinely trying to find common ground and understand each other and the parent accepting the relationship.

That can make for a heartwarming and touching with a possible moral.

Licensed under CC-BY.

Court Intrigue Simulator

Where you play as a courtier or noble and have to try and make connections and play politics or face consequences, like death for example.

Someone else will always want your lands, title or place in court.

The more you anger someone and/or the more missteps you make raises a counter up.

At a certain point someone is likely to send an assassin after you.

Or arrange an accident.

Or set you up in an unpleasant marriage.

Or have you exiled to a far-off cottage.

Some of those outcomes are better than others.

You can mitigate facing dire situations by say, getting the favour of the most powerful person in court, be that the king/queen/ruler or the most talented schemer or the power behind the throne, like the royal advisor.

A happy end or a good end is optional but might be satisfying.

In a more grimdark setting or dark fantasy or fractured fairy tale a good ending might of course be less feasible than in a noblebright one or a story aiming for an explicitly happy ending.

Including monarchy is completely optional but it lends itself well to scheming and backstabbing, as history shows.

Licensed under CC-BY.

Favors Owed

Mentions of the main character or their group of adventures possibly dying/being killed in some outcomes.

You're a young adventurer.

Your mentor has sent you out on your own to find your own path and gain experience.

You are to complete a kind of pilgrimage that is usual for your people and/or the profession you have chosen.

It's not too dangerous and you are expected to return home and show your mentor what you have learned afterwards.

On your travels, you come across someone in peril.

It's a mage/sorcerer/magic user that for one reason or another can't get out of this trouble themselves.

You have just the skillset to help them and decide to do so, for whatever reason.

They are grateful if a bit chagrined that they needed the help but promise to pay you back one day.

You part ways amicably or at least on civil terms and each of you continues on their way.

After a while, you put them out of your mind and more or less forget about the encounter.

After the pilgrimage is over, you return home to show what you have learned.

You show enough promise to get sent on further missions and grow more skilled and prominent in adventurer circles.

Eventually, you hear rumors of a dark mage who is gaining power and trying to take over the country/kingdom.

You investigate.

Every time you think you get close or have found the possible dark lord's lair, it turns out it's a false lead or it's already emptied and abandoned.

That continues until you are invited to join a group of rebels against the mage's reign or a band of adventurers who are intent on bringing the mage down.

You manage to infiltrate the lair and for once it's not empty.

But the dark mage who captures you is the same one you once helped out.

This can go several ways:

• the mage kills the whole group, including you, despite the debt they said they owe you

• you can convince them not to kill everyone and are let go, alone or with the rest of the group, in exchange for the debt being cleared

• you ask for the mage's side of things and they actually have a point/are in the right/have bad fantasy PR, and you decide to join their cause

• no one needs to get killed because the mage is not the one who killed people after them (that might have been a patron deity/fanatically devoted/follower/ex-lover, or political opponent, or magical rival out to ruin their reputation that way/or they have an evil twin/doppelgänger)

• they let you alone live and keep you in a cell/cage/gilded cage kind of nice room, and never let you out again until your sanity is worn down enough to accept your new normal

• it's a big misunderstanding and you have the wrong lair

• they are kind of shady but avoided you because they honor their debts and didn't want to have to fight or kill you but now you've pushed and they need to decide what to do 

Several possibilities.

Is the mage actually evil?

Is this the right mage who tries to take over the country?

Are your fellow adventurers trustworthy or not?

(Possible they are only here for the loot or they have the order to steal a magical artifact for someone, or they are the bad guys and a mage is actually a decent person, etc)

The mage is really a future dark lord type and ruthlessly practical and thus unconcerned with never paying you back.

The mage is shady/dark/evil but willing let you live in a twisted sign of gratitude after they have gotten rid of the others

There might be even more shades of grey between this.

It's an interesting topic to explore.

Some notes:

I tried to keep everything fairly gender neutral.

Its in second person because I'm so used to it from reading IF myself and hope it helps a bit with immersion.

I'd like to see what others make of this.

Some interesting char

acter explorations or maybe a fun dungeon crawl or a even a comedy of errors?

I hope you all take care and thanks for your hard work.

I absolutely love your writing and would be very sorry, if you stopped doing games. 

There's a link I came across a whileback about maketing on Kickstarter that could help you a bit

https://twitter.com/thedvspgame/status/1165764024606187520

Social media is really  important, but tagging is even more so.

If you start a twitter, vnlink and some others tags like wipwednesday or screenshotsaturday might be useful. Or ren'py for the engine.

Or just visulanovel and otome tags.

And I find pictures draw my eye easier than just text.  Just a thought.

Some devs make a tumblr to post updates or answer questions, like what are the favourite ice cream flavours of the romances options or lore tidbits. 

I know that always keeps my interest alive when the game development takes a while and there no current updates. 

Also, tumble searches use only the first five tags I've hear, soemthing to keep in mind.

Good luck.

Ps I hope that doesn't all sound rude, I'm not trying to be. I'd really like you to share your games with a lot more people and those are things I've noticed about my own browsing.

If anything's not clear, I have an awful cold and am not my best currently.

This game is so pretty and fun and absolutely the only platformer I have ever finished. Thanks for this.