>> Damsel <<

> Overview <

Story: A bullet-hell game where you play as the stereotypical "damsel in distress" except this princess is secretly the villain

Engine: Godot

Endings: 8

> So What Actually Is This Game? <

Back in September of last year, I was watching Disney's The Black Cauldron. I understand that many people don't like the movie because it doesn't really feel like a Disney movie but I love it for it's 80's dark fantasy. Anyways, it got me thinking of back when I use to play Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64. There's a part in the game where you can play as Princess Peach where you sneak around your own castle and try to help Mario the best way that you can given the circumstances.

Watching that movie and remembering playing that game started to get my gears turning and that's where I had this idea of a game where the Player tries to sneak out of their castle like Princess Peach but instead of helping the hero they are helping themselves. In short, the Princess wasn't stuck in the castle with the villain, the villain was stuck in the castle with the princess.

I made this prototype for this potential game where this Cat Wizard shoots bullets out in four directions and teleported randomly across the map. It wasn't much, just a simple prototype of some gameplay ideas I was cooking up. that's when I started thinking up more ideas for the game, including the story. I wrote about ten pages of character descriptions and story before finally deciding that it would be more interesting for the Player to be playing as the villain instead of as the hero. 

>> So, This Game Has Different Endings? <<

Yup. Despite being a bullet-hell type of game, this game has story elements that depending on your choices can lead to different endings. I currently have 8 planned endings for the game. I doubt I will add any more for several reasons. Mainly I if I have a small set of endings than it will actually be feasible to complete this game.

I don't know how long the game will be due to gameplay and level design still in development but I do have the entire story mapped out. Besides the "Damsel is Actually The Villain" story beat, I actually want to keep the rest of the story a secret. I don't want to spoil what happens in the game and what you may find along the way. There are many secrets in this land that only the brave and daring can find.

There's going to be four main characters, including the Damsel, the Cat Wizard, The Warrior, and the Evil Queen. Depending on development we should be able to see additional side characters here and there that pop up.

>> Cool, So What's The Gameplay Actually Look Like? <<

We're still in the prototyping phase but I think the best way to explain the gameplay would be the Deltarune Chapter 3 Secret Game Section. If you know what I'm talking about then that should give you a decent idea of what type of gameplay this game will look like. Action adventure top-down combat with bullet hell mechanics. There's more to it than that but I don't want to go too deep into yet just in case there's a mechanic or feature that we end up not using.

>> Where Can I Follow The Development Of This Game? <<

I'm glad you asked!

For most up-to-date info on the game, my Bluesky is the best one for this.

As for longer, more in-depth discussion about the game, this forum and my website are great places to keep an eye out.

I hope to post more things about this game in the coming months. I hope you guys are just as excited as I am for this! My goal is to get this thing done by the end of the year but I guess we'll see about that. I unfortunately cannot make any promises.