A gothic
When Nicole's father takes ill she begins working for the De Fosse family on a neighbouring farm. There she is reacquainted with her childhood friend, Cecille de Fosse, and the rest of Cecille's family. Over the next few days Nicole's presence begins to have an effect on the De Fosse family, for better or for worse.
This started as a MAGS entry and quickly turned into a short passion project. While the story hasn't changed, the final release allows a lot more of Nicole's experience to develop, and gives the player more control over how they interact with the world.
One important element that has been expanded on is Nicole's morality. Depending on how you react to events, the members of the De Fosse family will begin to treat you differently. I don't want to get too much into how this plays out, but even though it's subtle, I think it adds a lot to the story. Nicole and Cecille's relationship was also meant to be at the forefront of the game and is now less vague. That is probably my biggest regret in releasing an unfinished version of the game.
Features
- Approx. 40 minutes to complete the main storyline
- Branching storyline
- 30 minutes of original music
- Full voice acting
For those who know how the story goes or who don't mind being spoiled, here is a bit more on the game design.
Spoiler
The Farm operates under the philosophy that no matter what, we cannot change our fate, and the decisions we make along the way are merely affectations. No matter what Nicole does to earn the respect of Alaiz, or save her father, events play out in the exact same way. I have been thinking a lot about games in terms of how they represent time, especially in regards to death and permanence. You can play this game and simply let things happen, chose at random etc. or you can react directly to the environment.
These decisions are especially apparent in dialogue. Here is a mock-up of the first set of branches you will encounter speaking with Cecille over the first two days.
These branches will also be affected by how you decide to handle certain situations, and what order you inspect certain items. The fact that things always play out the same is definitely a limitation imposed by me and my ability to make games, but it's also the framework most of the games we play operate under. With this short excerpt, I hope to address this limitation, even if in some small way.
I know this is a simple adventure game, and the concept of morality in games is nothing new, but I hope it's a start for me to explore some broader concepts in my future projects. I also hope this shit is fun to play!
[close]
- Completed music for the 1st act
- Nicole's base animations completed
- Main storyline completed
February 4th, 2016
- Moved game from AGS 3.3.4 to 3.3.5
- Improved UI
- Added dynamic cursor to make navigation and hotspots more obvious
- Expanded background art to fill screen width.
- Added three additional rooms, missing from MAGS version.
- Added walk speed setting to options menu.
You are obviously free to try the MAGS release of the game but as it is barely complete, I would recommend waiting for at least a beta.
Congrats to everyone that took part!
