Author: jinxlgamez

Climb to Ethereum

<<PREVIOUS

After months of training, Damien was given his own golden sword, super effective against demons as the gold burned their skin. It had to be specially altered in Damien’s design as if it touched his skin he would be severely injured. He wielded it with great prowess as he practised upon the dummies in the courtyard. The blade was balanced to perfection, and now he was finally ready.

At the most appropriate time, a new assignment came in, the Cultists were on the path to a relic of unknown power that had been sealed in the temple of Ethereum where the Creator had been destroyed. They sought to use it to open a rift in reality and bring him back from the dead. Damien was ultimately assigned as he was the newest to be trained into the ranks of the Golden. Damien was paired with his now best friend Derkeethus as each pair needed a mage and a swordsman, so who better than someone he knew he could trust? Setting out to Ethereum, the Captain overlooked his troops from his tower.

Upon arriving beneath Ethereum, Derkeethus was already fatigued. Being short and overweight wasn’t the only thing that had made him unfit, as in comparison to the rigorous training Damien had undergone, most training for Derk was magical and un-taxing.

Damien had lain Derkeethus on a miniature cart he’d found along the way, and was pulling him along behind him by his waist rope belt. With still a long hike left to go, Damien woke up Derkeethus to prepare him from the freezing temperatures ahead that guarded the temple of Ethereum. Pulling Derkeethus up behind him, one hand drawn to his sword, whilst the other pulled he and Derkeethus behind him up the cliff face. Derk was sitting cross-legged on the cart with his hands together, in the perfect position for his incantations, which protected against the force of the magical ice storm.

Arriving at the gates of Ethereum, they met with the rest of the troops supplied by the Golden Knights and made their way in, securing the perimeter and guarding the relic. These knights were not of the “Golden” status, which Damien had obtained. They were regular knights, almost no different to your common guard, yet were more akin to soldiers than guardsmen. Despite being just out of training, Damien was the highest-ranking member here, besides Derkeethus, the setup was oddly undermanned for such a priceless artefact.

Damien kept a close eye on both Derkeethus and the relic that was in the centre of the temple.

It was quiet. The temple walls creaked and groaned as the wind battered the windows, every so often an icy chill would crawl through the halls and drive a chill up the troops’ spines. They guarded the door as Derkeethus began to work on removing the relic from its boundaries without cursing himself and everyone else in the entire temple. One single mistake could have the entire group of people here dead, or worse.

Suddenly, slicing, clashing, and the sounds of life escaping from the mouths of deceased souls rang through the temple like a bad dream. Cultists came swarming in through the halls of the temple, gutting everyone in their way and taking no prisoners. The troops were powerless against them as they whittled their way through the sheer number of them, surprise was the best advantage and they took it.

Derkeethus was finished, as soon as he was done making the relic safe to touch, he was grabbed by two of the cultists and almost killed if it weren’t for Damien’s quick actions. Trying to be brave, Derkeethus stood tall as he could and clasped his hands together in an effort to protect his friends. His voice still wavering with fear, he recited psalms as loud as he could to strengthen and heal his comrades. Damien fought off all the attempts to best him, using his weaker hand, as he was strictly forbidden to embrace his powers, as his rage would consume him.

Cultists in the room realised Derkeethus was protecting the soldiers and started targetting him. Due to Derk having to concentrate on his prayers, he had no way to defend himself, so Damien risked his life to defend him. More and more cultists poured in like a swarm of bees, it was too much. Damien grabbed the sword with his demon arm and swung it around with all his force, sending cultists that weren’t even near him flying back into distant pillars. Letting it out for the first time in a long time meant the rage was unbridled and had built up over time, Damien was out for blood. He slaughtered all the cultists in sight, straying away from Derkeethus to follow his bloodlust. He sliced and impaled, decapitated and mutilated every cultist that stood before him, turning the room into a bloodbath.

“DAMIEN!!” Derkeethus screamed, Damien had carved a path through the cultists to the other side of the room and Derkeethus was in trouble.

Damien leaped to Derkeethus’s aid. In a blind rage induced panic, he launched his sword with both hands towards the pair. Derk noticing the glint of gold and steel, managed to push the cultist off himself and dive to the ground, the cultist swinging around just in time to witness the weapon effortlessly glide, straight into their chest. The blade sizzled in reaction to contacting the blood of a demon.

Damien retrieved his sword from the cultist, who barely stood there, in shock. The cultist collapsed, their hood falling back, exposing the face of a woman. She sported tribal tattoos, and had tanned skin. This hinted that she was possibly a refugee from the kingdom’s war that he’d been part of all those years ago. He had no idea that the curse had spread as far as the kingdoms. Nevertheless, she was dead and was no trouble to them now.

The fighting quickly faded, the cultists retreating to their portal, which had opened in one of the prayer rooms within the temple. They’d won, the cultists were retreating, and his best friend was safe. That was until Derkeethus pointed out that they’d managed to steal the relic despite their best efforts.

Returning with bad news, the blame was set upon Derkeethus and mostly Damien. It was Damien’s job to protect Derkeethus and the relic, and he had disobeyed his orders to stay in control. Damien was suspended from the group and will no longer be allowed to go on any expeditions until he learns to control his urges.

>>Cellular Secret

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
2

Letting Out Your Inner Beast

<<PREVIOUS

The moment that Damien entered the temple he was greeted with not only just weird looks but also with a forced smile and a sense of unease amidst the false respect. It’s obvious that not everyone wanted him here; Naya however, was glancing back at him with her soft smile frequently to check if he was still following. Amidst the sense of unease, he was kept from completely buckling under the pressure in the room by Naya’s looks of reassurance. It was odd, though, after years of being alone, he wasn’t entirely sure what he did to deserve her kindness. A real unfamiliar situation.

Damien was led to the hall, where the Cultist Leader sat hunched on the throne in front of the open fireplace, awaiting Damien. His robes drenching his frail body completely, he emitted a sense of power despite his deathly appearance. He did not rise from his chair to greet Damien, instead holding out his hand to him as if to let him see something.

A raspy low voice emitted from his dark hood, “Your arm…” He signalled his hand again for Damien to show him his arm. Damien awkwardly obliged and lay his arm on the Cultist Leader’s hand. He thoroughly examined his arm then laid back in his throne watching the fire. “Yes… I guess you’ll do…”

“You are Damien Graeme, correct?” The voice from the hood came louder, sounding interested, as if just recognizing who Damien was. “I suppose if I wish you to stay, I will have to give some compelling evidence that will enable you to fight for our cause… to reunite the demons like yourself within society…”

Filled with intrigue, Damien turns his attention towards the leader as the leader continues to speak, noticing his fascination with what he is saying.

“Your parents were murdered by the Golden Knights.” He stopped, looking at Damien.

The Golden Knights, the anti-demon faction, that went out of their way to battle against the cultists and had the illegitimate policy of slaughtering any afflicted from their faction and not letting any join, let alone live.

“Your parents were just as afflicted by the curse as you were, Damien…” He continued, “They spotted them while they were on a hunting party looking for rabid demons that patrol the forest. They found your parents walking back towards the village with a cart full to the brim with goods for the whole village, they’d just been to the mainland. Acting upon both fear and cruel disposition, they attacked your parents and stole the supplies for themselves, leaving your village poor and hungry, and leaving you an orphan. And not only that, but the Captain himself was the very man who commanded the attack…”

This was enough to convince Damien to join, if not for avenging his parents’ death but for equality between the cursed and humanity. He began his training with Naya, and grew quite affectionate towards her and discovered she was also one of the cursed herself. The training uniform was a tad more revealing than that of a cultist robe, and revealed where a shard had it her, just missing her heart. That was where the demonic skin tone was emanating from, just like Damien’s arm, but in case you wanted something more obvious, she still had a considerable sized shard sticking out from her chest. Demonic masses of red and black tinted flesh attempting to grow up and over it, making it just as much a part of her body as the rest of her. Damien’s shard was either too small to see, fallen out, or had ingrained itself within him, so the sight of Naya’s shard was somewhat unworldly in comparison.

His training involved various accounts of withstanding torture to test his cursed limits and succumbing to his rage to test his strength. The use of his arm wore away at the humanity within him that he held dear, but this was revenge and was only a minor consequence in the face of justice.

Taking the Relic by Force

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
1

Defending You From You

<<PREVIOUS

The moment that Damien entered the embassy he was greeted with not only just weird looks but also with a forced smile and a sense of unease amidst the false respect. It’s obvious that not everyone wanted him here; Derkeethus however, was happy enough with him and treated him more like a friend than anything else. This immediate friendship was strange, people always take time to get to know others, but Derkeethus was just an unending well of kindness. A real odd fellow.

Damien was led to the grand hall, where the Captain of the Golden Knights was sitting at their conference table and eagerly awaiting Damien. He arose from his chair to greet him, creating big hulking clunks in the ground as his armour weighed him down to the floors of the embassy, like boulders on each foot. Just as eagerly as he was weighting, he almost grabbed Damien’s normal arm out of his socket with the vigorous handshake that was forced upon him.

What was explained was that Damien could be a part of the Golden Knights if he wished, they were going after the cultists that planned to take over the realm with the power of The Creator. By enslaving the fallen god in his immortal decaying state, and siphoning his power like a magic well. He also explained to Damien of how some of these cultists are the original priests who took down the Creator all those years ago, but that’s not the full story.

In his gruff, commanding tone, he explained what happened upon that day.
“In the beginning, the Creator shaped and moulded the earth. Nurtured everything and everyone from a distance. Eras passed, and the Creator grew lonely, watching his creations from afar, making the most of their short life span as they experienced love and life to their fullest. One year, he decided he would go down there, he would walk among them and being their creator, they would respect him and love him for who he was.”

“He came to earth, and walked in a random direction, making a difference in people’s lives as he walked. He cleared passageways which had been blocked by landslides with a swift kick, he mended infected and broken bones with the touch of his hands. Plants that were withered and out-of-season sprang back to life and bear their fruit during the times of famine. But there were those that sought only his power, the original jealous priests.”

“They convinced him to meet them at their temple, high in the mountains of Ethereum, where they wished to offer him their blessings. The Creator was met with their blessings but also the prospect of sharing his magic, they wished to be able to use the same magic as he and be trained in how to use it. Of course, The Creator, seeing no fault in his own beloved creations, shared his power with all the priests which had asked of him his power.”

“Immediately the priests turned on him, incapacitating him with magic then delivering the final blow with a sword to the back of his neck. The Creator died instantly, shattering into a billion pieces across the realm, raining down onto the civilians below and causing the curse. The priests were divided, some ashamed of what they’d done, went into hiding and have not been seen to this day, the others went crazy with the power of their magic and were unsatisfied with how little they’d gained and forged a plan to revive the Creator and enthral him, so they could use him for infinite power.”

Damien, enlightened by the true side of the story, agreed to join the faction in aid of stopping the cultists reviving the dead Creator and started his training alongside Derkeethus at becoming a Golden Knight.

 >>Climb to Ethereum

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
2

The First Battle

<<PREVIOUS

Picking up the sword and shield and rushing into the fire and dust of the extremely one-sided battle that was happening before him, Damien searched inside himself for his courage. All the guards that were present were fighting, attacking the demon’s ankles, whilst the demon picked them up one by one and consumed them with little resistance. Not even caring to decant the soldiers from their “tin” suits.

Seeking the advantage of gaining the high ground, as the area below the Demon’s feet was essentially the death zone, Damien sneaked behind the demon from up on the rafters of the fort wall.
He prepared for an attack.
During his time in the war he had always been the lead tactician, this meant that the obvious advantage he had was of course obvious. Although, despite his many years in battle, nothing like this had ever happened. Giant demons being summoned from nowhere, it wasn’t right, nor was his arm, but the summoning was a worse issue altogether. He prepared himself, a deep breath to calm his nerves, finding footholds in the cobbled walkway to steady him.

With a quick burst, he lunged at the demon from above, swinging the sword down into the demon’s shoulder. The sheer force of the strength of his cursed arm caused the demon to fall to its knees. The guards, noticing Damien’s attack, regained a new confidence and started striking at the demon’s face and chest now that it was close to the ground.

Standing upon the Demon’s shoulder blades, Damien dragged the sword through the Demon’s shoulders towards the base of its head, rendering the demon paralysed. Collapsing to the ground, it was not long before it was unconscious, lifeless. Despite this, most of the guards still poked and prodded at its body, afraid that it would rise again.
Jumping from the demon’s back to the ground, the dust parting at his feet amidst the spilled blood of both human and demon, mixing to make a dark and tainted red. He wiped himself and the sword clean of the demon’s black blood and stood at attention when the guards investigated him in awe. As a swell of congratulatory celebrations from the guards began to brew, it was quickly quelled by the guard captain. Thought to be dead, he appeared out of nowhere and, tackling and pinning Damien to the ground, holding a dagger to his throat.

“Don’t congratulate this demon!” He demanded, spit flying from his mouth on to the dry dirt courtyard below. “This demon is part of the cultists that summoned the beast here!”

The crowd grew silent, and another weapon unsheathed, the glint of a sword shone beside the guard captain’s neck. A knight, armour-clad in golden raiment was behind the captain holding the sword to his neck. “I don’t think the reward of killing the demon is enough to pay him for the massive favour he has done by saving your troops. Don’t you think you should be a bit more grateful and show him some mercy?” The voice from the knight echoed inside his golden suit.

The captain got up off Damien and scurried towards his troops, insisting that they go back to their barracks and take the wounded with them. The Golden Knight chuckles, “That was easier than I thought.” The Golden Knight’s appearance changed from a heroic face-less metal suit to a young, fat man wearing monk’s robes. He outstretched his hand towards Damien in an effort to pull him up, “I’m Derkeethus.” He said with an awkward smile. “You know, the Golden Knights could use someone who could actually fight like you. I, however, am just a monk training to be head priest of the Magestry. I offered to help them out, but I think you’d be a lot better.”

A little confused over the situation before him with the whole transformation and the offer of joining an elite ‘anti-demon’ faction seemed a pit peculiar as it was notorious for its strict policy of not even accepting people afflicted with the curse.

Derkeethus looked at Damien’s arm, “You know you should not worry about that, Golden Knight Captain insisted that I get you specifically as he values your experience throughout the war of the kingdoms.”

Damien, feeling relieved, relished in the fact someone had actually mentioned his time in the war. It had seemed like an age.
After he came back from the war, no one had mentioned it to him since. Most just assumed that because he was afflicted with the curse, his choice to join the army was only part of that demon bloodlust that consumed so many that let themselves go to temptation.

Joining Derkeethus on his journey back to the embassy, in which the Golden Knights based their faction, seemed like the appropriate and right thing to do. It’s where they were conducting all their support and sending aid to nearby settlements, and that’s what Damien wanted to be part of the most.

Defending You From You.

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
2

Ball and Chain

Of course, he didn’t feel guilty. Why should he?
They locked him up in a prison cell with all these undoubtedly questionable people, and threw him in the same pot with a bunch of cultists. These people that Damien had been locked up beside were disgusting. Murders, thieves and captured war “heroes”, to be compared to, who he assumed, were the very people that were responsible for almost being killed by both the guard and the demon. He was not happy with the cultists, and he wasn’t taking crap from anyone. He was leaving the guards to perish alongside those stupid cultists. Apparently, they hadn’t foreseen that summoning a demon the size of the fort meant that they would be the side dish along with its main course.

It’d been hours since Damien had been mindlessly following the others, and there was honestly no other place to go. He thought that if they were all walking in unison for a reason, it had to be because they had a place to go to. So, he continued to follow, his leather shoes getting sodden and ruined with the wet mud along the track, dragging his feet behind him as he walked.

Out of the blue, a cultist appeared beside him, treading, so lightly it was almost as if he were floating above the badly flooded dirt track. The silence was almost threatening, the cultists wore dark purple robes with their hoods up, covering their faces to such a degree that the dark void where their faces should have been was unearthly. But Damien stared right back. He peered into the abyss beneath the hood and frowned.
In response to Damien’s facial expression, the cultist flips back their hood and smirks at Damien, the cultist was a tanned female, probably one of the refugees that came from the desert lands that Damien’s party went to war against. One half of her face was covered in her native tribal tattoos, whilst the other had cultist symbols burned into her face.

“You know, with an arm like yours, the cultists could really use you. We are at war with the Golden Knights, who aim to crush our freedom. You’ve already experienced it, right? The immediate branding of our fates because of our affliction!”

Damien frowned, should he trust the very people who made his life a misery? The descendants of those who were responsible for the curse he had on his arm?

The woman laughs, “Hey, you will join, right? The only way to ever be accepted in the society with that arm of yours is to create the society. No one will accept us unless we change the way things are for us. That’s what we’re doing! I mean, you’re not going to try to do that again, right? They don’t accept people like us.”

The inspirational talk from this woman really got to Damien, he was shunned everywhere when he revealed his arm. He wants it to stop. So maybe this whole cult is in his favour. Ever since he was a child, children ran, fearing him when he tried to play aside them. Their parents grabbed their children and ran, he has always felt isolated and has always wished to be accepted.

Damien nods, with some reluctance, and agrees to follow her and the other cultists to their temple. Heading for a better future ahead with his life when he can make his own future, possibly.

Letting Out Your Inner Beast

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
2

The Fall of Flannigan Fort

Damien awakes once again, startled. Anxious and in a panic, but this time, it was not about being late. This time, he was sitting in a rotten and mouldy cell, on a broken and foul chair, arms clamped into cuffs which were embedded into the table in front of him. Before him were two royal guards, one was guarding the exit to the cell, whilst the other was in the chair across from Damien.

The guard sneered at Damien when he saw him awaken. Standing up, the guard drew his sword, holding it a few millimetres away from Damien’s neck, giving him enough of a jolt to wake him up fully. The guard smirked at Damien’s reaction, holding the sword high above himself in the hair then driving it down with tremendous force into the table, lodging the sword in the table.

The royal guard’s bushy moustache brushed off his bottom lip when he spoke, and he spat when he yelled. He interrogated Damien about the how’s and the why’s of his being on the ship. “Who are you?”, “Why were you on t’at ship?”, “How’d you get upon that ship if you’re so poor, as you say?” 

All the questions he asked about Damien answered were never enough for the guard. Each answer given, no matter how detailed, made the guard grit his teeth so loudly that it echoed through the barren walls of the dungeon. Any idle chatter between the cellmates was hushed as they listened in for the new showdown that was to happen, like a new story being heard through a radio.

It wasn’t until the last question, the royal guard threatened him with, that Damien found himself concerned about his fate. “Your arm is t’e curse of a demon! You’re with the cultists, aren’t you?”

Looking at his right arm, that he so often either kept wrapped up or under his sleeve, it was exposed for all to see. It bulged a dark red, far more muscular than the left. Where his veins would be, thick black lines replaced them, seeming to ooze a demonic blood like liquid around his arm.

This was his arm. He had learned that whoever looked at it would look down on him and cast him out, so that’s why he covered up. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was like this, but he knew not to get angry, or the arm would influence his actions and turn him toxic, then rabid, then bloodthirsty. This, he had found through personal experience. His parents never spoke of it, and when he would ask them they’d turn their head in an attempt to feign ignorance, but their faces filled with shame.

There was a legend that when he was a child, there was this lost city high up in the mountains of the island. The residents prayed to The Creator, the very being that created the realm in which they live. And like any other story of meddling humans, one day The Creator turned upon humanity.
However, before he could do so, the monks of the Magestry combined their powers to destroy him. This only caused fragments of The Creator to burst and cover the entire realm upon his death, and whomever the fragments touched grew dark and demonic. He believed this to be true, as there was no other explanation handy, and his parents had not told him otherwise.

All Damien really knew is that his arm was not his, but even moreso he was not a cultist. He refused once again to the royal guard’s demands. The royal guard’s moustache twitched. He lay his hand on the hilt of the sword and pulled it fiercely, dislodging it from the table, and turned to Damien.

“We ought to have killed every one of you cultist scum on the boat… The commander won’t miss just one of you, especially if they’re a lying piece of sh- “

Suddenly, the roof collapsed in the hallway of the dungeon, almost sealing the guards and Damien inside. Both the guards rushed over to the cell door and swung it wide open and rushed out.

The rumbling continued, then crashing, followed by swords being unsheathed and screams of dozens of men from the cells. Damien was writhing around in the chair, trying to free himself from the table. Everything had been nailed to the ground. The sound of giant footsteps could be heard moving closer and closer towards the cell door, and Damien was trapped.

“Psst, hey. Over here!” Came a loud whisper from behind Damien. Damien stiffly turned his head the best he could as the voice came from his blind side. A lowly thief shifted up to Damien’s side and picked the lock on Damien’s cuffs, beckoning him to follow. Following the thief and the rest of the prisoners towards the exit, where they all now stand, face to face with an enormous demon intent on consuming everyone in the fort.

While everyone was escaping, Damien stood at the fort entrance and watched as the demon destroyed the courtyard and killed all the guards that dared to fight them. The same symbol of the cultists was burned into the flesh on the demon’s back, it tore into buildings with ease as it threw men into the distance. Damien noticed the guard captain’s sword and shield lying half scorched on the ground. He looked back to see the line of all the inmates escaping, but he felt guilty about letting the guards die, didn’t he?

“Nah, they unrightfully arrested me, with brute force. I’m not only injured, but have been imprisoned for interrogations with threatening methods. Their methods are out of hand, and they deserve their fate.”
>> NEXT

“Yes, I would. What happened over the course of the past hours doesn’t define all of them. From what it appears, the person who arrested me is already dead, and the rest of the guards weren’t even involved in my arrest. Plus, it’s my duty as a former soldier to lend an experienced arm.”
>>NEXT

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
2

Realms of Tanerila

Introduction

Damien rushed out the door of his house half dressed, he was late. Pulling on his cotton shirt and fastening his labour britches, he spun round and slammed the door behind him. Picking up his makeshift suitcase with his various blacksmithing tools poking out at either side as he turned, a myriad of sleeves and trouser legs threatening to burst out, almost leaking out of the unfastened openings in.
Today was the day that he was to leave this island, the day that, finally, he would leave everything behind. He would leave behind his job, his apprentice, his only friend and his house, and most likely quite a lot of his clothes too.

Anywhere was better than here. 

Damien hurried down the pathway towards the town with his shoes half on, not to mention also still being distracted by even the slightest abnormality along the way, despite his rush.

He had spent too long here since his parents died, he should’ve moved ages ago. Too many good memories that resonated around the place, those of which just turned sad and grey as he remembered the loss of his parents.

Bustling down the track into the town, Damien panicked about being late and missing a ship could mean that he would never get to see what it was like on the mainland. Surely, it would be better than the miserable years he spent on the island alone. It just had to be. He had become a blacksmithing apprentice after his Dad lost his job due to losing his leg to cellulitis after being bitten by a wild bear. He worked as an apprentice making swords and armour for the massing army which governed the island until he was old enough to join the army at 14. During his time in the royal defence at the border of where the two kingdoms meet, he received news that both parents had died in a fatal accident upon returning from a market trip.

Speeding to the docks, he sees the ship’s steward waiting outside the boat for him. He was maybe the only true friend that Damien had, and he was leaving him behind too. After coming back from the war, Damien automatically became the town’s blacksmith, as his tutor had passed away during the years that he was on the front. With the demand for steel low after the war had been fought, Damien ultimately had no work but crafting spare shovels and repairing things, perhaps the odd bit of jewellery. As expected, he fell onto hard times and his friend was always there to dig him out of his debts, more times than once.

He gave his friend his last goodbye’s and promised him that he would come back and pay off his debt once he had found his true calling on the mainland. He boarded the ship and waved goodbye rather woefully as he sat upon a nearby rusted barrel overlooking the bow of the ship.

After some time, the ship creaked its way out into the middle of the sea, the island was a fair distance by now but not enough so that it was impossible to swim to. Damien was in a world of his own, imagining what was waiting for him when they docked on the mainland. Fresh fruit, market stalls…. They had them here, of course, but they weren’t in abundance, and of course, not really being back for long and being so poor and underpaid, he couldn’t really afford to leave his shop and go travelling.

Hours passed, and he found himself waking from a dream-filled daydream by an unusual sight. A bright purple glow came from the far side of the deck, it being nighttime, the glow was even more eerie as it loomed on the deck and grew and swayed with the rocking of the ship. Damien peered through the darkness, making out a distinct 4 silhouettes, symbols on their hands pulsating in rhythm to their chanting.

Before any dark incantation could happen, a group of the royal guard burst out from the captain’s cabin and made straight for the silhouettes, brandishing their swords with violent intent. Before Damien could react, one of the royal guards noticed him and charged over only to deal a vigorous blow to the front of Damien’s head using the butt of the sword, rendering him unconscious.

The Fall of Flannigan Fort

Realms of Tanerila is a Choose Your Own Adventure story written 5 years ago by myself for my HNC Games Development course. I started well… then I wrote the rest in a couple of hours at 4am because the deadline was too long, and I forgot about it.
1

[LEGACY] 12 Hours

Upon entering 12 Hours, you’re hit straight with that shitty indie feel and not to mention the long loading times. The screen shows some basic text with controls, but some of these controls seem confusing at first because they ask you to use the LMB to turn on and off your torch, but also to use it to attack… What? Nevermind, I’m sure it will explain itself eventually or make sense in-game.

You then start off in a corridor, no story as you are within a nightmare of the developer’s making. All that you can see will be the wooden floor, the dirty off-white walls, and the wooden doors. A very plain setting and not very spooky or endangering at all.
Each door you go through will land you in one of the random rooms that this game possesses, where all the items have the exact same spawn location. Random rooms, but all the contents of the rooms are not randomised, weird.
The red “blood” writing on the wall is extremely far from intimidating. Some writing is even supposed to be funny, but that completely devalues the scare of others! Whispering emanating from these walls, but it’s not subtle whatsoever, and for me, takes away some scare as the sound was clearly just placed on the wall.

The monster(s) you encounter (as far as I’m aware) is a homeless old man with a machete/butcher knife and a demon dog/human hybrid that I swear I’ve seen in some game before. These enemies will sometimes spawn right in front of you and, typically, not even facing you. They will spawn, more than likely, before you can reach/find a weapon, leaving you defenceless. The monster(s) can run faster than you and there’s no way to close the door to prevent them from attacking you (despite it giving you the option to interact with it) and there is no hiding mechanic. You just die.

On my last playthrough I was lucky enough to come across a baseball bat, which I found to my displeasure that as soon as I picked it up the torch went out. Baseball bats are two-handed weapons, and it wouldn’t make sense that I could hold a torch too, so that was fine, but now I have to fight the monsters in the pitch black with a baseball bat, big deal. Or at least it wouldn’t be if the game had not already put (from what I can tell) a headlamp on the floor. It told me to press G to turn it on, and it didn’t. It had a sign like a switchover sign with the button T, so I tried that. Nothing.

Obviously, the headlamp was put here with the combat in mind, so you could still see your enemies as you were fighting them. You technically still can, but you can only see their life bar. Oh, and the crawling monster had me dead before I could even get a second hit. *Shakes some salt.*

Pros:
— The game works. No audio or auditory glitches and no game crashes.
— Battery charge to battery finding ratio is sensible enough.
— Combat is actually combat and not just a horror hide and seek.
— Buttons (for everything except LMB issue) are set sensibly to global standard.

Cons:
— Monsters spawn right in front of you, sometimes not even facing you.
— If you don’t find a bat before the monster finds you, you’re fucked, as you can’t defend yourself otherwise.
— The torch is terrible, and the headlamp doesn’t work.
— There is no hide mechanic, and the monster(s) all run faster than you. No way to revive or recover.
— Randomly Generated Map sometimes makes the most stupid of corridors, some you can’t even fit into.

All images are just random rooms that I’ve walked into. None are linked by anything whatsoever. They’re purely rooms with different things in them.

Price: £2.89
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: None
Cards: No
Worth The Money: No. Do not buy it.

Honestly, don’t buy this game. If this game is bundled with another game, but you have the option of adding something else instead of this one, do it.
If you already have this game for some reason, play it. Play it and then let people know to avoid this as if it were quarantined.
This is one of the many games that makes people avoid early access and indie tags, and gives the general idea to AAA players that “indie” means “trash”.

Zesty Rating
1 Out Of 10.
The main suspect when it comes to giving Early Access and Indie a bad name. RNG Maps make for tight crawlspaces, no weapon to start despite the risk of being attacked, cheap, boring and dull. A must not play.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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The Captain

The Captain is one of those games that takes me back to the old days of NewGrounds and Armour Games, a plethora of flash games, all of my favourites being point and click adventure games. (I tried to recreate that magic on Twitch once by only playing flash games on Fridays, but I can safely say that no one was interested.) Despite the very long intro with screeds of text that I ended up skipping most of, I was taken back to that era rather abruptly so that it gave me a bit of whiplash.

The Captain starts out with a whole bunch of story I didn’t ultimately read, but I got the fair gist of it. Bad people have a big army and are going to use a weapon to destroy the sun surrounding a planet of great stature, Earth. To make the shield, that was created to protect the sun work, a costly and time-consuming battery must be made at this station that’s on the outer rim of the galaxy.
In the process of transporting this cell back to Earth, something unfortunate happens with the experimental “warp hole” technology, which leaves your protagonist stranded on the outer rim of the galaxy without the cell and a broken ship.
The BBEG is still en route to s’plode the sun, so you now need to grab the cells and head home ASAP before the sun goes splat.

The reason this game gave me whiplash, however, is because during one of the very first choices, a person died.
A person died because I can’t lie to people, in-game characters or not. I’m not a liar, and especially with a situation as dire as it was… I just can’t lie. Spoiler. It hurt my soul so much.
This reeks of early point and click games, throwing you into situations like that so quickly and without any forewarning. This game went from boring, clicking through all the dialogue that I’m not concerned about, to “Fuck, I almost cried.” Not everyone will have the same reaction as me, however, as I feel things too deeply, but I love it when games take me off guard.

Pros:

  • The game works.
  • The game’s art style is another one I love. Tiny pixels all arranged to make a detailed picture, but still pixelated. I love pixel art so much, as there’s so much you can do with it.
  • The characters are believable, and the situations are gritty and dire, in the best way. Challenging dilemmas that really have you trying to think so widely out the box, but you struggle to know what to do as it’s the first playthrough.
  • The concept of time in this game is handled great. There have been so many games that I’ve played before that I felt handled time and time-based challenges in such a shit way. (Dead Rising 2) I genuinely felt as if I was racing against time in a way that I could genuinely handle, but also felt I had absolutely no grip on. Nothing I could do would give me more time, I just had to make the best use of it.
  • The puzzle elements to this game are VERY flash point and click game. Combining and searching high and low for things. No hints, but the solutions are simple once you get around to them. Minimal puzzles, but always very meaningful.

Cons:

  • Once again, the text in this game is overbearing. There is a lot of dialogue in this game that’s not very much needed. It does give depth to the characters and everything that’s happening in the game, but the amount necessary is way less than the amount provided, and it’s somewhat of a drag.
  • The game is predominantly made for replayability. Any game that has the number of choices, consequences, outcomes and just sheer “anxiety via indecision” inherently wants to be replayed. What lets the game down is the lack of a skip button for things that you’ve already seen and experienced.

I genuinely can’t think of any more cons for this game.
This is literally one of the first games that I have ever played that one of the people watching me at the time came back to me and said, “Yeah, I went and bought this after I saw you play it.”

Price: 15.49
Time To Complete: N/A
Achievements: None
Cards: No
Worth The Money: Yes, play it again and again.

In conclusion, it’s not the best game there is out there for point and click adventures. It also certainly doesn’t rival any of my favourites of the flash era, but is it good? Yes, undoubtedly so. It’s more than definitely worth buying and playing, as it promises a better playthrough every restart and multiple different routes to the path of success.
It’s not the most riveting or inspiring, but it’s another good space story that I can easily say is worth the money and the time you put into it. If you want something that’s as close to a 5/5 as I can give, then try the Don’t Escape series. It’s honestly gamegasm material for point and click adventure/puzzle games.

Zesty Rating
7 Out Of 10
A refreshing return to flash point and click routes. Gripping and gritty decisions ensue, with lots of space travel and sci-fi themes. Replayability is off the charts, make your horrible decisions all over again…

NOTE: This game is flagged as “Replay”.
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[LEGACY] Alwa’s Awakening

This instance for me was a first from Keymailer. What I’d done was go through my entire Steam Wishlist (Over 2k Games, it’s a story for another time) and requested EVERY KEY that I could for all the games on my wishlist. This took mostly the entire night until 4am in the morning, provided that I’d also watched my friend’s stream until midnight that night, and was also being distracted by everything and anything.
Lo and behold, I get not one but two games from the same dev, both being the same franchise and being from as early as 2017.

Alwa’s Awakening is the first of two games, the other being Alwa’s Legacy, which I am yet to play and review, and should promptly be doing it this week. From looks only and the trailer, it looks to be a nostalgic revisit to the old 8-bit platformers coming out nearer the end of the 8-bit era, graphics and movement promising to be an absolute gem and reprise many people’s memories.
I was met with this, but also met with the other thing that happens when I go back and play old games.
“Hmm, something’s not right. Something just feels a little off, like something is missing. It has everything I knew it would have, but why don’t I enjoy it?”
But this isn’t an old game? It’s not something I played in my childhood, yet it comes with that anticipated nostalgia haze, with the emptiness ensuing.

You are this fabled character that’s supposed to save this village/town/city of Alwa. I read the plot and one part said city, but the image was literally like 10 houses, and it threw me off, I think. You go through a mass dungeon crawl where there are enemies everywhere, destructible objects and permanent powerups that unlock more sections of the map for you to explore and conquer.
It gives exactly what’s promised and delivers exactly what’s expected, but why do I feel so let down?

Well, I think after going back to the game after the stream and literally meditating on it, which you’ll never get me to do for anything else, I’ve put my finger on it.
Most of which are things that other games do, but I think the overall combination of these things are what brings it down to a boring, grindy, flavourless halt.
So from here, instead of doing the pros first, here come the cons.

Cons:

  • Most of the platforming requires pixel perfect jumping. I found the platforming some of the easiest to control out of all the games I’ve received from Keymailer, but it takes the happiness of finally having that away from me when showing me the platforms. Granted, not all the jumps are hazardous, death traps, but the ones that are the furthest away from the checkpoint always are, and it hurt my soul.
  • Speaking of checkpoints, Red Cap Zombie Hunter, eat your heart out because you have NOTHING on the placement of these checkpoints when it comes to distance. The overall arrangement of the checkpoints is actually acceptable, and is not as chaotic as the haphazard tornado light show by Red Cap. However, the distance is actually heartbreaking and forced me to recline in my chair on multiple occasions.
  • So if it wasn’t for the amount of dying I was doing sending me back, I also have to do A LOT of backtracking as well. I know it was very common in most older platformers, but with everything combined I genuinely felt as if I was losing the will to live, passing the same area so many times with nothing to gain from it. I only found out that there were quicker ways of going around things, like hidden walls/doors/ceilings/floors, yet I wasn’t to know as they looked the same as everything else!
  • As if backtracking and losing progress on things wasn’t enough, your character is also very slow in comparison to big empty and expanding rooms. With not much filling them but maybe one or two measly enemies which will be super stingy about their drops.

I could probably think of more, but I honestly think that’s enough to rag on the game to make you have a second-hand experience of what happened. I have hope for playing its successor as it too also has a good amount of positive reviews. I’m hoping the next game will have expanded on these Pros I now have to list to keep the review balanced.

Pros:

  • The game works. 💖
  • The art style is cute and nostalgic with appropriate colour palettes, nothing is ugly or “meh” to look at.
  • The music fits the purpose. It’s chiptune and 8-bit, and most soundtracks fit the appropriate setting they are put in. Boss battle areas seem to lack a little, but most of the others are great.
  • There are NPCs all over the map that all have some sort of dialogue (whether relevant or not) which really brings a bit more life to the otherwise empty feeling game.
  • The powers learned by the protagonist within the game (specifically the first one where you summon cubes) were generally surprising to me and a lot more refreshing than the generic powerups most games would give you to get around obstacles.
  • Not all enemies are the same one. There are different enemies and also different variations of the same enemies that take more hits to kill. That and the bosses are interesting and, while not spectacular or grandiose, were still a nice bunch of pixels.

This is honestly a review that I did not want to do. When I look at this game from afar when not having played it, I see what I want. An enjoyable look back on a previous era of gaming, brought back into the modern day, but when played it brings back all the same problems that early day gaming had with it. While £6.99 is a great price for a game with 5 – 10 hours of playtime it’s honestly, mostly filler, retracing your steps, taking the wrong route that leads to nowhere, being punished and not liking it.

Zesty Rating
4 Out Of 10

A great-looking and sounding game, but that’s about it. Has everything about a game from the 1980s including all the unintuitive and punishing game design. Nostalgia-vision encapsulated, leaves you tired, sapped of your enjoyment because it’s not as good as you remember it being, despite never having played it before.

Please bear in mind that this is a repost. There have been slight changes to the post such as spelling and grammar fixes, images added, and things generally organised in the fashion I'd like them presented.  Apart from that, the main context of the review has not changed, opinion has not been altered and everything is sacred. I look forward to writing for you all again.
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