“Know That He Will Be Born The First Day Of May In The Kingdom Of Logres.”

wc tumblr and twitter will see a character with flaws and call it bad writing bc they can’t handle complex characters (nightheart) (him being whiny is intentional it’s not bad writing)

Two Matthias posts in one day? More likely than you'd think.

This is an absolute crack theory but HEAR ME OUT.

What's a speculated ability Matthias may have? Being able to turn into his puppet.

What would he have to do to turn into his puppet? Put his consciousness into it.

What happens to most survivors during the manor games? They die/get murdered.

My theory is that Matthias' ability comes from him dying during the manor game and possessing his puppet to take revenge or smth idk. We know that ghosts possessing special objects to them is possible in the IDV universe from Wu Chang's umbrella and all the drama in game 5 so I'm just saying it's possible and we won't know until like a year or two in the future when he finally gets a damn letter because netease doesn't like to update their lore regularly because WHY WOULD THEY-

Tl,Dr Matthias' ghost possessed Minitthias to take revenge on whoever killed him in the manor game

What's New In IF? Issue 1 (2024)

By Erika, Marjorie, Alex, Zach and Noi

Now Available!

Itch.io - Google Drive - Keep Reading below

EDITORIAL

We were always just lurkers… But no more! We were always just lurkers… But no more!

We had been talking for a while about the Interactive Fiction community, and wondering what we could to do… you know, do our part to help it become its best self.

And out of all the things available out there, between the directories and the group chats, the forums and the discord servers… it can get pretty overwhelming to be part of it all, to keep track of everything. And we realised there wasn't really a newsletter for IF. Something that tracks of what is happening…

RIGHT NOW!

So why not just… make it happen?

Like a lot of things, What's New in IF started on a whim. But we hope we can turn it into something great. Something that can help the community keep track of what's happening.

And we hope that you will join us too!

PS: we did cheat a bit on some dates for this edition :{

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXEL, ZACH, AND NOI

EVENTS

~ CONFERENCE ~

You can now register for the Narrascope! It is happening June 21-23, in hybrid. They've also released the schedule of talks!

The Interactive Narrative Exhibition is looking for IF pieces to be displayed in a Museum in Poland!

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

Until mid-May, the Spring Thing is welcoming players to check out the entries vote for the “Best in Show”!

Do you speak German? The annual Grand Prix has released its submissions and is looking for voters!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

The Dialogue Jam by the @neointeractives group is open for submission until the end of the month. Only Dialogue is allowed!

In less than two weeks, the window to submit for the Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2024 will end. The goal is to make a parser for beginner players.

Also ending at the end of the month is the Amare Games Festival 2024, which is all about love!

On the Choice of Game Forum, the Diversity Jam is running. They accept any CScript game… as long at is not in ENGLISH!

~ ENDED ~

After months of hiatus, the 79th edition of the Bitsy Jam finished recently. The theme was: long distances.

The Second Edition of @seedcomp-if recently released its results. Congratulations to the winners!

~ OTHER ~

The Interactive Fiction Showcase is running throughout the whole year, where you can submit and/or play IF games from a wide variety of authors. It is happening on itch!

GAMES

New Releases

The Dice (Twine) is a psychological horror short game. (@stanwixbuster)

Summoned at 2 (HTML) is a short game where you must complete a summoning circle.

Giving Yourself Away (HTML) is the newest release of the Domino Club.

The Wretched Bitsy (Bitsy) is short adaptation of The Trail of the Wretched in bitsy.

How Do You Like Pain (RenP’y) is a visual novel about pain, death, and maybe nothing. Also part of the ‘Art Without Blood’ universe. (@catskets)

New Releases (WIP)

Corruptant (CScript) is a dark fantasy game, where you play as an amnesiac coping with their situation. (@cyn-if)

No Peace (CScript) is a ONE PIECE inspired pirate project.

The Psion (CScript) is a high-fantasy game, where you have Psionic abilities.

The Red and White Knight (Twine) is a Medieval Arthurian inspired project where you play as Lancelot du Lac. (@theredandwhiteknight-if)

Mutually Assured Destruction (Twine) is fantasy thriller about bonds and destruction.

Blackwood Manor (CScript) is mystery romance project.

Shattered Eagle: Fall of an Empire (CScript) is Roman Empire political intrigue.

hic est nihilum (Twine) is post-apocalyptic fantasy story, where you struggle against dieties. (@nightingale-the-lurker)

Speck (CScript) is a Horror/Sci-Fi project inspired by ‘Alien & Spiecies’.

GAMES UPDATES

Agents of Lucifer (CScript) added chapters 4 and 5 to its demo. (@aprismaticodyssey)

Era of the Archdemons (CScript) added chapter 3 to the demo.

The One Chosen (CScript) added more content to their beta. (@parrotwatcher)

Echoes of Kingdom: The Last Stand (CScript) added extra scenes.

Dawn of Heroes (CScript) added chapters 21 and 22 to its demo.

Honor among Thieves (CScript) added extra content. (@leoneliterary)

Dawn of Heroes (Twine) completed its second chapter. (@bladeweaver-if)

Merry Crisis (CScript) has made its last update available to all. (@merrycrisis-if)

Remnants of the Past (Twine) uploaded the final chapter of Act 1 (limited release before sale). (@remnantsofthepast-if)

What lies in the past (Twine) added chapter 1 to the demo. (@maluarty-blog)

Fallen Light (Twine) latest update is available to all. (@fallenlightsif)

OTHER

Limerence (Twine) is back on Tumblr. (@limerenceif)

We apologize in advance if we missed something, and forgot to add projects to this list. Please, let us know if something should have been added to the zine, and we will shout it out next week!

HIGHLIGHT ON...

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Social Democracy: An Alternate History by Autumn Chen (DendryNexus)

That weird political game that took Twitter by storm, so strongly that there's even a fan subreddit where you can share your stats. It's all about what might have been…

i won't finish this game by Naarel (RenP’y)

An emotional visual novel about being a struggling indie dev game developer and depiction of suicide in narrative games. It is very short and hits hard.

Eat Me by Chandler Groover (Inform)

It was weird, it was gross… It's just genius. There's no way to describe how insane this game is. Maybe the most disturbing escape game ever made. No wonder it's so highly rated and won awards… TG for walkthroughs!

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserve some highlighting? Tell us about it! A old or recent game that wowed you so much you want to spam it to everyone? Tell us about it!

We'll add it to the page!

FINAL WORD

We... don't really know what we're doing.

Yes, it's true! Not a lot of thought process went into making this. We actually started putting this together at 3-4am after making the Tumblr Blog.

We haven't really made any plan on what should or should not be included in this zine. We just knew we wished we had something like this when we started.

So while it may seem bare right now, we hope, in time, to fill all the pages, and even add more, as we find more projects, and events, and other IF- related stuff to share!

But for that…

We need your help.

Did you find a cool game that was just released? Or a project that shared a demo or update? Did you come across some cool event? Or found a neat article/blog post talking about IF?

Then, shoot us an ask or submit it on our blog!

THANK YOU!!

ERIKA, MARJORIE, AXEL, ZACH, AND NOI

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 1

- I’m not silly-vanilly >:[

Why should I make a “Alive” animatic, if I can just I can do funny things like this

B’s-LOG June 2021 - Shuuen no Virche Special Feature Translation [Illustrator Comments]

Comments from the illustrator, Yomi, on the boys' designs.

Yves

I received a request for an “orthodox knight”, so I was careful not to lose his sense of knightliness not only in his main outfit, but also in his alternate outfits.  His image changed several times along the way as I was drawing, but I think he always had the appearance of a young man with a smile that looks like he’s on the verge of crying.

Lucas

I designed him with the template image of how Japanese people imagine beautiful Western Europeans (platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, etc.).  At first, his outfit was baggy and didn’t show off his body line. But in the final draft, it ended up fitting him perfectly. How strange. I tried to make his hair hide his eyebrows to make it harder to read his expressions and make him feel less human. But he’s definitely a contender for possessing the most masculine eyebrows.

Mathis

I kind of had an idea of how he should look when I sketched him out on the very first piece of copy paper. But as I reviewed the setting several times and began to draw it out digitally, I thought, "somehow, this doesn't feel like Mathis.” So I flipped the table over, handed over most of Mathis’s initial draft from the neck down to Yves, and I reworked it from scratch to create the current Mathis.

Scien

He seems like someone who’s hard to approach due to his position and setting. But I didn’t want him to be invulnerable. I wanted him to have openings. So I made his clothes disorderly in various spots. I decided to place the crest on his neck on a whim, but the more I got to know him, the more I felt like “unbeknownst to himself, he was constantly being strangled by his own creation.” And I thought his neck was the perfect place after all... (this is just my personal opinion).

Adolphe

I had a vague image of a "man who lets sunlight pass through him.” I don't really understand it myself, but I often think that way when our eyes meet while I'm doing my colouring work. I aimed for his appearance to be the most manly together with Hugo, a mutual friend of Yves’s, but what do you think…?

Ankou

I hope I was able to create the feeling of someone who can be seen but not touched even if you reach out to them. Someone who is frightening but also captivating. When I received the proposal, I was contemplating a pure white costume, like an elf king’s. However, it turned out the complete opposite in the end.

---

[DO NOT USE OR REPOST MY WORK W/O PERMISSION, THANK YOU]

mordred moodboard for his birthday

“There's all sortsa different people everywhere. You can't say everybody of one place is any one thing. It's no different when you're talking about Fódlan or Almyra or anyplace else. And wherever you go, you see people in power keep the weak ones down.”

"Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names" Demo Available Now!

We're super excited for the release of "Werewolf: The Apocalypse — The Book of Hungry Names" on April 25th!

Today, for the first time, you can try the free demo! Don't forget to wishlist it on Steam or preregister on Google Play now! You can also pre-purchase the app on iOS.

Today I am revisiting an analysis I made on Matthias Czernin, the Puppeteer, who is the current upcoming survivor in idv. I'm going briefly discuss his design before making some speculations about his kit.

So first, let's talk about Main Matthias (the actual character, not the puppet). First of all, he's wearing lots of black and grey, very dark colours. This may point to him having an introverted personality, but it could also have to do with his surname, Czernin, meaning "black". His clothes are also traditional clothing, speculated to be either Czech or Polish. It's likely he's Czech based on his surname. He's also noticeably incredibly injured, his face has scars, his shoulder is ripped up, his hair is uneven and he's missing his left eye. I think he suffered some kind of accident or abuse that left him with scars, or his injuries came from his time in the manor as we know some survivors killed their teammates before matches even began. The name "Czernin" was given to a man who survived a massacre by villagers who found him, which makes me believe his parents may have been killed but they managed to keep him safe until someone found him.

His puppet, who I shall dub "Minitthias" until it gets a proper name, seems to look like Matthias as a child, full of joy and energy. I think Matthias made Minitthias to cope with some kind of trauma, as generally puppets aren't reflections of the puppeteer but rather individual characters. Perhaps he tried to heal his damaged inner child?

It's been speculated in leaks that Matthias will be a contain type with rescue capabilities, which helps to combat the popular theory that he'll just be a better Tracy (seriously, Netease, just buff her. It's not that hard) and that he'll be able to turn into his puppet. I think he'll have some kind of debuffs that will become buffs in puppet form and some buffs that become debuffs in puppet form, perhaps Matthias is a slow baulter but Minitthias is faster, or Minitthias is a slow decoder while Matthias can do it faster. These make sense because a puppeteer would have good hand eye coordination, which would help with decoding, whilst the puppet will always be clumsier, and Matthias is so injured that the puppet will always be faster than him. I also think Matthias may be like Luca in that he'll have a smaller range of detecting a terror radius as he doesn't have his left eye, he might have lower situational awareness on his left side.

Anyway, i will not apologise for the person i will become on February 1, I am so excited for him. I might make an update when his PV releases. Happy new year, folks.