Harry Tuffs
@skelicopter.bsky.social
Writer & narrative designer, currently at Sun and Serpent Games! Stuff I’ve worked on: 🏰 King of the Castle 🏠 House of Many Doors 🐀 Fallen London 🚂 Sunless Skies 🏔️ Over the Alps 💀 Dread Delusion 🃏 Occlude And now… ⚔️ Bladesong
Thank you @skelicopter.bsky.social and @failbettergames.com for an Exceptional Story that took me places I was not expecting to go from where it seemed to be starting. Double thumbs up.
Lots of people asking how we made Over the Alps: The Devil's Quill. Also asking why we made it, which is fair enough! So! A brief thread about how I finished off a game I started back in 2013. 🧵 #gamedev
Over the Alps: The Devil's Quill by Tributary Games
A free, in browser choices matter spy thriller game.
tributarygames.itch.io
I just finished playing through the Fallen London exceptional story "Every Good Boy Deserves Fun" by @skelicopter.bsky.social My God. I have neve gone form being so fundamentally disturbed to openly weeping so fast. Fantastic work.
Watching this come together for the Apple Arcade launch was something else, especially how @jon.inkle.co and @katharineneil.bsky.social built the narrative in the time they had. And then @skelicopter.bsky.social did two more chapters just as good. Amazing art – just a joy to play and read.
Tributary Games@tributarygames.bsky.social · 3mo agoSix years ago a Choices Matter game called Over the Alps released. Stave was formed to make it, it became an Apple Arcade launch title, and it won a few awards. Part of that team went on to Tributary, and when Stave closed we couldn't just let it vanish. So... Re-introducing, OVER THE ALPS! 🧵
Wayyy back in 2020, in the midst of the lockdown, I had great fun writing this final chapter of Over the Alps which sadly never saw the light of day. Until today! Do check it out, especially if you liked Over the Alps - it’s free, a suitably poignant finale that ties the two stories together.
Tributary Games@tributarygames.bsky.social · 3mo agoWe recovered and restored the files for the missing final Over the Alps story, THE DEVIL'S QUILL. Written by @skelicopter.bsky.social this never before seen chapter finishes the game 6 years on. We've also made it free to play, directly in your browser! Go check it out on itch:
Six years ago a Choices Matter game called Over the Alps released. Stave was formed to make it, it became an Apple Arcade launch title, and it won a few awards. Part of that team went on to Tributary, and when Stave closed we couldn't just let it vanish. So... Re-introducing, OVER THE ALPS! 🧵
"Welcome, fair Londoners, to this corner of Spite Where the coffee is hot and the dangers are slight! With the exception of a recent attack by a snuffer, But since the victim had no face, we don't know if he suffered."
![The scene is a LATE NIGHT CHAT SHOW, present day. The audience are clapping the host who is starting the show.
On the center of the wall behind the host is a huge version of the famous Author Portrait of William Shakespeare from the First Folio - the image is the iconic one we have of Shakespeare, ruff, beard, bald].
[Close up on the HOST.]
HOST:
And now - l can't believe I'm actually saying this...
Please welcome. through the newly invented Time Portal..
[We see now that there is a glowing hi tech box on the stage]
HOST:
MR… WILLIAM… SHAKESPEARE!
[Huge applause, whoops, cheering from the audience]
[Through the Time Portal comes WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - grinning and waving to the audience, revelling in the attention. He has a full, glorious, brown, flowing head of hair.]
SHAKESPEARE, still smiling glancing up at the huge author portrait on stage]:
Who's the bald guy?
HOST:
That's your author portrait!
It's the only one we've had of you for the past 400 years.
[Shakespeare again. His grin is fixed but waning. He looks at the host. Back at the bald portrait. We see it again. It is really very bald. Shakespeare looks a it. His grin is fading ever so slightly now. He looks back at the host.]
HOST:
I believe it was put at the front of your collected works after you died by your lifelong rival, Ben Jonson.
[Shakespeare again. Shakespeare’s smile has gone now. He looks back at the host. He looks back at the bald portrait. He looks at the host again. Then he abruptly turns and walks back out of shot]]
SHAKESPEARE:
COME HERE JONSON YOU FU- [Words truncated as he disappears back in time through the portal, while the host runs trying to catch him]
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreiedk4wnxtgxhhx3scdw3evxkpi3pd2xjflkw4nhb4a4migrlew6yu)
A highly enjoyable bit of cultural convergent evolution is that His Dark Materials has the same narrative structure as a 90s JRPG: First level: you, your childhood friend who will ultimately die have childish hijinks! Final level: you, your love interest and a motley crew fight God
Buy this game!
Save 10% on Amberspire on Steam
A science fantasy dice city builder. Construct buildings, manage resources, and build in harmony with an alien ecology. Beneath the glow of a gas giant, Amberspire will grow and prosper into a flouris...
store.steampowered.com
Bithell Games@bithellgames.bsky.social · 4mo agoAmberspire is OUT NOW 📣 🌇 Build a science-fantasy city atop an abandoned mausoleum 🎲 Roll dice to collect resources and keep your city running 🏠 Grow your population and influence 👥 Earn the favour of off-world factions 🌧️ Manage the unusual ecology
it's so fucked up that 'roguelike' now means you get three random upgrades at the end of a level instead of "occasionally the game will generate a gnome with a wand of death and obliterate you (in the event that you havent already died accidentally falling down a set of stairs while overencumbered)"
Santana Abraxas@slime-golem.biz · last yr.Think about GWTWOD a lot
weird, this is almost word for word the note my wife handed me just before I stood up to make a speech at our wedding
WIRED@wired.com · 4mo ago“Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant,” reads OpenAI's coding agent instructions. www.wired.com/story/openai...
It's been 23 hours since we and @sunsetvisitor.studio announced Prove You're Human, and it already has over 40,000 wishlists. People *want* narrative games that tackle difficult and human subject matter, and both of our studios will keep bringing them to you. Thank you for making this possible!
sunset visitor 斜陽過客 | Prove You're Human - Wishlist Now!@sunsetvisitor.studio · 5mo agoAn AI dares to dream that she is human. You’ve been hired to put her in her place. We’re sunset visitor 斜陽過客, the creators of 1000xRESIST, and this is our next game: Prove You’re Human. Published by our friends at @blacktabbygames.com. s.team/a/4533950
Wishlist here! store.steampowered.com/app/3350750/...
Amberspire on Steam
A science fantasy dice city builder. Construct buildings, manage resources, and build in harmony with an alien ecology. Beneath the glow of a gas giant, Amberspire will grow and prosper into a flouris...
store.steampowered.com
Bithell Games@bithellgames.bsky.social · 5mo agoAmberspire is out May 6th! 🌇 Build a science-fantasy city atop an abandoned mausoleum 🎲 Roll dice to collect resources and keep your city running 🏠 Grow your population and influence 👥 Earn the favour of off-world factions 🌧️ Manage the unusual ecology Wishlist on Steam!
Getting home, I toyed a bit with Bladesong, an early access sword design game (with RPG elements) on steam and the 'creative' mode that lets you free-design swords is very neat: it has a lot of final detail so you can create complete fantasy swords, or recreate historical styles.
If anyone has a spare £3k, this 18th Century reliquary in the shape of an outstretched arm is on eBay at the moment. Probably only lightly cursed. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/23670774...
Why are all these smug fucks naming their evil companies after Lord of the Rings terms? Tolkien would despise everything you stand for!
Joseph Menn@joemenn.bsky.social · 6mo agoJust the executive chairman of defense tech company Anduril trying to buy Wired, cool cool cool.
Some of the best Fallen London stories trap you in a schedule and encourage you to push at its boundaries. So a school timetable works really nicely here, and @skelicopter.bsky.social has such a wonderful way of humanising both horror and joy. “Your smile is so broad you can feel your cheeks cramp.”
Failbetter Games | Wishlist Mandrake on Steam!@failbettergames.com · 6mo agoThis month's Exceptional Story in Fallen London is called Every Good Boy Deserves Fun. It is by @skelicopter.bsky.social. www.fallenlondon.com
I finally got round to playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and every time i talk to my classmates I get the phrase “they’re taking the Huberts to Edelgard!” lodged inexorably in my head
This month's Exceptional Story in Fallen London is called Every Good Boy Deserves Fun. It is by @skelicopter.bsky.social. www.fallenlondon.com
Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).
I was thinking about getting into the Expanse books so i did some background research and this was a hell of a jumpscare
Man that one guy who broke his glasses didn’t have time to read all the books he wanted until the world ended, and that was in the 1950s! There’s been so many more books written since then! Even if i didn’t break my glasses in the apocalypse I’d never clear my backlog
Take me down to the Parallax city where the far moves slow and the near moves quickly
Reposting this for the evening weekday gang! Very proud of the soundtrack, and really happy to see the game being so well received so far, especially @skelicopter.bsky.social fantastic writing 🖤
Jake Gaule@submergedtapes.bsky.social · 8mo agoBladesong is out in Early Access! Really proud of the game we've built, huge thanks to the amazing team, and to @emmabmusic.bsky.social & @adhdcomposer.bsky.social for lending their fantastic playing to the soundtrack. Soundtrack is out now in all the usual places, bandcamp link below! 🎵🔥⚔️
Buy BLADESONG! Now in Early Access, it's an insanely detailed blacksmithing RPG featuring a grim, immersive story campaign written by yours truly!
Bladesong@bladesonggame.bsky.social · 8mo agoBladesong is out in Early Access! Get the game now with a 10% launch discount, or go all in and get the bundle with Bladesong and its original soundtrack! 🔥 Swords shall be made, more so than ever! ⚔️