Writer, text-based game developer, and sci-fi nerd

Foolish Earth Creatures: February 2025

Attention, creatures of Earth! I, Vorak the Master Brain, have taken control of your primitive communications system. Your planet has the honour of being part of my space empire. Your population will be upgraded with cyber-implants, and your planet's resources will be redirected towards the goals of Thorlon super-science. Even as I speak, my space dreadnought is entering orbit of your planet. It is armed with antimatter obliterator beams, protected by neutronic force fields, and carries thousands of Thorlon cyber-soldiers. Your primitive technology is no match for it! Do not attempt to resist. Surrender now, and some segment of your population may retain limited autonomy as my minions. Option: The Earth will never surrender!
This is the first dev blog for my new interactive fiction project, Foolish Earth Creatures: You Cannot Defeat ME!.

In contrast to the hard-sf tone of Chiron Gate and Seedship, Foolish Earth Creatures will be some pulp sci-fi nonsense. Vorak the Master Brain, alien cyborg villain, has arrived to conquer the Earth, and only you, a brave and resourceful space hero, stand in his way!

This is going to be a conventional interactive story, without any procedural generation or randomness. I'm experimenting with some light RPG elements where your character has ratings in different skills (Piloting, Leadership, etc.) but I'm not sure yet exactly what form that'll take.

The whole game is narrated by the villain, starting with his demand for the Earth's surrender and continuing as he taunts you and rants at you. Your options are all things your character is saying, either to the villain or to themselves. Vorak's face appears at the top of the window, with his expression changing based on the current situation: gloating when he's winning, angry when you have the upper hand. (Right now he uses my own hand-drawn placeholder graphics, but later in the project I'll commission some proper art.)

So the Earth is not defenceless? No matter. Launch attack ships! Destroy the fighters to clear a path for the invasion transports. Tremble, humans, as hundreds of gleaming attack ships swarm from my dreadnought's launch bays. The sky above your planet flares with destructive energy as my Thorlon cyber-pilots unleash their ships' neutron obliterator beams. Each burst of flame you see marks the death of one of your pilots as they futilely attempt to delay my troop transports' advance! How can your primitive fighters hope to prevail? Options: Your fighters may be superior, but your pilots are unimaginiative. Let's see them keep up with my daring manoeuvres! / I designed and built this fighter myself. It's a match for anything else in space! / I hand-picked and trained these pilots. If we work together, we can overcome a far superior foe. Red Squadron—engage!

The game is inspired by sci-fi villains like Ming the Merciless, the Mekon, Davros, the Borg Queen, etc. It's also somewhat inspired by computer game villains who monologue at you while you play the game, e.g. SHODAN and GLaDOS.

I'm also trying to evoke the feeling of tabletop roleplaying games and playground “let's pretend” games. I want there to be the feeling that you and the game are telling a story together, like the player and GM of a roleplaying game, or like improv theatre partners “yes and”-ing each other. Vorak the Master Brain wants to conquer the Earth, but the imaginary “player” controlling him wants him to be narrowly defeated in a satisfying way that hits some fun genre tropes. (Which isn't to say the game will let you win. It'll definitely be possible to lose.)

Hopefully I should be ready to release the game later this year. I'm planning to make it a paid game, but cheaper than Chiron Gate, $5 or less. It'll be on all the same platforms Chiron Gate is: PC (itch.io and Steam), Android, and iOS. When I'm closer to completion I'll ask for people to playtest.

My previous WIP, Empire and Legacy, has moved from temporary hiatus to indefinite hiatus. I don't like to throw away the work I've already done on it, and maybe I'll return to it someday, but I don't think it's the right project for me to work on at the moment.

#FoolishEarthCreatures #DevDiary