WALL (A Verse of the Gospel Static) is an in-progress interactive novel written by Rom (@antisocialxconstruct​​) made with Twine and hosted on itch.io; The setting is cyberpunk grunge with a solarpunk spin, and the story is interested in the bonds between people and between communities, and how those bonds can save or ruin lives.

> Play the Demo (chapter 1 and partial chapter 2, ~42k words with code; last update: 5/22/22)

The Shift changed a lot of things. Much of the world people knew was lost, and what wasn’t lost was irreparably altered. But from the ashes, through little more than luck, coincidence, and dogged human ingenuity, Wall arose–a city of contradictions, of relative safety and constant risk, of unprecedented abundance and unavoidable need. This is your city. You learned the way it lives and breathes, and you made it your home.

But after an ill-planned and ill-fated attempt to rob the city’s peacekeepers, you find yourself very suddenly on the run and scrambling to find some direction and some allies. When a stranger approaches you with a job offer you can’t possibly turn down, it quickly becomes apparent that you’ve stumbled (or perhaps more accurately, been violently pushed) into something larger than you realized. Something in Wall is… sick. There are ghosts in your past holding long grudges, and your new employer is adamant that you face them. What you want seems to matter less and less.

• Set your character’s appearance, gender and pronouns, and a physical disability that will directly influence the way they engage with the setting and plot
• Play through a narrative- and character-focused story, with an emphasis on naturalistic choices rather than crunching numbers and managing inventory
• Multiple paths through key objectives, culminating in a planned three possible endings
• Pursue alliance, friendship, or romance with any of several supporting characters, or make them all your enemies if that’s your thing
• Endure a little bit of psychological horror. As a treat. (CWs provided at the beginning of the game)

This is very much a side project being worked on in my meager free time, which means I can’t make any promises about regular updates, fixes, etc. I will most likely be updating with short passages as I complete them, but I’m available to respond to any questions or comments about what’s currently published!

(image credits below the cut:)

Keep reading

Uh oh! Luckily this doesn’t impact me because WALL hasn’t been in choicescript for quite a while (aside from being trapped in infinite hiatus right now sorry everyone 😭) but publishing this anyway just in case it’s useful news to anyone else!

aw bless, you could have I wouldn’t have minded! At the moment I can only in good conscience say WALL is absolutely something I want to come back to but it’s on a bit of an indefinite hiatus while I try to get… my life in general a little more under control. But I have big plans, I’ve actually restructured the mechanics of the game a bit and I’m eager to eventually get to show that off to everyone!

Thank you so much for your kind words, people still somehow stumbling across the demo and telling me how much they enjoyed it is a BIG part of what keeps me motivated to come back to this instead of consigning it to Abandoned Project Limbo.

ahh thank you! 🙏💜 And I swear, some day….. you will. I’m probably one or two scenes away from being able to update the game with the second half of chapter 2, which unfortunately doesn’t mean much from a timeframe perspective because progress is so sporadic but it DOES mean I’m still making progress!

The main challenge right now (not that you asked but some folks might be curious lol) is that the back end of chapter 2 is exposition-heavy, which means I need to make very very sure that each potential path touches on the most important things in its own way while still feeling distinct and like there are pros and cons to each choice and at least one or two chances to change your mind. I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a bit more momentum in chapter 3 and 4 because each path is going to be a lot more self-contained which means I can just push through them without doing so much gosh dang cross-referencing.

gfdsgsd HELLO?? I might cry at this, what an absolutely wonderful message to receive…

I do truly, truly have every intention of continuing this story, you all have no idea how many big things I have planned and how often I think about the game and want to work on it. It’s always extremely touching and encouraging to be reminded that there are people at least as eager to see more of it as I am to share it with you. Thank you anon 💕

Hm! You’re right, it looks like font changes don’t work in the pop-ups at all >:/ I will definitely need to look into that, they’re not a huge part of the story but considering that also includes the content warnings, the new relationships page I’m working on, and potentially more stuff later on I don’t want to leave that unresolved. Thanks for the heads up!

I want to get character portraits into the relationship page with the next update so here’s a peak at the first batch

Ah excellent, thanks! Yeah the two shortest options have the same text right now but it’s probably something I’ll come back to. I mostly just wanted to make sure every combo was accounted for in SOME way.

Hmmm, do you recall what specific hair length/texture/style combination you were using and if it seemed like the description didn’t match?

If your hair is loose, chin-length or longer, and straight or wavy you should still get “you comb your fingers through your hair,” and if it’s curly you should get “you brush your hair back away from your face,” and then the bigger variations come with the other styles and shorter lengths. So if that’s not the case it means my code needs another look 👀

I appreciate the troubleshooting help, and also thank you so much for the kind words!