Starspawn: A Miskatonic Mystery

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Your scholarship is in danger, your friends aren't human, and something ancient awakens in the dreamlands. As reality becomes uncertain, questions of identity and transformation become matters of survival. Just another finals week at Miskatonic U.

A glorious library reading room. Shelves from floor to the vaulted ceiling. A long table with chairs. Statuary and an orrery in the rear. Beams of light shine in through the windows; green chunks of crystal intrude on the serenity
A pixel art map of a library. It has two levels with wood floors and a variety of shelves and periodicals, it feels very cozy
A walkthrough of some new features in our top-down navigation mode: pressure plates, monsters that chase you, movable blocks, other dynamic obstacles like rolling boulders. 16-bit style graphics
Automated test suite for Starspawn, showing a game window running VERY quickly though a bunch of different combinations of possible things that can happen in the first-person view
testsuite inventory: before testcase: # Open the inventory screen pause 2.0 keysym "K_i" pause 2.0 assert "Combine" testcase can_open_and_close_inventory: pause 2.0 keysym "K_1" pause 2.0 assert not "Combine" testcase can_hold_and_unhold_item: assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory) move pos (770, 100) click assert eval (game_state.held_item == fortress_cool_rock) click button 2 # right click assert eval (game_state.held_item is None) testcase can_unhold_item_outside_inventory: assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory) $ game_state.held_item = fortress_cool_rock # Close inventory screen and confirm pause 2.0 keysym "K_1" pause 2.0 assert not "Combine" pause 2.0 click button 2 # right click assert eval (game_state.held_item is None) testcase can_combine_items: assert eval (fortress_cool_rock in game_state.inventory) assert eval (fortress_exploration_supplies in game_state.inventory)
label .give_diana_grant_seen_prof: main "Yep. He actually made {b}less{/b} sense after that. It almost sounded like he'd been experiencing things in the wrong order." diana "Huh. Okay. That's a new one." main "Dude's nuts." diana "Duh. Did he say anything else?" main "He knew my name before I said anything." diana "Interesting... Well, if he's experiencing things out of order--" main "You're just gonna run with this?" menu(screen="choice", side=True): diana "You got a better theory than time shenanigans?" "In {i}Slaughterhouse-Five{/i} it's a metaphor for PTSD. We probably just met at a mixer or something.": $ game_state.change_rapport(diana, +1) diana "Good reality check. It's always worth considering plain old madness... It {b}could{/b} all be in his head..." main "{b}Something{/b} definitely is." "Lucky guess?": diana "Hunter. I know you don't want any of this to be true, but {b}come on{/b}." main "Okay, umm, he could have... supernatural... luck?" diana "And it turned him into {b}this{/b}? I appreciate your willingness to brainstorm here, but I'm gonna stick with time shenanigans for now." "Literally any theory would be better.": $ game_state.change_rapport(diana, -1) diana "You can't just say that and not provide an alternative. How many impossible things have already happened to you today?" main "More than I'd like, that's for sure." diana "Exactly."
Screenshot of the Tiled map editor showing a library. Welcome desk on the bottom, stacks in a T shape, stairs going up to a nice study area. Space beneath the overhang provides nothing
A drawing of a messy and very weird professor's office full of occult items and damaged goods. Translucent pink squares overlay the clickable areas since we're in debug mode
top-down pixel art map of a new england college campus. brick buildings, one has a big gym sign... it's nighttime and dark. gas lamps around the map glow with yellow cores and reveal the true colors underneath, tinged yellow
Visual novel screen. Weird gym background. Ethnically ambiguous character is thinking (Alright. That's enough sitting here and moping...) Options are (Getting the feeling that this day will never end if I freak out every time I see a monster. Let's play ball.) (Madness ≥ 50%;) (I should go back to my room, lay down, and mope there instead.) [Madness < 50%)
visual novel screen, a vertical text box to the left reads "Brody: Yo, Hunter! You made it!" In the background is a very strange and dilapidated gym. oh, and Brody, who's in the middle, is huge and green and has tentacles for hair and webbed hands
Ugly checkbox screens showing lists of game state keys and inventory items like C1_DONE_INTRO cl_seen_beach cl_seen_stealth cl_seen_shrine cl_seen_fortress_exterior cl_seen_fortress_entrance cl_seen_bas_relief_room cl_seen_sculpture_room cl_seen_control_room
Pixel art of a weird horned dinosaur skull fossil, but it’s got 8-9 eye holes of various sizes clustered together
A top down pixel map of a dorm common area showing a roaring fire and TV, at night, the room is dark but the darkness fades in a gradient from the light sources
A retro 16bit style video game. A man looks at his watch while tossing a hammer. He is standing inside a nice dorm building with plaster walls wooden floors and a roaring fireplace
June 6, 1960 Reykjavik. The bay of smoke, if you translate it literally— and why shouldn't you? That's what it looks like. Fog rolls in from the North Atlantic. Steam wafts in fits and starts throughout the city, escaping from heating systems. Not too far away the landscape itself smokes where the earth moves beneath your feet, two continental plates separating an inch per year, the island ever growing, shifting, erupting, melting, freezing, falling into the sea. And all is damp, damp, damp, even the gathering spots, communal hot springs and pools where old men boil themselves for hours on end. Reykr- that first part of the name — means smoke, though it's cognate with the English reek, and you'd be forgiven for thinking Reykjavik means stinking harbor. Half the steam smells of sulfur. The hot water smells of sulfur. You shower in sulfur and emerge a clean rotten egg. It has gagged me for all three days that I've been here, though I do find that the odor vanishes more with each hour. I am acclimating - changing. This does not trouble me; I have changed before and will change again; but in my line of work, one must be aware of such things. I have failed to journal in that time. Forgive me. I know that these day-to-day chronicles are the lifeblood of the Old Road, but there was little to write about other than my settling in. I arrived on a cargo ship bearing factory equipment; you know that. The day was long but strangely dim; this you could have guessed. I have eaten too much herring soup, obviously, being surrounded by herring. Piles of fresh herring go into the processing plant, barrels of salted herring come out, as do equally large piles of herring guts (this smell, too, becomes less pronounced by the day). After my shift, I drink caraway aquavit with the herring girls who work harder cleaning the fish than any fisherman does catching them.
"[Cosmic horror] stories provide a ripe foundation for exploring non-heteronormative identity because both involve recognizing that consensus reality is more fragile and constructed than it appears. Cosmic horror traditionally focuses on themes of transformation, hidden knowledge, and the inadequacy of established categories, all of which create natural space for examining gender and sexual fluidity without requiring explicit positioning. The genre frequently features characters discovering their true nature, often something that existed before their conscious awareness or something that has been heavily suppressed. Both resonate strongly with non-binary and trans experiences of self-discovery. To cap it off, the horror elements can effectively capture both the terror and liberation that can accompany stepping outside normative social structures."
Pixel art screen of a new england town. It is a bright sunny day. American colonial brick architecture with neon signs for prescriptions and psychics, and graffiti, mark it off as a modern location despite the construction being frozen in time
A puppet of a momkey awkwardly looking to the left and the right
Stick figure guy looking at a Lovecraft compilation saying “wow! Monster beyond comprehension” meanwhile an arrow going over his head shows the point he is missing: MASSACHUSSETS IS THE SCARIEST PLACE ON EARTH
A cute orange tabby cat wearing a green squid outfit. Keychain tab
Samwise the big gray cat hiding behind my monitor. The monitor is displaying Clair Obscur. He’s peeking out looking at the screen
a blue/gray/etc. colored text messaging interface in the style of an iphone. centered narrative lines are interspersed between the texts themselves. it scrolls to the bottom automatically each time a message pushes off the screen
a short video of your character walking around a top-down pixel art campus on a lovely spring day. in the middle you enter a room from the first-person POV and pick up an item and it enters your inventory
A charcoal/ink-on-sepia treatment of some Elder Things walking around an arctic wasteland, all tentacles and wings and starfish heads. On the left we see a picture of a shocked man pointing and saying "My god"
a 3d character with a blue and steel subway train instead of a head. although i've heard it might actually be equipped as a handheld item? anyway, the game engine didn't support moving vehicles, so the subway train was just a guy with a train for a head who ran really fast.
Game screenshot. A man holding a tablet computer showing a video game dashboard with minimap, quest status, etc. Tentacles are reaching around from behind it and grabbing his hand and shattering the glass. Some of the tentacles are subtly throbbing
A full-screen drawing. The background is a school fading into a symmetrically-designed dirty fantasy city. Laid over this are "starspawn: a miskatonic mystery" and all of the characters who are described in this thread's alt text https://bsky.app/profile/starspawngame.com/post/3lnqmtkihj222
My profile Your scholarship is in danger, your friends aren't human, and something ancient is awakening in the dreamlands. Just another finals week at Miskatonic University.
A drawing of a young black woman in a houndstooth skirt and coat. Purple flames wreathe her body Samira, the chaos between worlds Samira is intimidatingly charismatic, so it wasn't hard at all to accept that sleep supplement she offered at that party last night. You'll definitely have to talk to her about what was in it when you see her at film club tonight... if you can hold her attention, which sometimes seems to be everywhere at once.
Brody, the camouflaged colossus Brody is the captain of your club water polo team. You've always been jealous of his physique--or is it something more? He's crazy popular, but far beneath the gentle waves of his easygoing attitude lurks a dark charisma that frightens even him.
A drawing of a slight young man with pale blue skin and fish fins growing out of his ears and the top of his head Silas, the tide-claimed confidant Silas is a melancholic film major from the small fishing village of Ipsminster. A sweet young man, he's your best friend at school, but there's always been something gnawing at him. Now that you can see him for what he really is, you're starting to understand what it is... and starting to really wonder about Ipsminster.
Drawing of a chubby older professor with a hand in his coat pocket and his other index finger raised, about to make a point Professor Perdido, the fractured scholar Dr. Perdido teaches anthropology. Or, more accurately, his graduate students do; they've had to cover for him for a couple years, ever since his big personality change. He recently changed again--the rumor is he finally started taking his meds--but still he always seems to be in his own little world, focusing on independent research that you aren't sure the university even condones.
Ada, the reclusive empath Ada has been a librarian for as long as anyone can remember. She's all business--always willing to help, but never to linger; people say she seems lonely. You've never work closely with her--rare and ancient books haven't really come up in your geology curriculum--but that's about to change. Assuming you can look past the tentacles. Those are... new.
A drawing of a dapper old man with an eyepatch, gray slacks and vest, adjusting his red tie Sergeant Earnest (Retired), the weathered guardian You've seen Sgt. Earnest behind the counter at the occult store, working with Diana. He's unnaturally observant, and something about his demeanor suggests that his background is not entirely military in nature. Maybe it's the bulge in his vest that you've never noticed before. Why is everybody at that store so heavily armed, anyway?
Drawing of a cheerleader in an “MU” uniform with a long ceremonial dagger Diana, the zealous blade Diana is a cheerleader who you've chatted with in the gym. She also works in the hippie crystals-and-occult-stuff shop in Arkham, where you very occasionally buy an overpriced mineral specimen. Lately she's been good at catching your eye--could there be a spark there? Or does she want to talk to you for other reasons? And what's up with the ceremonial dagger? You've never noticed that before.
A drawing of a cat made of tentacles and mouths "Shog", the singular imp Whatever this thing is, it's definitely not a cat--it's seven feet tall! You met it in your dream. Even though it seemed confused by its very existence, it was confident enough to tell you the story of an ancient and terrible war, which it said could reignite if you don't figure out what happened in the geology lab... but can you trust it?
Drawing of an ethnically ambiguous young man in a polo shirt, looking befuddled and a little scared. Hunter, the dream-touched student You're a sophomore majoring in geology who really needs a good grade on his independent study. Unfortunately for you, it gets completely ruined by horrors from beyond the stars. But at least figuring out what happened to it is a good way to make some friends, even if they're not entirely human. Which friends will you make? How will their stories end? It's up to you.
Anime drawing of a pilot saying “I am a genius!” Followed immediately by them upset saying “oh no!”
A flowchart showing a bunch of interlocking puzzle nodes slowly combining down to one terminal node.
The same image with two of the nodes circled. It's not a lot
a large directed graph of things labeled ITEM 1, ITEM 2, etc., showing the connections between various things in the game.
a screenshot of steam, showing that i have successfully pushed a build of the game to steam
A weird cat/anglerfish mashup made of mouths and tentacles, drawn in a cartoon style, talking to you over a retro pixel top-down tiled background. He is saying "Is just this one last thing. Break lock, enter room..."
commit 9cb7712ab2f2f4243fc8c6e28dd63f0158e8de3b (HEAD -> dating-sim-levels) Author: [redacted] Date: Sat Dec 28 12:21:14 2024 -0700 discuss Three Billboards in more depth
Zoomed in version of the picture in the quoted post but now the arrows are green with a black outline
A screenshot from a dialogue menu in an adventure game. One options shows the "information" emoji ("(It's going to have to answer some questions first.)"), and two show the "right arrow" emoji ("I came all this way, didn't I?" and "(No way in hell I'm helping\nsomething that looks like that.)")
Background: a top-down pixel art map screen showing a sculpture of monsters on top of a patterned floor. Above that, in the center of the screen, is a large and cool drawing of a metal tentacle with red suckers. Text at the left reads: "A creepy tentacle from that big sculpture in the fortress. I feel sort of bad that I broke it off, but that might just be because I don't want to think about all those tentacles... and teeth... The metal is untarnished and sturdy. I've never seen it before. I hope it's not radioactive or something."
A top-down pixel art screen showing the statue described in the quoted post in the middle of a crumbling platform, inside a six-pointed start laid out in tile. The main character stands to one side, showing off his idle animation, tossing a pickax while checking his watch
A pixel art sculpture of an Elder Thing fighting off two shoggoths in the style of "laocoon and his sons". A ray of sun shines down from the ceiling
A split screen showing python code on the left, defining a first-person point-and-click scene that's rendered on the right. The scene shows a geology lab that's been trashed, in a spooky manner, green slime and occult symbols and whatnot.
A visual novel game screen showing your dorm room, dialogue, and two menu choices. “There's a pill in my pocket. Not loose; it's in a little plastic baggie. Like the kind you'd find, well, drugs in.” Choices: (At least, that's what TV and movies have taught me.) (I don't think I bought any tonight, though. And I've never seen this one before.)