The Lost Hound is the product of several years of on-and-off tinkering, learning, slacking off and finally, to my own astonishment, completing things. This game has been in development since… frankly, it’s hard to tell. At some point throughout 2011, my trial-and-error tinkering with TADS3 mutated into an actual game taking shape, and here we are much, much later. Before you get TOO excited, this has not been in steady development since then, so it’s not QUITE the result of three years’ development. But it is something, at the very least. What, exactly, I leave it to you to decide.
In The Lost Hound, you take control of a young man lost in a strange, fragmented version of a sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting and must wander around trying find out what is happening and how he – and everybody else – got there. A simple yet hopefully not plodding RPG system complete with random encounters provides hazards while wandering unsafe areas, though you will find safe heavens and other characters who may or may not shed some light on what is going on. Conversations are handled through text menus, opening new options as your character gains new insights on which to question others, so it may sometimes pay to go back and chat with someone after moving a bit further with the story.
Originally, the game was planned as a semi-plotless wander-around-and-fuck RPG-ish hackjob. However, my tendencies for overthinking, nitpicking and demanding explanations and rationalizations for everything ended up winning out, and what I ended up with was an almost violently text-heavy, semi-plot driven mostly-linear RPG-ish hackjob. Rather than a sex romp, it is more of an adventure story with significant amounts of boning included, though there is quite a lot of content that does not include or lead to rubbing genitals, at least not directly. It is, in some ways, inspired by the first AIF game I ever played: “The Quest”, a 2001 ADRIFT title by Chlestron, though I believe my game is drastically more polished and expansive.
I already have concepts and loose ideas for other games or sequels in the same setting, but that is a topic best left for later. For the time being, I’m finally ready to consider the game to be in Alpha state, hoping to start with Beta Testing soon enough, and then release the bloody thing once and for all.
In lieu of a demo, I've drafted up three short snippets taking place before the start of the game, which I will be publishing at intervals. None of them are erotic or from the perspective of the main character, but I feel they at least help a bit with the setup and give an idea of what my writing style is like, seeing as you’ll have to deal with so bloody much of it during the game proper.