Released: Never Gives Up Her Dead, an epic sci-fi parser game

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Today I’ve released my game Never Gives Up Her Dead! It can be played or downloaded here. An (optional) trailer game can be found in this thread: Trailer for Never Gives Up Her Dead (Now released!)

Here’s the blurb:

Time is running out after a meteor strikes your interstellar starship. While the crew is under full alert, only you seem to notice the strange red portals opening up throughout the ship.

Explore ten different worlds, learn the truth of your destiny, and confront the mysterious figure who has been haunting you from the start in this epic sci-fi adventure.

New art:

Old art:

This is a very large game, intended to take at least 10 hours to play and shooting for around 20 total gameplay hours.

This isn’t part of any competitions or jams. My impetus in making this was playing a lot of older giant games like Mulldoon Legacy or Curses, enjoying poking around in a really large world that you might never even finish, and wanting to make a game like that.

It is a huge game, with hundreds of hours going into its coding, 360K words of game code, and 34 beta testers, many of which contributed dozens of hours of help (if any of them want to say anything as co-collaborators, feel free!).

I made the design of the last 30% of this game into a long forum thread with many contributors: Disorganized Dev Diary for Never Gives Up Her Dead (Now released!)

and the final open beta had its own thread:

Final Open Beta for Never Gives Up Her Dead (now released!)

After many months and the help of dozens of people, my sci-fi Inform 7 game Never Gives Up Her Dead has finished alpha testing (version 63!) and has moved on to the final beta! My target date for release is December 22nd. I don’t mind going later, but I definitely won’t release earlier! Edit: It is now released! All of the individual areas have been more or less thoroughly tested. I still have one or two reports out on the loose that will be trickling in, but I want to move away from content…

There is no walkthrough for this game, but hints can be found or asked here:

Hint Thread for Never Gives Up Her Dead

Now that the public beta has started, I’m starting this hint thread rather than using walkthroughs or an in-game hint system or using PMs. The game puzzles are already written, so the same hints should work for the full game as for the beta. If this thread ends up not getting used, I’ll remove it!

This game was not designed for the general audience, or for newcomers to parser games. My main target audience is very small, maybe 20 people or less, consisting of people who love parser games, enjoy getting lost in large worlds, and have the time to play one of these games. If anyone else gets enjoyment out of this game, I am very happy to have that happen, too!

If you like giant games like this, you may also enjoy John Ziegler’s recent game:
How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title

or Jim Aikin’s game from last year:
The Only Possible Prom Dress

and you may want to support Wade Clarke’s upcoming game:
Andromeda Acolytes

Finally, I have been posting a lot recently about the Bisquixe interpreter’s special effects with sound and multimedia. This game uses none of those features; it’s purely text, designed to use few fancy features in a hope that it endures for a long time.

[manonamora (M.)]

Congrats on the release!!

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

Congrats Brian! Lovely to see this released, excited to see it in the wild!

[Luel]

Congratulations on the release!
Is it alright if I give the link to the game elsewhere?
Not everybody lingers on this forum.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Of course! I know there are a few people here and there who were waiting to here about the release of this, so I’m trying to make some visible posts just so they can get the news. Anywhere you can share it would be great!

[Luel]

Thanks!
I did not want to accidentally step on any toes, so I thought it prudent to ask first.

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

Congratulations!

[Sanadi]

I’m a parser newbie but somehow everything about this sorely tempts me to try anyway.

Also, congratulations .

[johnnywz00 (John Ziegler)]

Official congrats, Brian! I’ve loved being part of the development process! I truly hope when life settles down a bit–baby number four on the way!–and I’ve gotten Prince Q post-comp wrapped up–that I’ll be able to play through the new content you’ve added! Cheers for the giant games! May you find more than 20 people for your audience!

[JTN]

Woo, congrats!

I haven’t played further than the intro yet, and this is probably not a very original observation, but I appreciate how it involves rummaging through chests and boxes in your starship’s attic for a mislaid trifle.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

You know, no one pointed that out, and I didn’t even think of it myself. I was just trying to think of a scenario where you might be in a little bit of trouble, would have locked doors, closed containers, and darkness. I wonder if I subconsciously tapped into my favorite game…thanks for pointing it out!

[Scrooge200 (Lance Cirone)]

It’s out! Great game to spend time with over winter break.

[ReikoYukawa]

I see there’s a crochet hook in the cover image. Is crocheting important to the story? You’ve caught my interest, anyway…

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

Crochet doesn’t directly appear, though handcrafting paint and restoring a rocking chair does.

The crochet hook represents “weaving”, because the main character is an older woman called a Storyweaver, kind of like a bard.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

@AmandaB has made some beautiful new artwork for this game, which I have used as the main cover art on IFDB. I really enjoy it!

[gfaregan]

Nice font!

[SomeOne2 (Max Fog)]

Hnnnnrrrgghhh! Both of the covers are so good. Both change my feeling of the game when I’m playing, but… The old one matches the first half of the game, and this one matches the second half (the horror area, some of the area endings, and the finale).

[Doug_Egan]

I love the new cover art, and think it’s a good fit for the game.

Working on the beta test team for this project was a great joy for me (and I’m still only about 2/3 of the way through). This game will find its way to the next IF top fifty list.

[mathbrush (Brian Rushton)]

I just wanted to say thanks for everyone’s support! My internal hope when releasing this was that it might get 6 or 7 ratings in the first few months on IFDB (which is the only place it is currently available). I was glad to see it get up to 7 ratings today (after just one week!), so it has reached my internal criteria for success, and anything that comes after is just extra.

There is one bug I have identified (not game breaking) and the credits need some updating, so I will release another version, but I will wait until at least one month has passed, and give warning ahead of time, in case anyone is using the online play version.

Thanks to everyone who’s played (and of course thanks to all testers!)

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

This is amazing. Beautiful work, @AmandaB!