Anatolia, 1280 BCE: the last swan song of the Hittite Empire.
The Great King abandons the capital in the face of barbarian raids; moving south, he declares that his new city will be even greater than the last, building it into a place of splendor. Paris of Troy swears fealty in exchange for military support as Greek ships converge on his city. Pharaoh Ramesses II saber-rattles down in Egypt, eyeing his former territories in Canaan that have fallen under Hittite control. The King’s younger brother forces the barbarians back and secures the former capital, and his soldiers start to consider if he might make a better heir than his young and inexperienced nephew. Artisans across Anatolia forge royal weapons out of rare, precious iron, and wonder if one day it will be possible to extract it directly from the rock. The technology seems only a generation away…if only the Empire will last long enough to see it.
And in the small farming village of Nahhanta, one very clever dog tries its best to save its human from a life-threatening curse.
This is a piece of historical fantasy set in the late Bronze Age. Can the hunter find his runaway puppy? Can the village’s taxes get paid before Imperial soldiers get involved? Can the copper merchant get his comeuppance for lying about the quality of his goods? And when the village wise-woman is laid low by sorcery, can her familiar find a way to save her? It will take luck, ingenuity, and more than a bit of magic…but it just might work.
The time has come! One of my IFComp WIPs is finally in a solid enough place to start testing—it’s about halfway implemented, and I’d like to get feedback on the writing, gameplay, and overall mechanics before I go much farther. It’s a parser-choice hybrid game written in Dialog, and I estimate the first half should take about 45 minutes to play through.
(I swear, one of these days I’ll write one of these parser-choice hybrids where you play as a human instead of some other sort of creature. But that day is not today.)
If you’re interested in testing it, please post here or send me a DM, and I’ll add you to a private thread where I’ll share the game files!