The Contract Bound (Jam-Version)
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Greetings and Well-met!
THE CONTRACT BOUND -- is a linear, fully voiced kinetic-NVL that's a bit audio-book + a bit puppet show + a bit D&D-inspired tomfoolery!
Our story begins, as all of these seem to do, with a group of a-holes in a tavern, getting drunk...
Out of money and out of time, our party is in search of their next contract to fill their pockets and assuage their growing list of out-of-patience employers. It's all fun and games (and bar fights) until the group crosses paths with the Lazulai, another peeved and dangerous group, who are in search of the same--potentially mythical--artifact.
As they set out to find answers, and clues, the only thing more deadly than their adversaries, may just be their own secrets.
36,000 words (4-6.5hrs of game play) ~ Fully-Voiced ~ 6+ song OST ~ Custom SFX ~ At least 1 terrible D&D joke
THE A-HOLES:
River ~ Half-Elf Pugilist || Nezan ~ Half-Fey Assassin || Qen ~ Human Barbarian
Xiro ~ Fey Shapeshifter-Druid || I.O. ~ Human Researcher
CONTENT WARNING & RATING
Profanity & Strong Language, Descriptions of Fantasy Violence, Blood, and Gore, Alcohol, Suggestive Themes, Dramatic Sequences
(We self-rate the game as between T and M -- for it's strong use of language)
TRIGGER WARNING
Angry voices, suggestive themes, violence, animal sounds, animal attacks, depictions of anxiety, potentially upsetting imagery
RECOMMENDATIONS
Turn music to about 50%,
Put on auto-play as it should play like a long movie. It's there for your convenience, but feel free to move at your own pace!
MAIN DEV SQUAD DIRECTOR: Medusa WRITING: Medusa EDITORS: Ariejul (Developmental Editor) ART: Patrick Alcala (Concept Artist), Andi (Concept Artist, Secondary Sprite Artist), Nyx (Sprite Artist), Maroondrops (GUI Artist, Logo Artist), Ariejul (Additional Assets) AUDIO & MUSIC: Kija of Faefield Productions (Audio/Sound, Composer), Marcus (Audio/Sound, SFX), Orpheo Fenn (Composer), Bella (Audio/Music Additional Singer) PROGRAMMING: Medusa (Main Programmer) VA (MAIN CAST): Mike Young (River), Medusa (I.O.), Ariejul (Nezan), Kija of Faefield Productions (Qen), Bay Doxey (Xiro) AUXILIARY DEV SQUAD QA & Beta Readers: Myosotis, Demi Elizabeth, Jay Evans, Neeka, Ariejul, smoke Special Thanks to Myosotis for their expert knowledge, Edsan for answering questions and sharing a bit of magic, & to our sanity keepers - Ariejul, Jay Evans, & Neeka. VA - Additional Voices Aj/Arsenal, Bella, Daniel Doan, Khalil Jarrett, Mouse Chung, Noah Belachew, Niko, Ray O'Hare, Rita Amparita, Ryan Gaiser, Ryan Hoyle, Stefon Fortune, Wyatt West |
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Development log
- The Contract Bound 1.01 UPDATENov 09, 2022
Comments
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Always love D&D-esque games, and I enjoyed this one!
I started it, but after the tavern scene I couldn't. All the backgrounds are AI generated images from MidJourney, or a similar AI generator; idk if the authors knew about how they trained AI or not, but it's off artwork without consent of the living artists' decades of work. I wouldn't have gotten this if I knew ahead of time. Has potential otherwise..
Playing this game, it turned into a bit of a struggle to pause it and attend to real life obligations; I caught myself thinking, "Just one more chapter... Just one more", over and over, completely sucked in the story and the characters. All the while feeling weirdly nostalgic, but I suppose it's mainly from the puppet show aesthetics adding to that, giving me an intriguing plot in a way I haven't really experienced since I was a child (pretty sure my parents wouldn't approve of me playing this as a child, though). Jokes aside, real life obligations are thankfully not being ignored (even if it's a struggle) and I've only reached Chapter 8 so far, but I thought I would say that the ride so far has been nothing but a joy! The art, the writing, the humour and the voice-acting are all top-notch and I can't wait to see where all this goes!
(will prob edit this afterwards when I actually finish the game)
Oh wow! That's so wonderful to hear. I immediately ran to the dev server and read this to them.
We're so glad you're enjoying it, and YES! please tell us after you finish.
Thank you for playing.
I finished it just now and I feel rather speechless, tbh. I'm in complete awe of all the work you guys have spent on this. The sound I made reading "To be continued..." was, frankly, awfully embarrassing, because damn did I get invested and now I'm practically bouncing in my chair of impatience. Goodness gracious, what a game! Damn...
I can still stand by what I said halfway through and say this was a joy from start to finish! Great work, all of you! I'm so eager for the continuation! Be proud of yourselves ♥
A minor note, though, which I believe might have been more with the version I downloaded, but the rain sound effect never disappeared, but stayed from chapter ten to the very end of the credits I believe? But again, that could definitely have more to do with which version I downloaded.
Aw! Thanks!
Yeah, I noticed that, too. There were a couple glitches that I'm taking note of, so it's good to know if it happened to other people. The quick work around is just to save where you are, start the game over and SKIP to that part.
I'm working on a solution for the next update, along with whatever needs to get fixed. (as it's my first time programming something in renpy on my own, I'm kind of glad that's all that it was.)
Thank you again for playing! We're so glad to hear you enjoyed it, and yes, we have more planned. There's a whole 40+k already written and still going just waiting!
IT WAS AN HONOR WORKING WITH U ALL CANT WAIT TO PLAY IT 🥰🫵😳
Your art is lovely. It was lovely and a treasure to have you along. <3
you have NO IDEA how hype i am to play this !!!
Let's GO!!!