Court of Fools
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
A character-driven death game visual novel focusing on a fantasy genre, exploring the world it's set in and the cast of characters found to be at the center of it all.
... and they all happen to be jesters.
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Alpha demo out now!!
Features an interesting fantasy world, LGBTAQ+ cast, and over 80 hand-drawn CGs+backgrounds and almost 200 hand-drawn sprites.
Expected playtime is roughly 2-2.5 hours.
This alpha demo focuses on establishing characters and aspects of the world, and the ‘story’ of it doesn’t begin until the latter half. There are three major paths to choose from in said half, but all loop around to the same ending.
Content warning for swearing, general spooky/tense atmosphere and ambience in the second half, as well as death/blood at the end (not sudden, it’ll be clear when you’re getting near it).
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Downloads feature Win and Mac builds for the game, as well as bonus character bio cards to learn more about the cast. The bio card folder also comes with a text file containing character name pronunciation, if you care about that sort of thing.
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You may record playthroughs of this or stream it if you’d like! All I ask is you link back to this page wherever you post it and let me know in the comments :)
If you enjoyed this demo, please let me know, and be sure to spread the word about it! This is my first project like this, and I definitely would like to take it further and improve things.
The game’s other social medias:
http://court-of-fools.tumblr.com
http://twitter.com/court_of_fools
Download
Install instructions
Simply download the zip file for your respective OS, extract, and launch the game once it's all done!
Development log
- IMPORTANT UPDATE!!Nov 30, 2022
- Monthly Update - A Little Late, I Know...Sep 08, 2022
- Monthly Update - Route Reveal + MoreJul 30, 2022
- Mini Update - Poll 2!Jul 26, 2022
- Mini Update! - PollJul 23, 2022
- Monthly Update - Writing Is A ThingJun 26, 2022
- Monthly Update - Writing and Scrambling and Design, oh my!May 28, 2022
- Monthly Update - Dev Team, Discord Server, and More!!Apr 26, 2022
Comments
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This is a very cool and interesting game! I like all the characters and their designs and I'm so curious about their world! I love the mystery of not knowing the full story of the characters, the kingdoms, and the gods! Can't wait to learn more!
I really like this demo, it grabbed my attention just right!
I quite like the premise and the characters are good! only the introduction round hit neuteral on some points but I think that's just on me because I wouldn't ask some questions, no worries
the world building is very interesting! I like your take on these themes we've heard so much before but finally it interesting by the way you handled them, changed some rules, added your own flair, it's new and works better even
the different spiecies are also cleverly designed and the immortal vs mortal spieces work good because of the way the gods work
the designs are creative and good! props to you and the others!
very glad I found this vn though Memorial Playground! these will be two games wich worlds and characters will be on my mind for a while
Apologies for the direct question worded poorly, but in terms of gameplay, what is expected to be meaningful?
(is the game a kinetic novel or a branching narrative? are interactions going to be measured? is there going to be failure status/events? etc.)
Anyway, i find impressive the amount of characterization that has been done with such a quite large cast and that each character feels unique enough .
(though, that should have been expected from a good story driven narative as this one seems to be.)
Also, what's the point of choosing who to talk with if the game will anyway think you did all of the possible interactions?
Some bits about what you have asked were touched on in some of the devlogs, though admittedly not in great detail.
Right now, the primary plan is branching narrative, with some things shifting based on choices and interactions with others, but likely not to the extent that there are 500 million different paths you can take.
As for your second question, it's important to remember that this is still the alpha 1.0 demo, that I made mostly by myself. I mainly did it with my storytelling and characterization feet forward, as I consider those my strongest skills, so I didn't quite cover all that Ren'Py can do with it, especially with a self-imposed due date.
However, it's definitely going to be kept in mind for the next update, which will start to bring more of that into light. Plans are being made for choices to have some effect, and attempt to make use of more of Ren'Py's tools to keep things from getting too stale.
I just didn't get much chance to showcase stuff like that because I was rushing a bit, and also there weren't any real places to put things like that where they'd be majorly significant/noticeable.
Some slip-ups like certain things being known before you speak to certain jesters will also probably be gone back over and fixed, that was more an error in writing on my part, since again, it was all mainly on one person at the time ^^;;
Thank you for the information given, as i like games with somewhat significative variations, i will look forward to the next developments of this game.
(i also belive that, while it's good that an author can see the flaws in it's creation, criticism of content is made to the content itself and it should be directed to the content regardless of time or personel number.)
(though, being fair, it may be easy to feel aggravated if your creation is being criticized unfairly without respect for the circumstances of it's creation, perhaps i should have made the comment with a greater passive tone to express in less of a judgemental(?) tone.)
You seem to misunderstand my response--I wasn't explaining those details in a defense, I was simply elaborating why they're not at a certain level in the game as it is now. You asked some genuinely good questions that definitely reminded me of things I'd like to keep in mind for the next update, it's just I didn't want to simply say "oh yes, I have things planned for this aspect, don't worry!" and leave it at that.
Though I will admit, looking at a work, especially an early and in-progress work, and providing critique without aspects like time and personnel in consideration, it can come off a little... insensitive? That's not the exact word I'd use, but it gives the same general vibe. Lots of early and in-progress games can only go so far when only one person is actively working on them, and to hold them to standards of games with actual teams backing them can be a bit unfair.
I'm proud of what I was able to put out for the alpha demo, but I am very much aware if I had allowed myself more time to provide extra polish, it could be better. Even right after I posted it, thoughts popped into my head of "oh, but I could have done this" or "i had the time, why didn't i add XYZ??"
But this is also my first ever game, so that's another aspect to be taken into account in development critique! I completely agree that once something is publicly posted, it shouldn't be immune to critique and feedback just because of the small team and it's my first thing, but there's definitely nuance and context to be had when critiquing in general. I don't think any of your comments were out of line, though, let me restate. I'd definitely prefer you over somebody screaming that it's terrible and insisting I do better without the context of the game's creation in mind.
That being said, however, I do have a team now, so with any luck, production will go much smoother and we'll be able to provide a stronger proof of concept in the next update!