Abscission - updated April 2023. +16 (Gore). Demo available on Steam!

[Yanek_Crispbread]

Hello all,

I am a first time developer (who carefully reads the tutorials and FAQs!) making a horror themed adventure (with Lovecraftian vibes) called Abscission. The game is available to wishlist on Steam now, and features an updated playable Demo.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2392160/Abscission/



A game trailer can be found here - https://youtu.be/Wi75C8xo60w

The story centers around Will Stanhope, a detective in the fictional town of Ashfield in 1991. What begins as a seemingly routine (though savage) murder, begins to descend into a larger web of curious infections, body horror and tragedy. The player must progress through the story by talking to characters, combining clues, looking for evidence, solving puzzles, whilst fighting the effects of a dwindling sanity. The game features branching storylines and subplots, which are influenced by Stanhope's actions and temperament. Characters will react differently to Stanhope depending on how he treats them.

April 2023 Update - The game's alpha build is now complete and is in the process of having some extra details and fine tuning added. Abscission has a release date of Q4 2023, but this could be earlier depending on progress.







Progress so far:

The story is 100% plotted. The story locations are also 100% completed.
Currently in process is adding additional flavour text, details and lore to the world to flesh it out, along with bug fixing and clearing up of code.





















I welcome all feedback as I want to make the best game I can, and it's the only way to improve. Thank you to the people who have commented, it's much appreciated

Thanks, Jake

[Kastchey]

Love the look of this, awesome to have another horror genre creator on board.
Best of luck with the development!

[BarbWire]

Hi Yanek_Crispbread

Earlier on this afternoon I was raving about an up and coming game called
The Adventures of Black Hawk.

I now find myself going into raptures again over Abscission.

I will be looking forward to the release of another old school game

Who needs technical wizardry etc. when far more interesting and fulfilling
games, such as yours, can be produced.

Horror rules OK! 

[FireFlower]

This looks cool. So it is a horror detective game where you have to look for clues and solve a mystery?

[SarahLiz]

This is looking really, really nice!  I can't wait to play it!

[Darío]

Very good looking art!

[SarahLiz]

Looking good!!

[Yanek_Crispbread]

August 2020 update added. 

[Click'd]

The missing facial features make your detective character look like a slightly higher resolution version of Francis McQueen from The Darkside Detective. I guess you both tapped into that stereotypical getup.

[Yanek_Crispbread]

I hadn't actually played Darkside Detective when I was designing Stanhope (though I have now). I'm a big fan of The Last Door and the ability of the games to convey horror through environment and atmosphere rather than the expressions of the characters, so that's what I'm hoping to get a smidge of in my game

[Laura Hunt]

Actually the protagonist reminded me a lot more of Rainswept than Darkside Detective. But I really like the art style! The crayon-like aesthetic has a very strong German Expressionist vibe, especially in the last two screenshots (we do have a very similar figure in our game to the one hanging by those red threads, hahah). Really looking forward to seeing where this is going!

(And The Last Door is so good! Happy to meet another fan )

[Click'd]

Sure, I played both TLD games. And when I saw DD first it reminded me of them, too. But the combination of detective and missing face, in addition to DD being more recent, is why I made the mental connection.

[The creature]

Looking gorgeous. Love the character portraits!

[ukz530]

I love your graphic style.

looks cool! 

[shaun9991]

This looks really great, I love the concept and art style. Best of luck with development

[Yanek_Crispbread]

Demo now available! - https://beyondbooleans.itch.io/abscission

[TheFrighter]

Looks great since now, Yanek_Crispbread!
Hope you'll complete it soon!
_

[Tampere]

I feel I am stuck â€" or a bug maybe? â€" after

Spoiler

discovering a body in Mark's place

[close]

I do not know what to do. I would like to

Spoiler

wait for tomorrow to visit the bookstore

[close]

and tried to

Spoiler

sleep in my comfy chair

[close]

but nothing works.

edit: so you have to

Spoiler

use receipt on diamond hint and viceversa does not work (hint on receipt!)

[close]

Very enjoyable experience, UX (gui, bugs) needs some love, superb characters, scary enough: I will eagerly wait for the final version!

[selmiak]

longplayed it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUVvlhfWDEc

[heltenjon]

Just played the demo, and this is really good horror stuff.  Very nice art style that fits the subject matter right on! There are some bugs in the demo, but the quality of the story, the writing and the character lore is high.

I'm wondering about the conversation system, though. Do you have a plan to avoid dead ends?  I saved my game and tried all four moods just to see what would happen at every conversation, but will it be possible to finish the game (or reach an ending) if you make the wrong calls in the conversations? It's a very interesting design, but probably also quite hard to do.