Upon A Darkening Flood
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
A horror tale of the Revolution on culture, heritage,
and the anxieties elicited by a strange library.
They say that after the Revolution, some great aristocrats went awry,
and took part in depraved, occult rituals.
They don't understand why Lord D was among them.
Wasn't he an ardent defender of the Revolution?
There's talk of terrible events occurring in his personal library.
They say he didn't like it, never went anywhere near it.
They say he couldn't master it.
This is a Lovecraftian horror tale set around a fictional revolutionary time.
The story is around 12 000 words long.
It's partly a visual novel, partly Twine-like interactive fiction. Though there are visuals and sounds, there are no sprites, and the emphasis is on the text.
This is probably not a very pleasant, well-written or constructed piece of fiction.
The original idea dates from quite a while back, and it's been weird to commit to it after all this time. Hope it can still be enjoyed in some way!
NaNoRenO notice: this is an IntRenAiMo entry
This story was submitted for NaNoRenO 2017, but it isn't a regular entry: it hasn't been fully made within March 2017. I have reused an old unfinished short story which was already ~6000 words long.
Since participants were encouraged to submit works merely “finished” during March under the IntRenAiMo tag, I thought it'd finally be the occasion to try to turn this half-finished story into interactive fiction.
Release History
May 4th, 2017: in the Post-NaNoRenO build, fixed typos, fixed the text position bugs during typographic effects, added a few words and precisions in the ending notes and credits menu. This is the final and definitive version (v1.3)
April 13th, 2017: Made a few minor tweaks in the Post-NaNoRenO build (v1.2)
April 12th, 2017: Uploaded an improved Post-NaNoRenO build (v1.1), with proper credits, ending notes, better editing, GUI, and the last scene rewritten!
April 4th, 2017: Created the page, uploaded a rough NaNoRenO build (v0.99)
Credits
I'm no artist or musician, so creating this story wouldn't have been possible without the work of talented composers, photographers and sound enthusiasts who made their work freely available under Creative Commons licenses.
Please refer to the Credits menu inside the game for detailed attribution resource by resource, with links and additional commentary!
In the meantime, please let me shortly thank…
…For the background pictures:
Marie D. Martel, shop boy, Miles Wolstenholme, Jack French, Barry Marsh, Nicolas Vigier, the Library of Congress, Steve Collis, Eden, Janine and Jim, Michael Costa, Thomas Quine, fritz, Thomas Bembridge, Paul Friel, Karen Roe, Dun.can, the UTC library, Henry Hemming, jeanmarie, Jennifer Boyer, Tony Webster, Barta IV, Mihai Bojin, Andrew, isamiga76, Daniel Jolivet, Allie Caulfield, Janet Farthing, Andreas Øverland, Arek Olek and Justin Henry.
…For the music:
Alexandr Zhelanov, Adragante, Ove Melaa and Eliot Corley (from ChaosHarmony).
…For the sound effects:
loopbasedmusic, pakasit21, Koops, Fairhaven Collection, 13FPanska_Marval_Lukas, dobroide, 7by7, LaCezio, adejabor, Andune, foxen10, Max_Headroom, swiftoid, ripper351, soundmary, AntumDeluge, silencyo, and xtrgamr.
…For the font:
Pablo Ugerman for the Rosarivo font.
This visual novel is open source
All my releases are open source, and this one is no exception.
The script files used by Ren'Py (the visual novel engine) are available in clear inside the game folder; they're not hidden at all.
This is deliberate: you're free to, and encouraged to poke around the script to see how this game was designed!
Other visual novels I've written
If you're in the mood for an even shorter story (~10-15min max), with a mysterious atmosphere and evocative prose, playable directly in your browser:
If you'd rather read a much longer story (~4 to 5 hours), with more mystery, an epistolary format, and a 19th-century-inspired setting:
Download
Install instructions
Download the improved Post-NaNoRenO build for your platform, and launch the executable. That's it!
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Thank you so so much for taking the time to read this VN (and for reading my two other released VNs on top!! I’ll be replying to your other comments next!).
It always warms my heart to hear of people who read & enjoyed it so long after this release (well, 2017 is not that far from 2024 but it seems like an eternity in Internet years ahah).
It was really interesting to read through all of your thoughts (and criticisms), thank you so much!
It’s especially weird (in a good way) to read someone’s impressions & understanding of the entire story through a summary. I won’t confirm, comment or correct on anything too specific, but it really is fun to hear how you perceived the story in full on your end!
(I guess I’ll just say that on top of the theme of social class, race is the other underlying background of Lord D. that explains his unease. But the references are obtuse.)
You’re entirely right about this!! At the time of writing this VN, I used to feel like no one would really be interested in NVL-style novels, that take after sound novel presentation & history as you mention (Otogirisou, Kamaitachi no Yoru, etc and their more modern successors with varying degrees of faithfulness like Higurashi, Umineko, OG Tsukihime, 428 Shibuya Scramble, Tsukihime Remake).
But I definitely feel more confident about it nowadays (and I feel like more people are interesting in reading or writing VNs in this style ; like Misericorde, or some Domino Club VNs). I’m glad it was also effective for you too!
Yes, you’re right! I struggle to think of a story by Lovecraft that isn’t initially set in the Northeastern United States. Even in stories which explore ancestral European heritage, the protagonist is always American, and returns to Europe on a journey (eg The Rats in the Walls).
But yeah, as you said, otherwise, Lovecraft suited what I wanted to do here.
Thank you again so much for taking the time to read & comment!
Thank you for making this!
I loved the typewriter sound effect at the start, it was really fun to click through the lines with it playing. The main character was so complex and messy and relatable, and there were points in the story I was scared to look at the screen when the character was about to enter the library. I played this at night with the light out and only a lit candle beside my computer, so it made for a really atmospheric evening.
It was also so cool to read your thoughts and inspiration in the bonus section, so many times you read fiction without commentary and are just left puzzled or groping in the dark when you sit down and try to think of a deeper analysis of its themes.
Ahh, thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the horror and audio atmosphere of this story, and that it was effective! Reading through it with only a candle lit in the room sounds so perfect, I should try that myself…
I’m so glad you enjoyed the post-game commentary too! I picked the habit from Ryukishi07’s Higurashi When They Cry (though they appear only after the later chapters I think), but also from ebi-hime, who’s been including author’s notes in I think all of her many releases (which you can find on itch.io), if you’re ever looking for more stories with that!
Really, really enjoyed this. Great job!
Aaaaah, thanks a bunch, it means a lot!